Kansas.com: Business
The lawsuit filed by the city of Neodesha against oil giant BP Corp. North America Inc. came down during closing arguments to a dispute on whether the Kansas Department of Health and Environment was incompetent in its oversight of the cleanup of pollution left behind by a former oil refinery in Neodesha. "The city really takes the position they don't really care what KDHE wants. This is their city and this is what they want done," Steven Lamb, attorney for the defendants, told jurors Wednesday. Neodesha attorney John Edgar told jurors on Tuesday that BP used the Department of Health and Environment as a "bodyguard" to get state approval for its plans and criticized an agency employee for not knowing how to do her job and not representing the people of Neodesha. But Lamb countered on Wednesday that the state agency has been reviewing the company's work and did not have a problem with the progress on their cleanup. "This isn't fraud," Lamb said. "KDHE knew exactly what we were doing."