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By Chrystal Liebold and Mara Wolke
Underground tanks that leak gasoline and other petroleum products are the greatest threat to the source of nearly half of the state’s drinking water, state officials say.
The tanks, known as Leaking Underground Storage Tanks or LUST, leak hazardous chemicals into the groundwater used by private and many city wells. More than 9,000 tanks and associated pipes are on a state list of those that have leaked and left behind a mess to clean up, according to the state Department of Environmental Quality.
In Muskegon County, more than 150 tanks that leaked gasoline and other petroleum products are in the state database.
Cleaning them up is a bit like bailing out a rowboat with a hole in the bottom. New releases are reported faster than old ones can be cleaned up. In 2002, state officials recorded 433 new releases reported and 401 prior releases cleaned up; in 2003, there were 310 new releases reported and 273 prior releases cleaned.
And there may be three times as many leaking tanks out there that have yet to be discovered, said Pam Howd, a DEQ expert on leaking underground tanks.
“That’s a big risk because it’s an unknown,” Howd said.
The tanks leak chemicals that threaten human health, said Mohammad Yusaf, program support section chief for the DEQ. Among them is benzene, which is known to cause cancer.
Other threats come from hazardous fumes that get into the soil and air and infiltrate basements.
“You wouldn’t even realize it’s there until your dog gets sick,” Howd said. And the fumes can explode, threatening homeowners and workers who remove tanks and clean up soil.
While the need for cleanup is great, so is the cost. And funding is short.
DEQ Division Chief Andrew Hogarth estimates that $1.7 billion is needed to clean those sites. Cleanups can cost anywhere from $15,000 to more than $1 million. The average is $300,000.
Right now responsible parties pay for the cleanup at about a third of the 9,000 sites, state officials say. Of the remaining 6,000, about 30 percent will eventually be addressed by those who are responsible for them.
The remaining 4,200 require public funding because the owners are bankrupt or cannot be found, said Philip Schrantz, chief of field operations at the DEQ.
“The funds are comparatively small when compared to the need,” Schrantz said.
Meanwhile, an average of about 450 new LUST sites are reported each year and about 150 of those need public funding, Hogarth said.
For 2003, the DEQ received slightly more than $4 million in state funds for work on seven LUST clean-ups.
Although there are a variety of funding sources, most are drying up.
A 7/8 cent per gallon fee started in 1988 on petroleum products financed a $340 million bond program for LUST cleanups, Hogarth said. The state stopped approving requests for that money in 1995 to avoid spending more than the bond raised.
The state’s fiscal crisis meant the $8 million per year the program used to get from general fund was cut in 2002, he said. And funding from the Clean Michigan Initiative, which pays for a variety of cleanups - but at only a few LUST sites - is expected to be gone within the next two or three years.
The LUST program also shares with other contaminated sites about $12 million a year generated by unclaimed bottle deposits.
“All the programs except for the bottle bill have a finite life,” Hogarth said.
With state government cutting costs, DEQ officials are trying to hang on and hope for the best.
“Our strategy is to try to wait for at least another year to push really heavily for more funding because right now, it’s probably going to fall on deaf ears,” Hogarth said. “We think we can get through the next couple of years, but then we’ll be in serious trouble.”
The lack of funding has limited staff sizes which can lead to neglect, said Mike Jury, the DEQ’s coordinator for contaminated sites in the Saginaw Bay District office.
The department receives closure reports on the sites from the companies that are in charge of cleaning them up, Jury said. But the DEQ doesn’t have the staff to make sure every clean-up is done properly.
“It’s daunting at times,” he said. “We have three staff members in this office to oversee 12 counties- do the math.”
Alex Nixon contributed to this report