Underground Tanks Pose Leakage Factor : EPA Rules on Health and Safety Codes Expected to Be Made Permanent Soon

Tank Tech Corp. posed an interesting question.

What’s bigger than a bread box, poisons the environment and may cause financial ruin?

The culprit, it says, is the unobtrusive, leaking underground storage tank--a potentially hazardous problem that warrants special attention from property owners, mortgage holders and insurance companies who sooner or later may have to deal with it.

“Aging underground tanks can be found just about anywhere,” said Bob Hayman, president of Tank Tech Corp. of Congers, N.Y.

The firm, founded almost four years ago by two former marine biologists--Hayman and Steven Asquith--tests, removes and replaces underground storage tanks and also dismantles and recycles obsolete metal tanks.

In the Southland, Tait Environmental Systems in Anaheim, H.D. Howard Inc. in Granada Hills, and Groundwater Technology in Torrance, are among some 500 firms focusing on the problem. Groundwater Technology operates worldwide, with four of its 50 branches in Torrance, San Diego, Ventura and Bakersfield.

Many Tanks Leaking

“Several million underground storage tanks (USTs) in the U.S. contain petroleum or hazardous chemicals, and thousands of these are currently leaking,” Hayman said. Many more are expected to leak in the future.

“These tanks are used primarily to store gasoline, fuel and heating oil, industrial chemicals, and have become the focus of environmental laws throughout the country because of their potential threat to ground-water supplies,” Hayman added. “Many, in place since before World War II, are made of single-layer steel, which corrodes and eventually leaks.

“Leaking UST’s can cause fires or explosions and can contaminate nearby ground water for the water we drink,” Hayman said. “Ignoring the UST potential pollution problem could eventually result in high cost cleanup and costly lawsuits.”

Anti-Pollution Efforts

Tank Tech is expanding its operation to California, in association with Kaselaan & D’Angelo of Torrance, both affiliated with Kaselaan & D’Angelo Associates Inc., a national environmental consulting and engineering firm based in Haddon Heights, N.J., which works in fields ranging from asbestos management and industrial hygiene to marine and aquatic sciences.

Bob Gallagher of K & D said California in the West, and New Jersey in the East, have long been in the forefront of anti-pollution efforts and are actively pioneering in the UST field.

Gallagher predicts that one of the avant-garde measures pioneered in New Jersey is likely to be adopted soon in California.

The law, known by the acronym ECRA and being implemented in New Jersey by its Department of Environmental Protection, requires a comprehensive underground tank assessment prior to completion of any commercial or industrial property transaction.

Health Protection

Hayman said 99% of USTs that are 15 years or older are of one-layer bare steel and will have to be replaced sooner or later.

In 1984, Congress added Subtitle 1 to the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act that requires the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to develop regulations to protect human health and the environment from leaking USTs.

A proposal for permanent regulations, dated April 17, 1987, appears in the Federal Register, and an interim prohibition governing the nation’s underground tanks has been in effect since May, 1985.

The regulation proposal now under review, with an anticipated Sept. 10 issuance date, is expected to include basically the same terms as the interim prohibition.

Ultrasonic Inspections

Because it would be very difficult--within 10 years--to apply leak-detection methods for all USTs in the ground, a combination of daily inventory control and periodic tank tightness testing will temporarily satisfy the requirements and must be done within three to five years after the regulations become final.

After 10 years, all USTs must also be protected from corrosion and equipped with devices to prevent spills and overfills. The regulations will hold property owners responsible for the cost of cleaning up a leak and compensating other people for bodily injury or property damage caused by a leaking tank.

Hayman said that currently the nationally accepted standard for determining whether a tank may remain operative in the ground is that it cannot leak more than .05 gallon.

Loan Consideration

“The better tanks we are beginning to install have a secondary containment, which adds a second wall between the UST and the surrounding environment. Those sites needing maximum protection will be required to use this type of tank,” Hayman said.

Banks are already beginning to look at existing storage tanks as a liability when considering applications for mortgages and commercial property loans, Gallagher of K & D said. “And they are beginning to include tank inspection in the environmental assessment of a property.”

Many large and small businesses currently have USTs and they are used by industrial and chemical companies, residential and commercial firms, schools, hospitals and utilities.