L.U.S.T.LINE

New England Interstate Boott Mills South

Water Pollution Control 100 Foot of John Street

Commission Lowell, Massachusetts

01852-1124

Bulletin 38 

June

2001

A Report On Federal & State Programs To Control Leaking Underground Storage Tanks

The 1998 deadline for removing, replacing, or upgrading substandard USTs was such an all-consuming push forregulators that some of the other particulars of the

tank program (e.g., leak detection and operation and

maintenance) enjoyed considerable freedom

from attention. 

But oh oh oh, when the tank

regulation folks finally came up for

air after the 1998 deadline passed, a

troubling UST reality set in—

those puppies were still leaking! And finding methyl tertiary-butyl

ether (MTBE) cruising through the

groundwater nether regions did nothing

to help matters, except to focus our

attention on the fact that USTs are still a

problem—one that many, including state

and federal legislators, were getting ready to

consider over and done with.

While the fact that UST systems leak has

not come as a major surprise to UST regulators, a certain amount of dismay and frustration tugs at their hearts and minds just the

same. “How much more can we do,“ they

ask, “when our resources have already been

stretched beyond the beyond? How can we be

effective at addressing changes in technology

when the federal rule seems to have drifted

into a state of stifling stagnation? How will

we ever get this complicated set of rules

across to a regulated community that relies

on a continuously revolving and disinterested workforce to carry out day-to-day operations and maintenance?”

LIVE AND LEARN

With Federal UST Regulations More Than 15 Years Old, It’s

High Time to Heed What We’ve Learned in the Meantime 

by Marcel Moreau, Patricia Ellis, Ellen Frye

ASTM’s Standard Guide to Microbial Contamination in Fuels

Dispensing Wisdom

The Sense of Secondary Containment

Prescription for Identifying a Facility’s Release Detection Method

The Human Side of UST Enforcement

Maine’s New UST Siting and Inspection Laws

California Research on 1998 UST Upgrade Effectiveness

Indoor Air Pathway Risks

An Innovative Approach for Meeting Training Needs

PFP in Florida

PFP in Vermont 

New Report on Ethanol in Gasoline

Inside

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■ continued on page 2
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LUSTLine Bulletin 38

Ensure the Safety of Underground Storage Tanks, (www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/

getrpt?gas-01-464 or www.gao. gov/

new.items/d01464.pdf) does a nice

job of characterizing the UST

dilemma. The report was undertaken in response to concerns

expressed by members of Congress

that the UST program is not effectively preventing leaks and that

USTs continue to pose risks. The

report is surprisingly discerning,

due in large part to the fact that

those who conducted the survey on

which the report is based asked

good questions and, more importantly, actually listened to the

answers provided by state and federal UST program managers. 

Based on state and EPA

responses to the survey, the report

estimates that about 89 percent of

the total number of federally regulated tanks were upgraded by September 2000. It also estimates that

about 29 percent of the regulated

tanks were, as of the survey, not

being operated or maintained properly, increasing the risk of soil and

groundwater contamination.

Clearly, our problems with USTs

have not gone away, and as the GAO

report points out unequivocally,

inspection and enforcement effectiveness is in serious need of

improvement. According to the

report, “22 states do not inspect all of

their tanks on a regular basis, and

therefore, some tanks may never be

inspected.” These states typically

target tanks for inspection based on

factors such as a tank’s potential risk

to the environment, proximity to

groundwater, or the number of complaints lodged against it.

Clearly, any such improvement

in inspection and enforcement

requires increased resources—the

eternal stumbling block. Those who

hold the purse strings seem to have a

preference for spending more

money to clean up contamination

than for spending less money up

front to prevent it from occurring in

the first place.

Then again, we must also

acknowledge that the technical and

operational compliance requirements for this program are

humdingers to enforce. EPA estimates that a qualified inspector can

visit 200 facilities in one year. (Report

to Congress on a Compliance Plan for

the Underground Storage Tank Program, June 2000, EPA 510-R-00-001.)

However, based on the time it takes

to perform a complete inspection

and the follow-up involved, many

program managers feel that this

number is optimistic.

Another enforcement frustration

that the report noted more than once

is that most states and EPA lack

authority to use the most effective

enforcement tools, such as prohibiting fuel delivery to noncompliant

tanks, and many state officials

acknowledged that simplified

enforcement tools and resources are

needed to ensure tank compliance.

