Environmental and economic impact of underground storage tanks in the United States and Territories.

228 Pages·1992·5 MB·en_US

by  Helvey, Clete R.

ABSTRACT
ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECONOMIC IMPACT OF
UNDERGROUND STORAGE TANKS IN THE
UNITED STATES AND TERRITORIES
By
Clete R. Helvey
December 1992
The existing population of Underground Storage Tanks
(USTs) in the United States is enormous. The three major
problems relating to (USTs) which must be addresses by
communities and UST owners are: (1) the large number of
aged USTs in the United States without adequate leak
protection, the risks associated with UST management
(2)
and (3) the rising costs of UST remediation and regulation
requirements. The consequences of using USTs for storage
of liquid fuels and chemicals are addresses in this paper.
The discussion involves such parameters as age, material,
product, corrosion, location and quantity. All of these
parameters have a direct influence on the environmental
and economic impact of USTs in the United States. It will
be seen that while age, material and corrosion play a
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major role in the number of leaking USTs; product,
location and quantity are major factors associated with
the impacts of those leaks.
This paper discusses the number of existing USTs and
the percentage of those that are leaking. It also
presents the costs associated with the remediation of
those leaks and the separate costs of replacing or
updating old USTs to meet the new Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) regulations.