According to the North Bay Business Journal, many businesses in the San Francisco Bay area with leaking USTs in their charge are not being reimbursed for the mandatory removal and cleanup of the toxic leaking tanks. UST removal and cleanup is normally an expensive undertaking, easily costing tens of thousands of dollars depending on the size of the site and extent of environmental damage.

In Sonoma, Napa, and Marin Counties, a total of 552 leaking USTs have some form of open claim for cleanup work being performed. The claims represent work in various stages of completion. Most of the leaking tanks are in Sonoma County, which has 414 according to the state water board’s records. Marin County has 83 leaking tanks, and Napa has 56.

The water board had to suspend some 1,300 claims earlier this year because of an $80 million shortage in the fund. For active claims, the board decided to delay reimbursements by 18 months. The shortage has put a severe strain on many companies that do not have the capital or financial resources available to comply with the state’s codes without the government’s help. Companies with cleanup work in progress whose claims have been suspended are seeking bridge financing for work until the state’s funds are replenished.

One Eureka-based environmental project manager told the North Bay Business Journal that the lack of UST cleanup funds is having a ripple effect on his industry. “The slowdown in tank cleanup reimbursement affects not only site owners and but also the flow of work for environmental consulting firms and the subcontractors they work with, such as analytical laboratories and well drillers,” the Business Journal reported.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Underground Storage Tanks (OUST), California has a backlog of nearly 11,500 leaking tanks awaiting cleanup. Even the slowest leaking tanks can release several gallons of fuel and other hazardous substances into the surrounding land each year, polluting millions of gallons of water and tons of soil.

The water board is currently assembling a task force comprised of environmental consultants, tank owners and operators, and regional water board members that will explore ways to reform and hopefully fix the state’s depleted UST fund.

SOURCE: Leaking Underground Storage Tanks › California’s UST cleanup funds have dried up

According to the report, 442 people in the southern Colorado town of Alamosa became violently ill after drinking the city’s tap water, which tests revealed to be positive for a potent strain of the salmonella virus. A survey conducted in the community, however, found that 20 percent of Alamosa’s residents, about 2,000 people, experienced gastrointestinal illness at the time of the salmonella outbreak.

Alamosa, like many small towns throughout the country, draws water for the municipal supply from deep underground aquifers. Water drawn from aquifers is purified by natural processes, thereby eliminating or at least diminishing the need to chlorinate the water.

The process is perfectly safe, unless the clean water is diverted to an underground storage tank containing several holes and cracks, which was the case in Alamosa.

According to health inspectors who examined the tank, farm animals likely defecated on the ground over or near the water tank. As winter snow melted, toxic salmonella bacteria from the feces entered the holes and cracks in the concrete tank.

The salmonella bacteria debilitated many residents of the town, some of whom missed days or weeks of work. Salmonella typically hits younger children and older adults the hardest. In Alamosa, the outbreak is blamed for the death of 55-year-old Larry Velasquez, whose body was already weakened by previous illness.

Although dozens of claims have been filed against the city, many of the city’s residents will have no legal recourse. Colorado state law sets a six-month deadline for filing damage claims against municipalities. The outbreak in Alamosa occurred last year.

Don Koskelin, Alamosa’s public-works director, told the Denver Post that state inspectors who analyzed Alamosa’s water system prior to the outbreak failed to check the underground tank carefully.

“Did he do a detailed inspection of the tank? No, he did not,” Koskelin told the Denver Post.

Colorado’s drinking water program manager, Ron Falco, told the Post that the inspector failed to inspect the tank because a city operator told him that the drinking water system would be replaced in six months.

Alamosa now has a new drinking water distribution system. It also chlorinates all of the tap water.

SOURCE: Leaking Underground Storage Tanks › Contaminated water from UST sickens Colorado town