Another serious drawback with

the tank program that was identified

in the report is the lack of information on the extent and causes of the

leaking tank problem, the effectiveness of current equipment and technology, and the effectiveness of

existing standards. 

Amazingly, in the 13 years since

the federal regulations went into

effect, precious little has been done to

collect appropriate data and to evaluate and modify the rules. As one of its

four UST program initiatives, the

U.S. EPA Office of Underground

Storage Tanks has undertaken a

nationwide effort to assess the adequacy of existing equipment requirements to prevent releases.

Anecdotal Pearls

Heaven knows, those of us who have

lived and breathed USTs over the

years that the tank program has been

chugging along have amassed tank

pits full of opinions. And we can

only hope that the pearls of wisdom—the down and dirty tank

experiences that have accrued during these years—finally have some

value. When the rules were developed in the mid-1980s, regulators

had no tank history of their own

from which to draw; they relied

almost entirely on industry input.

We’d like to take this opportunity to add some of our history and

our opinions to the story. (Altogether,

the three of us who are authoring

this article have over 45 years of UST

history.) We’ll tell it as we see it and

then open up the podium to a

broader group of distinguished and

sagacious UST regulators, who will

dispense their thoughts on what they

Don’t get us wrong, the 1998

deadline accomplished some very

important milestones with regard to

USTs. Besides bringing substandard

UST systems up to improved operational speed, it helped permanently

close approximately 1.5 million of

them, leaving us with that many

fewer tank systems to worry about.

Now we can focus on the remaining

estimated 693,107 tank systems subject to federal regulation and the

innumerable heating oil tanks,

aboveground storage tanks, and

“what not” tanks that are not subject

to federal regulations. Keeping in

mind that no tank is too small to

cause a big headache, the headaches

are bound to persist.

In Light of the GAO Report

The May 2001 General Accounting

Office (GAO) report, Improved Inspections and Enforcement Would Better

LUSTLine

Ellen Frye, Editor

Ricki Pappo, Layout

Marcel Moreau, Technical Advisor

Patricia Ellis, Ph.D., Technical Advisor

Ronald Poltak, NEIWPCC Executive Director

Lynn DePont, EPA Project Officer

LUSTLine is a product of the New England

Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission (NEIWPCC). It is produced through a

cooperative agreement (#CT825782-01-0)

between NEIWPCC and the U.S.

Environmental Protection Agency.

LUSTLine is issued as a communication

service for the Subtitle I RCRA 

Hazardous & Solid Waste Amendments 

rule promulgation process. 

LUSTLine is produced to promote 

information exchange on UST/LUST issues.

The opinions and information stated herein

are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of NEIWPCC.

This publication may be copied. 

Please give credit to NEIWPCC. 

NEIWPCC was established by an Act of

Congress in 1947 and remains the oldest

agency in the Northeast United States

concerned with coordination of the multimedia environmental activities 

of the states of Connecticut, Maine,

Massachusetts, New Hampshire, 

New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

NEIWPCC

Boott Mills South, 100 Foot of John Street

Lowell, MA 01852-1124

Telephone: (978) 323-7929

Fax: (978) 323-7919

lustline@neiwpcc.org

LUSTLine is printed on Recycled Paper 

■ Live and Learn 

continued from page 1
3

LUSTLine Bulletin 38

■ continued on page 4

have learned about USTs. Let’s begin

at the beginning.

Once Upon a Time, There

Was a Problem...

It was that time around 1984 to 1988,

a heady time at EPA. A new, important, and challenging program was

being born. It was being crafted virtually from scratch. It was attempting to regulate a problem on a scale

never before attempted. It’s dynamic

leadership was focussed on a single

goal: Let’s build a program that

works. 

Anything was possible, so long

as it was grounded in the reality that

there were more than two million

underground storage systems in use,

and more than a quarter of them may

have been leaking toxic and flammable substances into the ground. 

The architects of the UST program were young, committed, idealistic, and human. They sought and

considered the advice and counsel of

industry, other regulators, and

equipment manufacturers. They

spent lavishly on research to create

defensible data on which to base

decisions. They gradually became

invested and enamored with the program that they’d crafted, a program

that many of them felt could not fail.

Prevention, Detection,

Remediation

The program had three major

prongs: prevention, detection and

remediation. 

