Modern gas pumps are fitted with vapor-recovery boots on their nozzles, which help control the amount of vaporized fuel that leaks into the air. A similar device recovers vapors that are released when tankers fill a station’s underground storage tanks. However, faulty recovery devices allow toxic chemicals such as hydrocarbon fumes and benzene to enter the air in substantial amounts.

These airborne chemicals have been linked definitively to a slew of respiratory ailments and cancer by the National Institutes of Health. Not surprisingly, California leads the rest of the country in adopting standards that exceed the federal level. Today the state begins implementing tougher vapor recovery regulations, which require gas stations to equip their nozzles with better vapor recovery devices.

Gas stations with attached auto repair shops are doubly dangerous. Spilled or leaking antifreeze, lead products, and other solvents can contaminate the surrounding air, soil and water over time. The brakes and clutches of certain vehicles contain asbestos, which can be released into the atmosphere. As long as motor vehicles rely on these hazardous substances to run, humans will always be exposed. The key to minimizing the effects of exposure is to support better environmental regulations. Pressuring auto manufacturers and oil companies to develop alternative ways to fuel up is another strategy for a cleaner, safer future.

Source: http://www.emagazine.com/

SOURCE: Leaking Underground Storage Tanks › gas stations illustrate need for tougher environmental regulations

“This water tastes funny,” former Marine John Hartung remembers thinking when he spent 6 months at Camp Lejeune in 1977, according to a report by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “They said that’s how it tastes down here,” Hartung told the Journal Sentinel.

After months of drinking the water on base and showering and swimming in it, Hartung developed cysts on his neck. He also started noticing that many other fellow Marines were afflicted with cysts and rashes. More than 30 years later, Hartung battles chronic fatigue and other ailments that prevent him from working.

Now it’s Hartung’s mission to spread the word about Camp Lejeune’s toxic past. He launched a website that seeks to educate others about the problem.

“I want to see people get their benefits and to say, ‘I was poisoned, but at least they took care of me and my family,’” Hartung told the Journal Sentinel.

Research of the camp’s water problems yielded some disturbing patterns in the health of those who once lived at the camp. Incidences of cancer, birth defects, and illnesses in children born on base were much higher during the period of time when the groundwater was tainted.

The Marines Corps is working to contact everyone who might have been affected by the poisonous water. It has established a website and call center to handle the issue. It is also getting the word out through direct mail, coordinating with local and national media, and informing veterans groups.

The full Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article, which includes accounts of other Marines sickened by Camp Lejeune’s water supply, can be viewed here.

SOURCE: Leaking Underground Storage Tanks › Camp Lejeune’s toxic water supply may have sickened half a million

The old tanks are made of steel, which is highly corrosive. The underground tanks were especially prone to rust, thereby allowing the fuel to leak out into the surrounding earth.

Pat Coyne, director of business development for Environmental Data Resources, Inc. said that steel tanks tend to rot like “Swiss cheese,” according to a report by the Associated Press.

The rusting tanks and other programs once administered by the Civil Defense Preparedness Agency became FEMA’s responsibility after the agency was formed. Decades later, the agency is still trying to inventory the tanks it owns – now numbering more than 2,000. The agency still doesn’t know the exact geographical locations of some of the tanks, whether they are above ground or underground, or whether they are leaking. The paper trail tied to the tanks spans several decades and hands. No evidence to date suggests that these government-owned underground storage tanks (USTs) have created environmental or health problems because of leakage.

But the government tanks, which FEMA and the FCC have tossed back and forth like a hot potato of  responsibility, are just one part of a much more massive problem: the existence of more than half a million USTs holding fuel and oil buried throughout the country. No one knows exactly how many of the tanks could be leaking.

USTs that leak diesel or other fuel can easily contaminate the groundwater. It takes just one gallon of diesel fuel to effectively contaminate one million gallons of water, putting people at risk for cancer, kidney damage, nervous system disorders and a number of other health hazards.

FEMA has worked to repair and or replace some of the tanks since the 1990s. Others have been removed or filled with sand. But many of the tanks, including many suspected leakers, have yet to be removed. More modern tanks must be made of leak-proof polymers and have a leak detection system.

FEMA spokesman Dan Stoneking told the AP that it is working to fix the problem of all the leaking tanks under its jurisdiction. “We are committed to upholding our obligations to remediate, remove or upgrade them as necessary,” he told the AP. “We believe in adhering to any relevant environmental rule or law and will do so.”

SOURCE: Leaking Underground Storage Tanks › leaking fuel tanks: a cold war legacy

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.

State officials say they are trying to devise new rules so that the most hazardous sites, which often take years to clean up because of bureaucratic red tape and legal wrangling, can be addressed faster.
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See where they are: Click here to search a map and database to see how many of the state’s 6,200 leaking underground tanks are near you.

The state’s backlog is down about 30 percent from five years ago, according to statistics from the Environmental Protection Agency, but about 20 leaking tanks deemed in need of action are on school property.

“We are taking enforcement action against those who don’t fix (leaks),” said Elaine Douskey, who supervises the underground storage tank program with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. “We are staying after them.” Left undetected, leaking tanks can cause big problems, as residents in Climbing Hill, an unincorporated town of less than 150 people in Woodbury County in northwest Iowa, discovered.

They learned almost 18 years ago that two underground tanks, including one that belonged to a school, contaminated five residential drinking water wells and one public supply well that belonged to a restaurant. State officials provided bottled water for almost nine years and then switched the town to filtration systems before homeowners received new wells around 2004, said Rochelle Cardinale, an environmental coordinator with the DNR.

Routine tests show the new wells are safe, but some residents still question whether lingering contamination will someday taint that water supply, too.

“I’m worried about where that contamination might go,” said Gary Little, who works and lives with his family in the Barn, a local cafe.

