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Evergy officials, Henry County commissioners and Missouri state leaders hosted a town hall Monday night to address concerns about hazardous chemicals.
An independent test report stemming from a Henry County lawsuit states high levels of cancer-causing chemical hexavalent chromium, radium and lead were found in water and soil samples.
There are community suspicions that these chemicals may have come from Evergy's former coal plant site in Montrose.
Testing and trust were the two takeaways from Monday night's meeting. There is going to be a lot more testing at the Montrose facility for the cancer-causing chemicals, but there is not a lot of trust in Evergy who owns and regulates the land.
"Why should we trust you testing your own water?" one resident asked.
Henry County is demanding answers over Evergy's Montrose facility and the cancerous chemicals potentially getting into the water and land.
"Why spend all this money bringing it here rather than closer to the power plants that's generating it?" resident Scott Mosely asked.
It was standing room only as both the community and commissioners questioned how Evergy is storing and transporting fly ash, a by-product of combusted coal that can contain hexavalent chromium.
"Your company needs to figure it out," Commissioner Mark Larson told Evergy officials. "Because it's not going away."
Evergy's chief customer officer claims the fly ash is not mishandled, their routine testing samples are normal and any elevated hazardous chemicals could be coming from somewhere else.
"Pointing a finger at our facility might not solve the problem, particularly when [these] materials are already present in things like agricultural additives and can be found commonly in a lot of different things," Chuck Caisley said.
But Larson and many other Henry County community members are still skeptical.
"I'm going to take your response at face value, and I'm not buying it," Larson said.
The law firm involved in the Henry County couple's lawsuit against Evergy and the plaintiffs paid for the third-party test, prompting questions from Evergy and the Missouri Department of Natural Resources about its connection to Montrose.
"The big question is where did those chemicals come from?" Caisley said. "We want to be part of that solution, we want to work together with the community."
Easing some of the community's distrust, Henry County commissioners agreed to pay for a third-party test from joint funding.
Now, Henry County is waiting on test results from the Department of Natural Resources, Evergy and an independent third party.