The prevention prong dealt with

those areas that had been identified

as the primary villains in the tank

world: corrosion and delivery

spillage. The antidote would include

the installation of corrosion-protected new systems and the elimination of systems that were

unprotected against corrosion by

1998. Spill containment and overfill

prevention were to be implemented

on newly installed systems immediately and added to all pre-1988 systems by the end of 1998. 

The detection prong was a backup to the prevention prong. It was

intended to stand vigil on the storage

system and detect problems that

might occur on existing systems

before they were upgraded and that

might still (though infrequently)

occur on new systems.

The strategy was to reliably

detect leaks soon after they occurred.

The size of leak to be detected was

set at the limits of the volumetric

detection technology of the time. The

established frequency of detection

was one that was thought to be sufficient to catch leaks before they created large problems without creating

an undue burden on storage system

operators. 

The remediation prong was

intended as the measure that would

deal with all preexisting problems

and would also be the final barrier

between future leaks and the protection of human health and the environment. 

Remediation standards were left

vague, with the intention that states

would fill in the blanks, but the door

was explicitly left open so that sitespecific standards could be set for

cleanup. When fully opened, this

doorway would eventually lead to

risk-based decision making.

The unveiling of the final UST

system regulations, though widely

anticipated, caused remarkably little

stir in the regulated community.

Most people with knowledge of the

status of the tank population recognized that the need to take measures

to address the problem was overdue

and noted that the rules relied heavily on existing industry practices.

The timetable for implementation

was ambitious, but 1998 seemed a

long way off in 1988. There were a

few murmurs of discontent, but, by

and large, the industry set out to do

what needed to be done.

A Report Card

So now that we have lived this bold

plan for 13 years, what have we

learned? Did the plan work as

intended? Did it work in unintended

ways? Did it fail in ways unforeseen

and/or unforeseeable? Does hindsight reveal some serious flaws in the

vision? There are, no doubt, many

views on this. Here are ours—grades

and all.

■ PREVENTION 

Reducing the UST Population (A+) 

As stated earlier, there is little question that the most wildly successful

aspect of the national tank program

has been the enormous reduction in

storage system numbers. The better

than 60 percent reduction in storage

systems points to the vast number of

nonessential storage systems that

were in place in the 1980s (recognizing that many USTs have become

ASTs with their own set of problems,

but that is another story...). The only

UST that is guaranteed not to leak or

spill is the UST that doesn’t exist.

Corrosion Protection for New UST 

Systems (A)

The regulatory program accomplished virtually overnight via the

“interim prohibition,” which went

into effect on May 7, 1985, what manufacturers of corrosion-protected

UST systems had struggled in vain to

achieve for 15 years—the routine

installation of corrosion-protected

systems. By and large, these technologies have performed very well,

though it remains to be seen how

gracefully they perform in the long

term.

Upgrading of Existing UST Systems (C-)

The upgrading requirements for

protecting existing systems from corrosion have been somewhat problematic. The rules do not require the

outright replacement of noncorrosion-protected UST systems, instead

they allow existing systems to be

“upgraded” via cathodic protection

or internal lining technologies. While

perhaps realistic in terms of making

the program more affordable, the

program erred in establishing a single date by which all systems needed

to be upgraded rather than phasing

in the requirement over several years. 

The single-date deadline coupled with a lack of effective incentives to accomplish the upgrading

work early, led to a massive demand

for upgrading services in a short

time frame. This was an invitation to

entrepreneurs to prey on a population of tank owners that had little

When the rules were developed in

the mid-1980s, regulators had no

tank history of their own from which

to draw; they relied almost entirely

on industry input.
understanding of the technologies

they were buying. 

To compound the problem, most

UST owners who went the upgrading route were primarily motivated

by the need to beat the deadline ‘98

while spending as little money as

possible. As a result, there is widespread regulatory concern that much

of the upgrading work may have

been substandard to downright

shoddy. Though the data are sparse,

there are indications that the upgrading technologies may not fare as well

as the designers of the federal rule

had hoped. 

Spill Containment (D)

Spill containment has no doubt had

some effect in containing small spills

associated with fuel deliveries, but it

has also posed a major maintenance

headache for owners and operators.

Because of inadequate design, poor

installation practices, and abuse during use, keeping spill containment

manholes functional has proven to

be a distasteful chore that is most

often ignored. 

