Need a mesothelioma lawyer? We will fight for you!
› $700,000,000 settlement in pollution case
California’s State Water Resources Control Board oversees the implementation of some of the country’s strictest environmental regulations, including those that govern the inspection, monitoring, removal, and cleanup of underground storage tanks. The only problem is that the cash-strapped state doesn’t have enough money in its Barry Keene Underground Storage Tank Cleanup Fund to cover all the UST work in progress.
In a 3-1 vote, California’s State Water Resources Control Board approved legislation that will require motor fuels containing more than 20 percent biodiesel to be stored in above ground tanks. It seems strange that regular petroleum diesel can be stored in underground tanks while “green” fuel must be stored above ground for fear of leakage and possible environmental contamination. But California has a law mandating that underground storage tanks be independently certified as leak proof before they can be used to store new types of fuel, such as high-grade biodiesels. That testing and certification process can take as long as three years.
The state of California is suing Ohio-based TravelCenters of America, LLC, the owner and operator of several truck stops throughout the state, claiming the company will not comply with California’s underground storage tank regulations.
Underground storage tank inspectors for the Navajo Nation’s Environmental Protection Agency launched a two-year program geared toward inspecting all of the tanks buried on Navajo land. The federal EPA announced on March 24 that it had issued inspector credentials to two inspectors from the Navajo Nation’s EPA. The Navajo inspectors now have the authority to carry out the important inspections on behalf of the federal EPA.
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.
![[ Beasley Allen Law Firm Logo ]](http://www.leaking-storage-tank.com/wp-content/themes/system-unity/images/logo.png){kind=logo}
