The November incident occurred when oil waste from a Childers Oil facility permeated the Kentucky River just one mile upstream from the city’s water plant. Then, in February, massive amounts of diesel fuel were released from numerous storage tanks belonging to Childers. The diesel leak exposed area residents to contaminated water for a 10-day period, during which time the city could only warn them not to cook, drink, or bathe in the water.

The state’s Energy and Environment Cabinet filed a lawsuit against Childers Oil and a related company, Mountain Rail Properties. Both companies are owned by the same family. The attorneys have also asked the Franklin, Kentucky, Circuit Judge to issue an injunction that would bar Childers Oil from allowing any future petroleum leaks. A violation of the injunction would lead to the company being held in contempt of court.

“It is the personal right of the citizens of Letcher County to live in a safe environment and to have clean drinking water,” state attorneys were quoted as saying in the CSNews Online report.

Many area residents remain suspicious of the oil company after its record of environmental violations was released. According to Lexington Herald-Leader, the company’s violations include “improperly burning debris; improperly dumping construction waste, including construction debris; leaking or improperly registered and upgraded underground fuel storage tanks; sewage station overflow; and not filing correct monitoring reports.”

According to CSNews Online, an employee of Childers told a state inspector in one of the earlier cases that the company owner, Don Childers, instructed him to burn various waste materials with ‘used motor oil from the shop’ behind the Wal-Mart in Whitesburg. Childers told the employee not to make a big fire, and that he would run over the site with a bulldozer later.

The company’s owners, however, say that they are cooperating with the state and that litigation isn’t necessary. They also say they love their city and are proud to serve it.

Ironically, Childers Oil is sponsoring an event called “River Sweep 2009,” an environmental event held by the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission to clean up area riverbanks.

SOURCE: Leaking Underground Storage Tanks › Kentucky oil company repeatedly damages environment, sued by state

According to EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson, the agency is “providing immediate growth opportunities across the nation, as well as long-term protection from dangerous pollution in the land and water.”

“EPA is putting people to work by serving our core mission of protecting human health and the environment,” Jackson explained.

Hundreds of thousands of storage tanks are buried throughout the country. Many of the tanks, some of which are several decades old, continue to leak fuel and other environmentally hazardous substances into the soil and groundwater. A hole the size of a pin head can release as many as 400 gallons of fuel into the ground and water table in one year, and 1 gallon of fuel renders 1 million gallons of water unpotable for humans and wildlife.

Nearly half of all Americans get their drinking water from underground sources – a fact that makes the identification and removal of leaking USTs imperative.

Removal of a leaking tank and cleanup of the contaminated area is a typically an expensive task. While liability for the tanks (and all removal and cleanup costs) normally falls on the tank owners, sometimes the EPA has to assume the expense of assessing, removing tanks, and cleaning up when the “responsible party is unknown, unwilling, unable, or the cleanup is an emergency response.”

Nearly $191 million of the stimulus money will go to all U.S. states and territories for leaking UST removal and environmental cleanup. $6.3 million will fund assessment and cleanup of sites in Indian territory. $3 million will be retained by the EPA for management and oversight.

Click here for more Information about UST program funding and the EPA’s implementation of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act .

SOURCE: Leaking Underground Storage Tanks › EPA receives $200 million in stimulus money for UST removal, cleanup

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

The city is also using $50,000 in voter-approved funds for investigation and cleanup of the property. A hazardous waste disposal company called Clean Harbors is removing about 60 cubic yards of fuel-contaminated soil from around the area where the gas pumps once stood.

The city of Marshfield acquired the property in 2003 when the former owner failed to pay the property taxes.

Lauren Konetznv, an engineer working at the site, said that the groundwater in the area of the old gas station is also contaminated with fuel. The water should clean up quickly, however, once the soil has been removed, she said. Engineers will drill six test wells next week to retest the water, which will be monitored repeatedly for the next several months. Because the polluted land sits in proximity to an old well, it must meet drinking water standards even though the well hasn’t been used for years.

Marshfield’s administrator, Rocco Longo, said that the city can proceed with park plans.

“What’s left now is for us to initiate a planning process for us to turn it into some kind of park or green space for the downtown,” he told the Patriot Ledger. “It might not be bad to have a little green space.”

A local memorial fund says on its website that it will create a park on the land and call it “Dandelion Park,” in memory of Molly Fitzgerald, a 14-year-old who died in June 2006.

“The Molly Fitzgerald Memorial Fund is undertaking our largest project to date in 2008. We will take what is now an ugly vacant lot in the middle of downtown Marshfield and turn it into a beautiful park in honor of Molly and all the other children who have died too early,” the website says.

SOURCE: Leaking Underground Storage Tanks › Massachusetts town converts fuel-contaminated land into park

What’s leaking?
Most underground storage tanks leak gasoline, and the main chemicals of concern are benzene, toluene, and ethylbenzene. The Iowa Department of Natural Resources has established levels of these chemicals “where it is known that there is no risk to the health to all individuals.”

Adverse health effects are only seen if exposures to these chemicals are significant.

Benzene: Long-term exposure to high enough levels has adverse effects on the blood and bone marrow. Long term exposure to benzene in the air can cause luekemia, which is a concern if benzene could move from the soil or groundwater into a home.

Toluene: Exposure to high levels can effect the nervous system and kidneys. Exposure to high levels in the air can cause light-headness and dizzyness.

Ethylbenzene: Exposure to high levels in the air can cause eye and throat irritation, light-headedness and dizzyness. These is a potential for damage to the kidneys from exposure to high levels.

Source: Stuart C. Schmitz, Environmental Toxicologist, Iowa Department of Public Health

SOURCE: Leaking Underground Storage Tanks › Iowa’s 6,200 leaking underground storage tanks

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