The engineering challenge of creating a spill container lid that is liquid tight, easy to remove and

replace, and capable of operating at

or near the ground surface has not

yet been met. It is clear, as well, that

spill containment manholes do not

age gracefully, particularly in the

rust belt where the corrosive action

of road salt and the destructive activity of snowplows contribute to a

short life expectancy. Unfortunately,

the regulatory program has no provision to evaluate these systems over

time so that they can be replaced in a

timely fashion.

Overfill Prevention (F)

Prevention of spills from tank overfill events is an important element in

reducing petroleum contamination.

But regulatory efforts to address the

problem have been compromised by

a failure to consider the entire delivery system. Attempting to solve the

overfill problem by installing equipment in the tank without consideration for the effects on the delivery

operator or the workings of the

delivery truck has lead to solutions

that are perhaps worse than the

problem. (See LUSTLine #21 article

on overfill prevention.) The equipment industry also bears some blame

here for failing to design overfill

devices that work.

It seems that a complete revamping of the approach to overfill prevention is necessary for this source of

spills to be effectively controlled.

(See LUSTLine bulletin #31, “If Only

Overfill Prevention Worked.”)

• DETECTION (D-)

Leaks are an embarrassment that

nobody in the UST-owning community wants to talk about. The major

flaw in the leak detection strategy of

the federal rule is that it assumes that

tank owners will voluntarily come

forward and confess their leaks to

the regulators. 

This assumption fails to take into

account that humans hate to confess

their mistakes. To regulators who

have a hard time understanding this

attitude, next time you are driving

and notice that you have exceeded

the speed limit, stop in at the next

police station and turn yourself in at

the desk. The abysmal failure of leak

detection (at least as far as regulators

can tell) is due in some significant

measure to the lack of compliance

with regulatory reporting requirements. 

But lack of reporting is only part

of the problem. Too many tank

owner/operators have little to no

understanding of the leak detection

equipment they own or the leak

detection procedures required of

them. Too many of them believe that

with the investments they have

made for new equipment and/or

upgrading, they are protected

against any and all leaks for the foreseeable future. To some extent, this

attitude has been fostered by equipment salespeople who are anxious to

make a sale and unwilling to

acknowledge the limitations of their

devices.

We need look no further than the

widespread occurrence of MTBE in

the environment to demonstrate that

the goal of contamination-free UST

systems is still far from being realized. One of the most daunting tasks

facing regulators today is disabusing

the regulated community, of the fantasy that their storage system worries are behind them.

And to top it all off, there is

uncertainty (within the regulatory

community, at least) of the realworld effectiveness of many of

today’s leak detection technologies.

While anecdotal evidence of the failure of leak detection abounds, to

date, little hard data have been gathered to document how well leak

detection hardware is actually performing. Without substantial efforts

to gather such data, it will be virtually impossible to change the status

quo for the simple reason that the

regulated community wants to

believe that everything is working.

• REMEDIATION (B+)

Because the remediation prong of the

federal rule had fewer technical

specifications, leaving it up to the

states to set cleanup standards and

strategies, cleanup technologies have

had the chance to evolve based on

trial and error. As a result, we have

learned an awful lot and have at our

disposal a toolbox of technologies to

help us do a much better job than we

could have 10 years ago.

“It was summer of ’86 when I

climbed into my first excavation pit

in Vermont,” recalls Alaska DEC’s

Ben Thomas. “Back then my standard issue of equipment was a hard

hat, buck knife, and H-NU meter. I

would be lowered into the pit in a

backhoe bucket, stab at the side walls

with my pocket knife, sniff for soil

vapors, and tell the backhoe operator

where to dig. Those were the days

when we closed out hundreds of

sites based on vapor readings alone.

Later, I was given an explosion

meter, just in case.”

Early remediation emphasis was

mostly on source removal or free

product removal. We typically didn’t

look for dissolved BTEX plumes or

determine the direction of groundwater flow. Site characterization was limited to the few wells that were

installed, and pump and treat was the

only game in town. (Actually, it works

better for our current MTBE problem

than it did for BTEX constituents.)

4

LUSTLine Bulletin 38

We are in a position now to step

back and look at all we have learned

and honestly assess what has been

accomplished and what remains 

to be done. 

■ Live and Learn

continued from page 3
State funds had a lot to do with

changing the remediation dynamic.

In the early 1990s, a considerable

number of state assurance funds

were created as means to cleanup

sites and provide financial assurance

to UST owners and operators. Within

a relatively short window of time,

state funds became the primary

financial responsibility mechanism

used by tank owners and operators.

