As of April 1995 287,000+ "spills" from undergound storage tanks
have been confirmed by EPA. half of these releases reached groundwater.
Fifty percent of the US population uses groundwater as a souce of
drinking water.
A case in point
is a tank in Morgan County. This particular tank located at a
decommissioned gas station in Great Cacapon created a gas spill
that threatened the Cacapon River in September 2004. Hurricane Jeanne
had just passed through the county inflicting some serious damage
with heavy rains. Those rains caused the ground to become super saturated
and the water table to rise. Since gas is lighter than water, gas
that had leaked out of the tank and long lain unseen underground was
pushed up through the ground-level fill hole, then flowed down the
road toward the river.
The spill
occurred on September 30th, was found by the Great Cacapon fire Department,
sopped up with HazMat pads and bumpers and cordoned off with yellow
police line tape. The Emergency Spill Hotline (1-800-642-3074) had
also been called so on October 1 st the West Virginia Department of
Environmental Protection brought in a tanker truck to "vaccum" out
the gas still remaining tanks that had been submerged for, perhaps,
40 years. Hundreds of gallons were taken out of the tank that
caused the spill and two others found as part of the investigation.
That gas was taken to a disposal site and neutralized, according
to a report filled with the WVDEP Office. Costs of cleanups can
run into the thousands of dollars, sometimes into hundreds of
thousands.
How much gasoline does it take to contaminate water? Not much is the
short answer. The long answer is more complicated. According
to Dr. Joseph Ryan, University of Colorado. Ryan says, "Prior to the
EPA's 1988 UST regulations and their final implementation deadline
in 1998, a slow leak from a 10,000 gallon gasoline storage tank from
a neighborhood service station was virtually undetectable. The hazards
of gasoline are maily attributable to the BTEX compounds--benzene,
toluene, ethlbenzene and xylenes. The benzene content of typical gasoline
is 0.76% by mass. A spill of 10 gallons of gasoline (only 0.1% of
the 10,000 gallon tank, contains about 230 grams of benzene (using
a gasoline density of 0.805 grams per milliliter.
Morgan County WV
and Potomac River Dodged a Bullet
Prevent Contamination of Water Sources
-
Locate Underground Gas Tanks
A 10-gallon gasoline leak can contaminate
12 million gallons of water.
Old, rusting underground
gas storage tanks - possible sources of contamination of drinking-
groundwater and waterways - are accidents waiting to happen and
there may be dozens buried around West Virginia. In order to locate
these tanks and identify the company who owned them, the Department
of Environmental Protection needs citizens help. The lifespan
of the older tanks put underground was only about 20 years and their
time is running out. It is also believed that many of these abandoned
tanks still contain gas or kerosene, among other toxic products that
could contaminate water sources.
ALSO
-Never dump oil
down a storm drain! Recycle!
According to WV division
of Water
& Waste Management one drop of oil pollutes 1000
gallons of water
The EPA's Maximum Contamiant Level (MCL)
for benzene is 5 parts per billion (ppb), or 5 micrograms per liter
in drinking water. The density of gasoline is about 0.8 grams
per millliliter, so the benzene in
a 10 gallon gasoline leak can contaminate
about 46 million liters, or 12 million gallons of water. A spill
in Great Cacapon could reach all the way to Washington DC.
Benzene, just one of the elements in gasoline, is known to be carsinogenic
and exposure to high levels produces central nervous system effects
and death.. From 1987 to 1993, according to the Toxics Release Inventory,
releases of benzene to water totalled 583,210 lbs. Benzene may
be subject to biodedegradation, based on half-life, of 16 days in
an aerobic river die-away test. In a marine ecosystem biodgradation
occurred in 2 days after an acclimation period of 2 days and two weeks
in the summer and sping, respectively, whereas no degradation occurred
in winter.Drinking water levels which are considered 'safe" for short-term
exposures: For a 10 kg (22lb) child consuming 1 liter of water per
day: up to a ten-day exposure to 0.2mg/L.
The crux of the matter
is that old steel tanks that have not been removed, cleaned out
or otherwise taken care of are reaching the end of their serviceability.
If they have not already stated to" rust out" they will begin to decay
shortly. The metal on these steel tanks deteriorat because of electrolysis.
This can occur when the material around the tank is not homogeneous
(all of one kind) or the naturally occurring bacteria in the soil
starts to "eat" the metal. Sanders has in her office an almost perfectly
round, corroded piece of metal about the size of a quarter that is
covered with bacteria and cause a hole in the tank buried in Great
Cacapon.
While the potential
for pollution of the West Virginia's water is high
the problem of unidentified tanks can be corrected with information
from citizens. It is hoped that every Citizen and each County in the
state will take steps for find all USTs in order to protect our waterways
and reduce pollution of one endocrine disrupter. --Abby Chapple
