Suit filed to clean up Cankton site

St. Landry Parish and the village of Cankton have filed suit to clean up alleged contamination at the former 80-acre Cankton Tank Farm/MAR Services oilfield waste treatment, storage and disposal facility near Cankton, according to a news release from Lafayette attorney Bill Goodell.
The news release stated the site continues to contaminate area groundwater, and is threatening to further impact St Landry Parish groundwater, area drinking water wells, and the Chicot Aquifer.
The St. Landry Parish Council passed a resolution at its Sept. 16 meeting to authorize Parish President to contract with attorney Bill Goodell and other environmental attorneys to file a lawsuit against Exxon Mobil, Chevron and other defendants to cleanup and decontaminate an underground water pool near Cankton.
The action also seeks to recover monetary damages for the parish.
The contamination issue has percolated through Cankton since the 1980s when residents complained about bitter-tasting water.
The source then was identified as the 80-acre Mar Services site, used to dispose of oil field waste. The site has been used by about 300 companies beginning in 1934.
A permit to use the site was revoked in 1992 and a struggle began to get it cleaned up.
Cleanup began in 1997 and all tanks were removed from the site in July 2000.
The two companies that held the original 75-year lease, Exxon Mobil and Unical, formed Margone in 1998 and had a lease running through 2009 to clean up the site.
The cleanup cost about $5.3 million, according to news reports.
Monitoring for contamination was to continue until 2009.
The news release on Monday stated, despite prior lawsuits, piecemeal testing, and decades of environmental regulatory agency “oversight”, no meaningful action has been ordered, much less taken, to require a comprehensive assessment of the groundwater contamination in violation of numerous state environmental protection laws.
“Groundwater testing on file at the LDNR (Louisiana Department of Natural Resources) and LDEQ (Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality) confirm the presence of a toxic stew of ‘Superfund’ hazardous substances in used and usable area groundwater; yet, available LDNR and LDEQ records reveal limited and inadequate groundwater testing. No significant or appropriate groundwater cleanup has ever been performed at the facilities despite prior hydrogeologic studies and governmental orders requiring it,” the news release stated.
The situation poses “... an illegal, imminent, and substantial endangerment to the health and safety of the citizens of the St Landry Parish and Village of Cankton,” the news release stated.
“A comprehensive, site-wide assessment of the former Cankton Tank Farm/MAR Services Facility is necessary to design and implement a meaningful cleanup of the Facility and adjacent areas to eliminate the threat it poses to the Chicot Aquifer, to prevent further groundwater contaminant migration and to protect the entire St Landry Parish and Village of Cankton communities and their groundwater,” the news release stated.