environmental Strategist, between the lines: While the crime listed below is a common everyday occurrence, it is the un-suspecting that need to understand the horizontal and vertical environmental liabilities created by shady / reactive storage tank owners.
In the state of Michigan alone we have 9,000 known leaking underground Storage Tanks (UST’s) where there is no money to perform remediation. This means at a minimum, in Michigan, there are 9,000 locations that can cause third party property damage and bodily injury through stormwater runoff, vapor intrusion….
Included in a Phase I Site Assessment is a 2 mile radius search to see if any property within that range has been identified as having existing environmental contamination that could impact the property being investigated.
What if a third party contaminants property you own and they do not have the money to remediate the problem, cover third party bodily injury, property damage, business interruption…. Environmental Liability insurance can protect an insured if a third party contaminates their property.
Poulsbo, Wash. gas station agrees to pay over $11,000 for failure to monitor underground fuel tanks
Release date: 05/05/2011
Contact Information: Anne Christopher, EPA UST Program, (206) 553-8293,
christopher.anne@epa.gov; Tony Brown, EPA Public Affairs, (206) 553-1203, brown.anthony@epa.gov
(Seattle – May 5, 2011) – Central Valley Grocery gas station in Poulsbo, Washington, has agreed to pay $11,356 for failing to properly monitor three underground storage tanks (USTs) for leaks for over a year.
Owners and operators of USTs are required to test their tanks for leaks on a monthly basis. Failure to do so puts ground water at risk and is a violation of both state and federal law.
According to Edward Kowalski, EPA’s Director of the Office of Compliance and Enforcement in Seattle, leaking USTs are a major cause of groundwater contamination in the United States. Congress enacted laws requiring UST owners and operators to prevent tanks from leaking, detect leaks quickly if they do occur, and clean up leaking tanks. “Leaking tanks have the potential to endanger drinking water sources, so tank leak
prevention and detection are crucial,” said EPA’s Kowalski. “Conducting regular checks is a small investment that can prevent costly, complex soil and groundwater cleanups.”
EPA inspected the Central Valley Grocery station in December 2008 and found that the release detection equipment was not operating and that the owners failed to use other methods to properly check the integrity of the tanks. According to owner/operators Julius Templeton and T & A, LLC, attempts to correct the problem were made in 2009, but were unsuccessful.
EPA alleges that Central Valley Grocery remained in violation from at least December 2007 through June 2010. The owners installed new equipment in November 2010 and the three tanks are now in compliance.
For more information on the UST Program, visit the following EPA websites: