O.C. May Tighten Rules on Buried Fuel Tanks

Concerned that Orange County’s vast groundwater supply is being threatened by leaks from underground gasoline tanks, local prosecutors are proposing what would be the state’s--and possibly the nation’s--toughest rules yet for monitoring such containers.

While pollution from gas storage tanks is a problem across the country, the stakes are especially high in Orange County because of the area’s reliance on underground aquifers, which produce drinking water for more than 1 million residents.

The push for tougher rules comes several months after officials for the first time detected the gas additive MTBE in a Yorba Linda production well that supplies water to residents.

There are more than 1,000 underground tank facilities in Orange County, and the Health Care Agency reports some type of surface leakage around 430 of them. A leak reached the drinking-water supply in Yorba Linda last summer, although no contaminated water reached household taps.

Officials stress that there is no immediate risk to the public, but the discovery has served as a wake-up call in a county that pumps 316 million gallons of water a day from the ground.

“You just don’t want to put that kind of resource at risk,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Michelle Lyman, a prosecutor with the county’s environmental protection division. “It would be a total economic catastrophe.”

Current federal regulations require underground storage tanks to be double-walled and that leak detection devices be installed, among other safeguards. But the district attorney’s office is proposing the mandatory drilling of shafts near gasoline containers so the soil can be periodically tested for possible contamination.

The oil industry is already lining up against the proposal, which would require businesses to pay $3,000-$4,000 for each new monitoring shaft. Critics maintain that current safeguards--enacted in 1998--are adequate and that Orange County’s proposal isn’t worth the costs.

But prosecutors said the monitors can help more quickly identify leaks and prevent them from reaching aquifers.

The plan is strongly supported by some water officials, who note that polluted wells would force them to either purchase expensive water from the Colorado River or run ground water through additional filtration. Either option probably would require higher water rates.

“The effects of today’s pollution won’t be seen until years later,” said William Mills, general manager of the Orange County Water District. “It is important to catch contamination early.”

The proposal, which will need approval from the Board of Supervisors, is sparking a new debate over how best to protect the water supply and how aggressive government should be.

“The question is, ‘What kind of risk are we willing to take?’ ” said prosecutor Lyman.

Orange County’s underground drinking water supply is one of the most plentiful in the state.

The discovery of MTBE in the Yorba Linda well last summer alarmed officials because the gas additive seeped fairly deep in the aquifer used for drinking water.

Officials shut the well, which serves 17,000 households. Eventually, it was reopened after workers dug a deeper well that yielded clean water. While no widespread contamination has been found elsewhere, officials fear decades of leaks from underground tanks will eventually send more chemicals deep into the soil.

In Santa Monica, MTBE contamination shut down seven underground wells in 1996 that supplied 50% of the city’s water. Lawsuit settlements with oil companies funded a cleanup program, but officials there don’t expect full recovery until at least 2003.

The city had to import water at a greater cost while it built a filtration system for the aquifers.

MTBE, or methyl tertiary butyl ether, helps gasoline burn more cleanly. It has been credited with dramatically reducing air pollution around the country--especially in Southern California. But the chemical is linked to cancer in lab animals and is considered a potential human carcinogen.

The chemical is a special concern to water officials because studies have shown that MTBE travels faster through soil than other gas additives and gasoline itself.

Gov. Gray Davis last year signed an executive order calling for MTBE to be gradually banned by 2002. But that still leaves the contamination already in the soil.

There have been discussions both nationally and in Sacramento to require periodic testing of soil around gas containers, but none has resulted in successful legislation.

“One of the biggest problems with underground tanks is we generally don’t know they are leaking until we dig them up,” said Dan Greenbaum, chairman of a federal panel that studied the issue. “We need to toughen regulations especially in areas that depend heavily on underground water.”

Orange County officials said the soil monitoring is necessary because the devices now used to detect gas leakage from storage tanks don’t always work. Each monitoring shaft would cost private businesses $5,000 to operate annually.

“It’s a minimal cost compared to the amount of damage that can be prevented by discovering a problem sooner rather than later,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Lance Jensen. “All the [detection] equipment could be running hunky-dory and then you find there was contamination 10, 20 years down the road.”

Jensen said it makes sense for Orange County to enact its own ordinance because not every jurisdiction in the state is as heavily dependent on underground water.

But others aren’t convinced that such extensive monitoring is needed--or cost-effective.

“It is hard to speculate as to what would happen, whether the benefits would outweigh the costs,” said Robert Miller, spokesman for the State Water Resources Control Board, which has opposed statewide efforts for such monitoring.

Soil monitors “are a tool, but as a general rule to put them everyplace, that’s perhaps not a good idea.”

Miller and others said drilling numerous monitoring shafts may actually help chemicals travel faster by creating a suction effect. “If you punch a hole in the ground, you are creating a passage for the contaminants,” he said. “It poses a lot of problems.”

And oil industry representatives said the new laws will needlessly burden gas station operators, who have already spent thousands of dollars to overhaul underground tanks in accordance with the 1998 federal law.

“Everyone agreed that was the best way to go,” said Paul Langland, a spokesman for Arco, which has 124 gas stations in Orange County. “Now to second-guess that decision less than a year after it went into effect does a disservice to all the people.”

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Protecting the Water Supply

The district attorney’s office is proposing rules that would require mandatory monitoring wells near underground gasoline tanks to detect leaks that could threaten Orange County’s vast groundwater supply.

A Web of Wells

Groundwater is drawn and tested in Orange County from a network of 661 wells.

Wells

Drinking Water -- 220

Agricultural and Industrial -- 150

Monitoring -- 237

Multi-level Monitoring - 54

Underground Layers

Most of Orange County’s water is pumped from the principal aquifer, the middle of three layers separated by clay barriers.

Clay layer

Shallow aquifer -- less than 500 feet deep

Clay layer

Principal aquifer -- 500 to 2,000 feet deep

Clay layer

Deep aquifer -- more than 1,000 feet

Clay layer

Typical municipal well: 1,000 feet deep

Seal Beach

Yorba Linda

Preventing Leaks

Current federal regulations require all underground storage tanks to be double-walled and equiped with leak detection devices. The D.A.’s office is proposing periodical contamination testing via mandatory monitoring wells.

Source: Orange County Water Dist.

Graphics reporting by BRADY MacDONALD / Los Angeles Times