The funds effectively dealt with a

huge number of cleanups. To preserve fund resources and deal with

the overwhelming backlog of contaminated sites, EPA and the states

began to focus on the need for

cleaner, faster, cheaper remediation

alternatives, encouraging the exploration of innovative technologies.

LUST cleanups had initially been the

consultant’s dream come true—protracted and lucrative.

The problem was that many sites

that went beyond standard dig-anddump procedures had become victims of years of ineffective pump and

treat cleanup efforts or endless monitoring without any closure on the

horizon.

At the behest of EPA, many regulators adopted the industry view that

contamination in the ground is okay

as long as it doesn’t hurt anybody.

This cleanup approach, originally

called risk-based corrective action

(RBCA) and more recently risk-based

decision making (RBDM), helped

direct resources to the higher risk

sites. 

States viewed this approach as a

way to move sites to active remediation or close them out due to the lack

of environmental risk—eliminating

the endless monitoring. The new philosophy was directed less toward

how much you could cleanup and

more toward how much you could

safely leave behind. Monitored natural attenuation became the new

mantra.

But now that remediation technologies have improved tremendously, we have the capability of

doing a better job of cleaning up sites

and still keeping the costs down—so

let’s do it.

We need to stress source reduction and rapid response in cleanups.

We’ve got new tools for site characterization that allow us to perform

on-the-fly plume delineation with

direct-push technology and field

labs. No more multiple rounds of

monitoring well installation and

weeks or months between each drill

rig mobilization. 

At a minimum, we should attack

residual contamination in the source

area. Using our technology toolbox,

we can perform source area and

plume remediation where needed,

then let natural attenuation do the rest. 

We don’t need to leave impaired

properties behind. None of us have a

crystal ball to tell us what a site will

be used for five years from now.

Must we emphasize human health

and safety and forget about the environment?

Finally, let’s remember the root

cause of the UST problem—it was

cheaper to leak than not to leak. If

state funds pick up the cleanup tab

and leave the tank owner/operator

free of compliance responsibility or

financial repercussions, leaks will

continue. The UST problem will not

be solved until it becomes more

expensive to leak than not to leak.

Stepping Back and 

Going Forward

The UST program is an enormous

balancing act in which many factors

and outcomes must be considered.

The program has had notable successes, and the overall storage system population is much healthier

today than 20 years ago. But we are

in a position now to step back and

look at all we have learned and honestly assess what has been accomplished and what remains to be

done. The goal of this article is not to

provide answers but to spark discussion and perhaps movement so that

the dreams of the founders of the

UST program may ultimately come

to fruition. ■

If you have any comments or responses

to this article, please let us know. In an

effort to encourage dialogue on where

we are going with the UST/LUST program, we will publish your thoughts in

the next issue of LUSTLine.

5

LUSTLine Bulletin 38

ASTM’s Standard Guide to Microbial

Contamination in Fuels and Fuel

Systems Available

Uncontrolled microbial contamination in fuels and fuel systems remains a

largely unrecognized but costly problem at all stages of the petroleum industry from crude oil production through fleet operations and consumer use.

Microbes growing in fuel systems can cause system component damage,

degrade fuel quality, or both. We plan to cover this subject in more detail in

the next issue of LUSTLine. Meanwhile, check out a new American Society of

Testing Materials (ASTM) document, “D 6469 Standard Guide to Microbial

Contamination in Fuels and Fuel Systems,” available from ASTM’s Web site:

www.ASTM.org.

This guide provides those who have a limited microbiological background with basic information on the symptoms, occurrence, and consequences of chronic microbial contamination. Most importantly, it provides

personnel responsible for fuel and fuel system stewardship with the background necessary to make informed decisions regarding the possible economic and/or safety impact of microbial contamination in their products or

systems. It also addresses the conditions that lead to fuel microbial contamination and biodegradation and the general characteristics of and strategies

for detecting and controlling microbial contamination. 

The information in the guide applies primarily to gasoline, diesel, aviation turbine, marine, industrial gas turbine, kerosene, gasoline, and aviation

gasoline fuels (specifications D396, D910, D975, D1655, D2069, D2880,

D3699, D4814 and D6227) and fuel systems. However, the principals discussed also apply generally to crude oil and all liquid petroleum fuels. The

guide complements and amplifies information provided in ASTM Practice D

4418 on handling gas-turbine fuels. ■