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

“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 faulty UST is located at the city’s marina, where it is used to store fuel. Hannibal’s marina and docks, situated on the western edge of the Mississippi River, are an essential part of the historic community, which every year draws thousands of tourists from around the world.

Faulty USTs are an enormous environmental problem in the United States. Records kept by the Environmental Protection Agency indicate that hundreds of thousands of tanks throughout the country have leaked or continue to leak fuel and other hazardous substances. Just one gallon of fuel will pollute one million gallons of water — a sobering fact considering Hannibal’s faulty tank sits on America’s most vital waterway.

According to a report in the Quincy Herald-Whig, regulators cited Hannibal for three violations: failure to properly conduct and maintain corrosion protection; failure to comply with temporary closure requirements; and failure to permanently close a substandard underground storage tank.

Chris Atkinson, director of the city’s Parks and Recreation Department, told the Herald-Whig that last summer’s floods are to blame for the tank’s condition. During the floods, electricity that ran a 24-hour monitoring system on the gas dock was cut off. Electricity also powered a system that protected the tank’s pipes from rusting. The flood also removed the gas dock from its moorings, thereby forcing the city to disconnect electrical and gas lines.

To fix the problem, Hannibal can stop selling gas at the marina completely, install an above-ground tank, or install a new UST. Whatever is done, the solution will prove to be costly. Putting in a new UST would cost approximately $50,000.

“No matter what we do, there’s going to be a cost, and frankly none of this is in the budget,” Atkinson told the Herald-Whig.

The city is currently repairing the flood-damaged docks, a project that FEMA estimates will cost more than $240,000. That total, however, does not include replacing the old UST.

SOURCE: Leaking Underground Storage Tanks › ‘Tom Sawyer’ city cited for underground storage tank violations

The proposed regulation would apply to storage tank systems owned or operated by federal departments, boards, agencies, and Crown corporations; to storage tank systems operated in connection with port authorities set out in the Schedule to the Canada Marine Act, railways and airports; and to storage tank systems located on federal and Aboriginal lands. The new regulation would also apply to suppliers of petroleum products or allied petroleum products to these storage tank systems.

The new regulation also aims to reduce several toxic substances from entering the environment, among them 1,2-dichloroethane, 3,3’-dichlorobenzidine, benzene, ethylene oxide, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons that are found in petroleum products and allied petroleum products. Under the proposed regulation, leaking storage tank systems would be required to be temporarily withdrawn from service, repaired, and be leak free before being returned to service. More stringent requirements would apply to singlewalled underground tanks and piping. Leaking single-walled underground tanks and piping must be permanently withdrawn from service and removed within four years after the day on which the proposed regulation takes effect and the day on which the owner or operator becomes aware of the leak.

The following storage tank systems would be considered by Environment Canada to be at high risk for contaminating soil and groundwater, and therefore would have to be permanently withdrawn from service and removed within four years of the new regulation taking effect:

* storage tank systems with tanks designed to be installed aboveground but were installed below grade or in secondary containment surrounded by fill
* storage tank systems with tanks designed to be installed underground but were installed above grade or in unfilled secondary containment
* storage tank systems with partially buried tanks
* single-walled underground storage tank systems that do not have pre-existing corrosion protection and leak detection
* single-walled underground piping that does not have corrosion protection and leak detection. An owner or operator of storage tank systems installed before the proposed regulation takes effect would have to perform prescribed leak-detection testing at a specified frequency on single-walled underground equipment and single-walled aboveground equipment that does not have secondary containment.

Horizontal aboveground tanks without secondary containment would have to be visually inspected once within two years of the coming into effect of the proposed regulation, and once per month thereafter. Vertical aboveground tanks without secondary containment would require a test within two years after the day on which the proposed regulation takes effect, and once every 10 years thereafter. Sumps, regardless of installation date, would also have to be visually inspected once within two years of the proposed regulation taking effect, and once a year thereafter. Suppliers of petroleum products would be prohibited from transferring petroleum products into any storage tank, unless the storage tank system identification number is visible. They would be required to record the storage tank system identification number on their invoice and notify the operator of any spills or leaks that occurred during the transfer process.

Main cause of soil contamination
Spills and leaks of petroleum products from storage tank systems are responsible for some 66% of the soil contamination on contaminated sites on federal and Aboriginal lands in Canada.

Tanks store petroleum products as diverse as gasoline, diesel, heating oil, aviation fuels, kerosene, naphtha, lubricating oils, thinners, solvents, and printing inks. Storage tank systems can be based on a single tank just large enough to provide heating oil to one dwelling, to a multiple large-capacity tank system used for fleet fuelling, product distribution, or fuel supply. The volume stored in the tank system can vary from 230 litres to over 75 million litres. The proposed regulation was published in Canada Gazette Part I, April 7, 2007, for a 60-day

Source: EcoLog Environmental Resources Group

SOURCE: Leaking Underground Storage Tanks › Feds propose new reg to remove leaking storage tanks from service