Underground Regs: Don't Get Buried

by Allen Cooley

Most folks don't stay awake at night thinking about their underground storage tanks, but there are at least four good reasons to give them renewed consideration:

Since 1993, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has required leak detection on all USTs.
The EPA will also require all USTs to meet spill, overfill and corrosion-protection standards by December 1998.
All tanks not meeting the EPA requirements must be replaced or closed.
All tanks that are not upgraded will be subject to the enforcement provisions of state and federal laws.

Environmental contamination from USTs can affect underground water tables and pose hazards to both people and the environment. To date, there have been 270,000 documented cases where chemicals were accidentally released from USTs.

The EPA estimates that there are 1.2 million active USTs, and only about a third are in compliance with the 1998 prevention and protection requirements. That leaves about 800,000 tanks that have yet to be replaced, upgraded, or closed by December 1998. EPA has said that it will not extend the deadline, and that the states will not be able to grant exceptions to the federal regulations.

Because newspapers often use USTs to store gasoline for their delivery vehicles and occasionally bulk amounts of ink, NAA will prepare an environmental alert on UST regulations in the near future. In the mean time, if you need more information on EPA's 1998 UST upgrade requirements, either contact me or call the RCRA/Superfund/Underground Storage Tanks Hotline at (800) 424-9346.

Allen Cooley is an industrial hygienist for NAA. E-mail, coola@naa.org; phone, (703) 648-1325, fax, (703) 648-1333.