Longtime residents are also concerned about developing cancer, he said. “They don’t know how long they’ve been drinking that stuff.”

People who ingest or breathe high concentrations of chemicals released from a tank could wind up with leukemia, kidney damage, nervous system disorders and other ailments, according to state public health officials.

A report by the Iowa Department of Public Health estimates Climbing Hill residents were exposed to chemicals, including benzene, for a year or two before the leak was detected. That wasn’t long enough to put them at greater risk for getting cancer, the report states.

The Climbing Hill leaks are still labeled high-risk; there is still benzene in the soil. In high enough concentrations, benzene can cause leukemia.

The site might be downgraded because the wells have been removed, Cardinale said. The department isn’t sure how much longer it will have to monitor the area, she said.

The high-risk designation means a leak could expose people to dangerous chemicals. It doesn’t mean contamination has already occurred.

Challenges exist in finding, tracking tanks that leak

DNR officials know how many leaks there are, but say they don’t keep track of how many times leaking tanks have tainted drinking water, polluted lakes or streams, or seeped into basements in Iowa.

Douskey said the agency’s data on the leaks have that detail, but the only way to tally up that data is to review each file manually.

However, the agency does respond quickly to reports of suspected contamination – either in the water or the air, which sometimes is the first clue there is a leak nearby, Douskey said.

One example is from February 2006, when employees at a day care in Shelby said tap water smelled like gasoline. The likely culprit was a plastic water line running past a gas station. The day care moved and the lines were replaced.

But without evidence of contamination, it’s not readily apparent to residents whether a leaking underground storage tank near them poses a hazard because each site is different, Douskey said. Soil composition, the size of the tank, the depth of nearby wells, the age and extent of the leak, and the groundwater table all factor into where pollutants are likely to spread and whether they present a risk to the public.

“If I lived right next door to a gas station, I would be curious whether they have a plume under that site,” Douskey said, adding that anyone can view the agency’s records on leaking tanks for more information.

If a leak occurs in clay soil, it could stay on the site forever and never be a problem, but a leak in sandy soil travels farther, she said. But even if it spreads, that doesn’t mean it’s a risk, she added.

Leaking gasoline tanks can also present the risk of fire and explosion because vapors travel.

When a leak is detected, state officials inform residents and businesses within 100 feet of the affected area, and they take soil, water and air samples if they suspect any contamination, Cardinale said.

Cardinale said it’s unusual for a leak to travel much beyond 400 feet, or about a city block. The leak could spread farther if it’s near a municipal well that pumps lots of water and can pull contaminants in.

Tracing contamination, cleanup can take years

It took 14 years for officials to figure out how to handle the Climbing Hill contamination. That case was extreme, but cases sometimes linger several years while agencies and owners decide what to do, Cardinale said.

The agency and the industry admit it often takes far too long to take action, and both sides are trying to implement new methods to speed up detection and cleanup. Aided by new federal laws, state regulators also have more tools to guarantee that tank owners comply.

Some of the changes include:

• Devising a better way to measure the actual potential spread of contamination, which could downgrade some sites where the current risk might be overstated, although industry officials and the DNR are currently at odds over how to do this.

• Using inspectors from third-party companies to check all tanks every two years. State inspectors had such a backlog that some sites went five years without an inspection.

• Shutting down gas stations or fueling facilities that don’t comply by preventing fuel trucks from filling the stations’ tanks, in accordance with a federal law that went into effect last year.

• Requiring all new tanks to have enhanced safety measures, leak detection devices and an extra outer shell. Traditional steel tanks, prone to corrosion, have been replaced with specially coated Fiberglas tanks resistant to gasoline, diesel and ethanol.

• Bringing all parties together at once, especially for high-risk sites that need more attention.

“If we know it’s high-risk, we decided it’d be best to get everybody at the table at the same time,” Douskey said. “That seems to have cut the time down significantly.”

Jeff Hove, regulatory affairs manager of the Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Stores of Iowa, agreed. “Especially if it’s a newer release, you’re going to see it move forward immediately,” he said.

But about three-fourths of the remaining cleanup work in Iowa must be funded by taxpayers.

Evaluating a leak requires rounds of monitoring and testing to figure out how far contamination has spread. It’s a problem if pollutants reach private drinking water wells, city water supplies, sewer lines, lakes or streams, or seep into basements as a chemical vapor.

If the current property owners didn’t install the tank — or knew nothing about it when they bought the land — finding out who is responsible adds another hurdle.

Debating whether to excavate the soil, remove the tank, extract vapors or take other action turns into back-and-forth between government agencies and site owners, Hove said.

“It can be a really long process,” Hove said. “Sometimes the regulator will say, ‘Well, industry’s dragging their feet.’ And industry says, ‘We did our report and sent it in 12 months ago and it hasn’t been reviewed by DNR yet.’ ”

Eastern Iowa school district spends thousands on site

In the meantime, some site owners simply watch and wait. Near an elementary school in Lowden, a town of about 800 residents some 40 miles northwest of Davenport, inspectors test six groundwater samples each year.

Leaks from an old fuel oil tank used to heat the school’s boiler are in proximity to a city drinking water well. That means the site has been labeled high-risk, even though the tank was removed in 2004 and the tests show contaminant levels falling within allowable ranges, said Mary Jo Hainstock, superintendent of the North Cedar Community School District.

The district spent about $14,200 in 2004 to have the tank removed and has been paying $1,300 to a private company each year since for the tests.

“It’s thousands of dollars,” she said. “But when you want to do things right, it’s really not an option not to do it.”

The district hopes the state will reclassify the site soon, although Hainstock is prepared to wait up to a year for her district’s application to be reviewed.

SOURCE: Leaking Underground Storage Tanks › Iowa pollution perils lurk among buried fuel tanks