A default judgment is expected in a suit filed by a firm seeking to confirm ownership of two parcels comprising the former Barrett Refining site, proposed for reactivation by 2009.

Vicksburg Petroleum Products LLC has received air and surface emissions permits to process 10,000 gallons of crude oil daily at the Warrenton Road plant.

Developers tried to confirm clear title in 2005 to the 30 acre-site, said Vicksburg attorney Bill Bost Jr., representing the plaintiffs.

VPP’s title insurance company had questions about the service of title, Bost said, prompting VPP to file a second court action as a precaution to resolve the issue.

Howell Refining Inc., a now-defunct Chicago-based company, is listed as a defendant in the case filed April 7 in Warren County Chancery Court. By statute, also listed as defendants are Warren County, District Attorney Ricky Smith and Attorney General Jim Hood.

Chancery Judge Vicki Roach Barnes will issue the ruling. Court records do not specify a hearing date.

Howell Refining was one of multiple owners occupying the site between Barrett’s closing and VPP’s acquisition of it in June 2007. According to the current complaint, a $5,000 final down payment check — part of Barrett’s 1999 bankruptcy and 2001 conveyance of the property to Howell — was returned for insufficient funds. As a result, VPP argues, Howell never paid any consideration for its deed.

Vicksburg developer Paul Campbell and Kenneth E. Spencer, an Oklahoma City-based real estate agent, head up the firm and face a March 2009 deadline to begin construction under its current permits from the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality.

Originally developed in 1979, the site has been vacant since 1996 when its most recent operator closed it and went bankrupt. In 1999, two executives with a contract operator, Houston-based M&S Petroleum, were sentenced to jail time and probation involving violations of the federal Clean Water Act and making false statements concerning the release of the carcinogen benzene into the air and into the Mississippi River and Hatcher Bayou.

Barrett Refining was fined $25,000, ordered to pay for the cleanup of the refinery site and placed on five years’ supervised probation. Principal owner John R. Barrett Jr., an Oklahoman and onetime Rainbow Casino developer, did not face charges. Barrett, an investor in Riverwalk Casino under construction a few miles away, is not listed as part of the company proposing to restart the refinery.

In 2005, the City of Vicksburg removed three buildings and 11 tanks on the site after sludge and asbestos were detected.

According to plans submitted to the state, runoff of oil and grease into undeveloped areas will be in accordance with state-permitted tank farms. Wastewater from the treatment process would be discharged into the Mississippi River and nearby bayous. Federally designated pollutants present in the wastewater remaining would also be within federal guidelines.