FILE - Workers remove a 10,000-gallon underground gasoline storage tank to be replaced with a new tank at a gas station in Sacramento, Calif., May 23, 2003. Nearly half of Americans depend on groundwater for their drinking water, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Environmental experts say even a pinprick-size hole in an underground tank can send 400 gallons of fuel a year into the ground, polluting soil and water.
Most tanks were made of steel in the mid-1980s and likely to corrode over time. Modern tanks are fiberglass, which is more resistant to corrosion, but all tanks begin to leak sooner or later, said Dr. Kelly Pennell, a professor of environmental engineering and water resources at the University of Kentucky. The cylindrical tanks typically hold tens of thousands of gallons of fuel.“If a gasoline station operated for 10 or 15 years, you may not be able to detect those small leaks,” said Dr.
Cleaning up groundwater pollution is costly, said Anne Rabe, environmental policy director at the New York Public Interest Research Group, a non-profit that works on environmental issues, including leaking underground storage tanks. The owners of tanks are supposed to carry insurance and pay for cleanup, but that doesn’t always happen. A trust fund that gets money from a gas tax helps — it currently holds about $1.5 billion — but the program costs states and the federal government