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The Site, currently owned by BNSF, has been used for railroad operations since at least the 1920s. Former yard operations include service tracks, a diesel shop building encompassing an engine pit, a freight warehouse and associated driveway, a yard office building, pump house, sand house, and fuel storage including aboveground storage tanks (ASTs) and underground storage tanks (USTs). Grain elevators are located adjacent to the west side of the Site. Petroleum hydrocarbons have been used and stored at the Facility, including a waste oil collection system that discharged to a drainage ditch on the east side.

Several releases have historically been reported at or near the Facility. In 1987, BNSF acknowledged diesel fuel seepage into the lower level of a grain elevator, located at 3101 N Washington St., through joints and cracks in the walls. BNSF installed a 32-inch culvert pipe between the grain elevator and the Facility, which reportedly substantially decreased the amount of diesel fuel entering the basement of the grain elevator. In 1993, a KDHE investigation identified two petroleum hydrocarbon sources at the Facility: 1) discharges to a storm water drainage ditch from an oil-water separator associated with a fuel loading area and 2) seepage into a drainage ditch under a bridge at the main Facility entrance. In 2013, BNSF filed a spill report with KDHE which described product seepage into the grain elevator. In June 2015, an Environmental Agreement was signed between KDHE and BNSF to conduct a Comprehensive Investigation (CI) and Corrective Action Study (CAS). A revised CI Work Plan dated November 11, 2015, was approved by KDHE and implementation began Feb. 9, 2016. The CI Report has been submitted, and additional investigation to delineate the area of petroleum contamination has been completed. The Supplemental Investigation Report was approved in Sept. 2018. A groundwater monitoring plan (two years of monitoring) and an evaluation of corrective actions are in progress.

Additional investigation for Natural Source Zone Depletion is in progress and the CAS Work Plan has been approved. After review of the results, a CAS Report will be submitted during the first quarter of 2024.