› $700,000,000 settlement in pollution case
Beasley Allen attorneys Rhon Jones, Christopher Boutwell, and Alyce Robertson filed a lawsuit March 19 for Susan Taylor, a resident of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Taylor’s lawsuit alleges that her property has been contaminated by a fuel leak originating from an underground storage tank at the Speedmart Fuel Center. Chatham Oil, Inc. owns the Speedmart that sits next to Taylor’s property on University Avenue in Tuscaloosa.
In the past few weeks we have looked at how underground storage tanks, particularly older tanks belonging to gas stations, can and often do compromise the health of the surrounding environment and everything in it, including humans. The Environmental Protection Agency has logged more than 620,000 active storage tanks throughout the United States. Of those tanks, some 480,000 tanks have or have had “confirmed releases.” The problem is so extensive that the EPA established the Office of Underground Storage Tanks to confront it. Since its founding 25 years ago, the EPA’s UST office has removed 1.7 million substandard tanks and completed 377,019 cleanups. Thousands of tanks continue to leak.
With spills and leaks from storage tank systems that contain petroleum products continuing to pose significant health and environmental risks, the federal Department of the Environment proposed recently a new regulation to reduce the risk of contaminating soil and groundwater. The proposed Storage Tank Systems for Petroleum Products and Allied Petroleum Products Regulations would replace the current Federal Registration of Storage Tank Systems for Petroleum Products and Allied Petroleum Products on Federal Lands or Aboriginal Lands Regulations (SOR/97-10).
Leaking fuel and oil from underground storage tanks threatens drinking water wells, lakes, streams, and basements all over the state. Leaks can spread a little or a lot and they can contain a variety of chemicals. This map shows all sites listed with a leak by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources as of May 2008.
Leaking underground fuel tanks threaten to contaminate drinking water, lakes, streams and homes across Iowa as environmental officials change rules to speed up detection and cleanup.
There are about 6,200 leaking underground storage tanks in the state — and more than 1,500 are considered ongoing contamination risks. Some of the leaking tanks have been problems for more than 15 years. Almost 820 are labeled high-risk.
