What do you do when your underground oil tank leaks?

If you are doing thorough research regarding underground oil tank removal, you will read this BEFORE you remove your tank and it will help you manage your tank removal, in particular if your tank leaks. 

If you removed your oil tank and it leaked, know that you potentially have options other than remediation, but remediation will be thrust upon you by the tank removal companies 9 times out of 10.

Understand you are removing your underground oil tank because it can leak and cleaning up a tank leak can cost thousands of dollars. Some tank leaks cost tens of thousands of dollars.  When you remove your UST, and your tank did not leak you would receive a report from the company defining that the tank did not leak and you would be done.  Your tank removal contract should clearly say this.  

Every tank at some point will leak because metal corrodes, so the less time a tank is left to rust in the ground, the better.  When you remove the tank and it is found to be leaking, you are going to switch gears into a diagnostic mode.   Meaning,  when a tank leaks it makes the project take a new approach as you are now dealing with determining if the tank leak is of the extent that remediation is or is not necessary.  The process to determine this should be detailed in tank removal contract.  Trust us this is an ethical obligation by the removal company to specify what to expect if the tank leaks because there are definitive costs with leaking tanks and you should be informed.  Case in point you go out to dinner, you are told of the dinner specials, they sound good you order one (no price was given) and when you get the bill you will be slightly annoyed if the price was higher than the other entrees listed on the menu.   Same thing a tank leak if you remove your tank for say $1,600.00 find out it leaks and are told it will cost $12,000 to cleanup, you will be upset, but it happens all the time.

When an underground oil tank leaks, you have to test the soil (even if it was not in your removal contract).  New Jersey and Pennsylvania regulations say when a leak occurs you evaluate the excavation for petroleum levels to determine if petroleum levels are above or below acceptable levels.  Depending on your state either Pennsylvania or New Jersey, you would do the following:

New Jersey Oil Tank Leaks

New Jersey is very specific and requires soil samples in each sidewall of the excavation four (4) and the bottom one (1) to be tested. So you test the 5 oil samples not the actual 2 proposed, you do this hoping that all levels are below 5,100 ppm (Levels above 5100 ppm require remediation).  If your samples meet this criteria that is good.  So now you follow another NJDEP protocol by analyzing the highest soil sample of the 5 for a secondary test.  This is a two part process, failing either would put you in the category of having to remediate the soil contamination, discharge.  But if you passed  you just have to establish a buffer between the soil and with oil in it and groundwater (typically a 2' buffer is necessary). If soils are near groundwater, then a groundwater sample would also be required.    All these steps can be initiated on day of removal if the company has trained personnel on site and equipment.  This is an inexpensive approach to take and most companies removing your tank will not do this as it raises the cost of removal and they make more money from remediation so remediation is their preferred course of action.

Pennsylvania Oil Tank Leaks

In Pennsylvania when your tank leaks you need samples across the center line (invert) of the removed tank.

Soil analytical parameters consist of Pennsylvania Shortlist – Diesel Fuel / Fuel Oil No. 2 by EPA Method 8260C per Table IV-9 of the PADEP Storage Tank Program Guidance Section IV (PADEP 253-0300-100), last revised March 18, 2008. Soil to Groundwater Pathway Residential Standard.

• Benzene:– (PADEP Standard is 0.5 ppm)
• Ethylbenzene: (PADEP Standard is 70 ppm)
• Isopropylbenzene (Cumene) : (PADEP Standard is 600 ppm)
• MTBE: (PADEP Standard is 2 ppm)
• Naphthalene: (PADEP Standard is 25 ppm)
• Toluene: (PADEP Standard is 100 ppm)
• 1,2,4- Trimethylbenzene: (PADEP Standard is 8.4 ppm)
• 1,3,5- Trimethylbenzene: (PADEP Standard is 74 ppm)

*Concentrations below the eight compounds indicates petroleum levels are within acceptable PADEP residential soil standards.

True story the photo below is from a 500 gallon tank that was in use in Pennsylvania.  Home was built in 1979, home was being sold, in lieu of testing the tank, which the sellers offered but buyers refused to accept (tank was too old), the tank was replaced with an AST and removed.  Yes the tank was riddled with holes.  Of the eight petroleum constituents listed above only one exceed applicable standards.  Remediation was still warranted, but not as extensive as it would appear by looking at the holes in the tank.

Bottom line you should review your tank removal project as a How to Manage a Leaking Tank Project.  This will ensure that you face the removal with the thought that the tank may leak, you will demand soil sampling at time of removal you will understand what legally requires remediation and last but not least you will not fall for companies down playing the risk of a leak.

All of this should be detailed  in the contract for removal and although additional monies are being spent, you potentially are able to avoid having to remediate the tank leak.  For your information, a small tank leak remediation (removing contaminated soils) would average between $6,000.00 and $10,000.00, yep that is a small one.

Too many tanks get removed and found to be leaking and remediation is a quick course of action (not cheap) that is followed in lieu of performing soil testing.  Fact, we have had to resample removed tank excavations where the owner was told by another firm that remediation was necessary and we found petroleum levels were acceptable.