GREAT FALLS (AP) -- A Sunburst-area ranching family has filed a lawsuit against Chevron, Texaco and others, saying their land and groundwater has been polluted by petroleum products that leaked from storage tanks decades ago.

Simmes Ranch, Inc., John and Nancy Simmes and their grown children filed the lawsuit last week in District Court in Great Falls.

It follows a 2001 civil suit filed by 90 Sunburst residents and led by the Sunburst School District.

Last summer, the Montana Supreme Court affirmed a $16 million jury award for cleanup and other damages from a 19-acre plume of contaminants caused by a 1955 gas pipeline leak at the now-defunct Sunburst Works Refinery.

However, the Supreme Court overturned a $25 million punitive damage award, saying the jury should have considered negotiations over cleanup plans between Texaco at the state Department of Environmental Quality in determining those damages. The justices said the negotiations could help determine if the company acted with deliberate indifference.

The Simmeses were not part of the original lawsuit, but name the same defendants -- Chevron USA, Texaco Inc., and Pacific Hide & Fur Depot, the company that bought the property in 1961. Many of the buildings were demolished in 1967.

The family asks the companies pay for cleanup and loss of property value and use as well as punitive damages.

Chevron public affairs manager Marielle Boortz of San Ramone, Calif., said the company had not been served with the lawsuit and could not comment. However, she noted that the Simmes family purchased property on which some petroleum storage tanks stood.

''We're working cooperatively with the Montana Department of Environmental Quality and local officials to assess, monitor and clean up the site,'' Boortz said Thursday, noting that Chevron was just granted access this week to remove some soil from the Simmes property.