KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A lawsuit filed in Henry County last week alleges that Evergy and other companies are responsible for toxic chemicals and carcinogens around their now defunct power plant near Montrose, Missouri.

The plaintiff, Bill Steward, appeared in Henry County Commissioners Court on Tuesday.

“I’ve abandoned my house. I don’t live there,” he told the commissioners. “It’s in my home, it’s in my cars, it’s in my water. It’s in the wells, and it needs to be stopped today. People are sick. My kids are sick. People that go out there and test and go around that lake get sick.”

What’s at the heart of the suit is a byproduct of coal-fired power plants called fly ash. The EPA says the powder is a carcinogen but can be used to make ready-mix concrete and other construction materials.

The suit says the Montrose plant would put their fly ash into unlined and uncovered ponds until 2020, when it continues to allege that they excavated more than 75,000 cubic yards of fly ash from the ponds and left it on the ground and in landfills at the site.

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Court documents say that Evergy and the other defendants, “disturbed and failed to adequately manage fly ash at the Evergy Site, causing fly ash to migrate through air, soil and water to properties.”

“They don’t care about us,” Steward said.

“We’ve got Parkinson’s, we’ve got throat cancer, brain tumors we’ve got all these things going on and we’ve ignored it.”

County Commissioner Mark Larson agreed.

“This needs to be handled immediately,” he responded to Steward in Tuesday’s meeting.

“Because it’s not like it’s going to blow and go away or it’s going to disappear, it’s here.”

FOX4 obtained and confirmed testing results done around the Montrose plant in late 2024. The results from one sample of drinking water showed that the amount of Radium 226 and total radium exceeded the Missouri Department of Natural Resources default testing limit.

The environmental science and engineering firm also tested 15 soil samples from around the community and found that all of the samples exceeded the default testing limit for hexavalent chromium and lead, both toxic carcinogens. Some samples exceeded limits for arsenic, boron, cobalt and one exceeded the limit for selenium.

Evergy released a statement to FOX4 saying the following:

“We learned today of the discussions at the January 21st Henry County Commission meeting and the decision by the Davis R-12 School Board to close for the remainder of this week. The safety of the Henry County community, and all communities where Evergy operates, is our top priority. We are working to obtain and analyze the test results that were discussed at the meeting and we have reached out to the Commission and school district to begin a dialogue and better understand their concerns.

The Montrose site conducts all required groundwater testing and is in full compliance with all state and federal regulations. Additionally, the site has a dust control plan that includes twice-daily visual observations to confirm the absence of dust leaving the property and compliance with our dust mitigation actions. As recently as August 2024, MDNR inspected our site and confirmed it is in compliance.

Many of the chemicals discussed at the Henry County Commission are frequently found in materials commonly used in and around Missouri. For example, these materials can be found in gypsum which is frequently used in agriculture, as well as in cement and paint thinner. Additionally, many of these chemicals are naturally occurring in the soil and rocks.

We have contacted MDNR to ensure they are aware of the issue. We are committed to working with the Henry County Commissioners, school district and local community to understand the situation and will continue to make the safety of our communities our top priority.”

The chemical constitution of coal fly ash (CFA) is contingent upon the specifics of the coal combustion process. Broadly speaking, CFA can be delineated into two components: scaffolds and attachments. The scaffolds, constituting the solid core of CFA, predominantly comprise silicon (Si), aluminum (Al), iron (Fe), oxygen (O), and calcium (Ca). Conversely, attachments refer to the amalgamation of diverse inorganic and organic substances adhering to the cavities and interstices of the scaffold matrix through non-covalent interactions (Borm, 1997, Reddy et al., 2018). In certain environmental conditions, these attachments can undergo leaching. Notably, inorganic substances encompass non-metal elements like arsenic (As), selenium (Se) and Boron (B), along with heavy metal elements including cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), and lead (Pb), in addition to several radioactive elements (Bednar et al., 2013; Baranov et al., 2020). Organic substances encompass a spectrum of environmental pollutants such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and polychlorinated biphenyls. Understanding the leaching behavior of chemical elements in CFA is helpful to select appropriate coal for use in electric power plants, optimize the combustion process of coal, and assess the contribution of CFA to the pollution of the environment. Studying the biological tolerance and half-life of toxic elements in CFA is valuable for predicting the risk of ecological balance and human health caused by CFA. Several of these studies are listed in Table 1.

Table 1. The Potential Effect of CFA and its leachates on human various systems.

Toxic components from CFA Systems Target Organ Adverse effects Refer

Arsenic (As) Digestive system urinary system reproductive system Intestinal tract kidney liver As can cause Type 2 diabetes, obesity, infant infections, etc. (Trakoli et al., 2012)

Boron (B) Nervous system circulatory system Eyes, intestine immune organs, cardiovascular B can cause increased prenatal mortality, nervous and cardiovascular disease, eyes irritation, intestinal cell apoptosis, hypoimmunity. (Khaliq et al., 2018)

Chromium (Cr) Respiratory system, Lung, nasal, lymphocytes Cr (VI) acts as a carcinogen causing lung and nasal cancer and genotoxicity. (Huggins and Huffman, 2004)

Cadmium (Cd) Circulatory system Vascular, Myocardium Cd may cause atherosclerosis and disturbances in the metabolism of the heart muscle cells. (Lv et al., 2017)

Lead (Pb) Nervous system, circulatory system Vessel, ears, brain Pb can lead to learning disabilities, slow growth, impaired IQ, hearing impairment, high blood pressure, and other health disorders. (Canfield et al., 2003)

Mercury (Hg) Nervous system Eyes, Brain Hg can cause visual impairment, increase lipid peroxidation, and decrease calcium-ATPase activity in the brain. (Paula et al., 2018)

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) locomotor system Muscle PAHs-induced oxidative stress result in muscle atrophy and affect the proper functioning of the locomotor system. (Matzenbacher et al., 2017a)

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) Nervous system digestive system Liver, brain PCBs can contribute to oxidative stress and make adverse neurobehavioral effects in infants. (Xu et al., 2013)

Micron-sized particles Respiratory system Respiratory tract CFA increased the likelihood of respiratory diseases such as asthma in children. (Xie et al., 2021)

Coal combustion wastes

should not be able to avoid

environmental regulation just

because they are destined

for reuse in construction; the

distribution of these products

in homes, schools, and

roads throughout the nation

should not be allowed unless

adequate, independent

testing is done to ensure that

the increasing usage will not

result in increasing exposures

to building occupants or

construction workers.”

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Fly ash contains approximately one part per million of mercury. To

put this quantity in perspective, this exceeds, by a factor of 1000,

the maximum level of mercury in drinking water permitted by the

EPA, which is two parts per billion. It only takes 1/70th of a teaspoon

of mercury to contaminate a 20-acre body of water and make all fish

within it toxic to humans. This is about the amount of mercury in a

typical medical thermometer.28

January 26 at 8:24 PM

Sun 8:24 PM

You sent

In fly ash, the uranium is more concentrated in the finer sized

particles. During combustion of coal, uranium is concentrated

on ash surfaces as a condensate, This surface-bound uranium is

potentially more susceptible to leaching. The radioactive elements

from coal and fly ash may come in contact with the general

public when they are dispersed in air and water or are included in

commercial products that contain fly ash.