WICHITA, Kan. -- Residents of Furley, Kan., have filed a $15 million class action suit seeking permanent closure of a waste dump that leaked cancer-causing chemicals.
Wayne and Edna Miller, filing on behalf of the town's residents, filed suit Wednesday in U.S. District Court against site operator National Industrial Environmental Services, and the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.
The Millers own the land where officials earlier this month discovered chemical solvents welling from a spring just north of the waste dump.
The site was closed Monday by the state health department after cancer-causing chemicals were found in nearby groundwater.
Randy Rathbun, attorney for the residents, said he had already been working on the suit before the site was closed.
'It's just become more of a matter of immediacy now that they've found contaminants leaking at the site,' he said.
The suit asks $10 million in punitive damages and $5 million in actual damages, as well as a permanent injunction to close the site and remove all waste from the area.
The actual damages stem from property values dropping in the area, contamination of soil and water, foul odors that forced some residents to move, and 'great emotional and mental anguish in those that have remained.'
Trace amounts of vinyl chloride, methylene chloride and other chemicals stored at Furley were found in a spring near Prairie Creek, which flows into the Whitewater and Walnut rivers and eventually into the Arkansas River.
Officials on Sunday then discovered concentrations of the same chemicals in a small pocket of groundwater near the site and on Monday closed the NIES facility until the problem is corrected.
