PA Underground Storage Tanks Compliance Exceeds National, Regional Averages

The Department of Environmental Protection released a report this week indicating 73 percentof Pennsylvania’s underground storage tank owners and operators were in compliance with federal and state standards, well ahead of the national average of 66 percent.

 

The environmental compliance report was filed with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

States in the mid-Atlantic region achieved a 62 percent average compliance rate, and Pennsylvania trailed only Delaware in the region.

 

The Federal Energy Policy Act of 2005 requires states that receive federal UST program funding to provide summary information on USTs on or before December 31. DEP receives federal funding under Subtitle I of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act to support its pollution prevention and corrective action work.

DEP recently completed a review of open claims for corrective action funded through the USTIF. Initiated in October 2006, the project goal was to review all open USTIF claims filed between 1994 through 1999 and resolve as many cases as possible.

 

Since the project began, staff in DEP regional offices have worked with tank owners to close 144 open claims and return approximately $6 million being held in reserve to the Underground Storage Tank Indemnification Fund, the Fund that provides tank owners with pollution cleanup insurance.

 

Gov. Rendell this week withheld $5 million the Administration had allocated to repay a portion of the $100 million borrowed from the Fund in 2002. Only $3 million will be repaid this fiscal year, if there are no other changes.

Summary information on the status of Underground Storage Tanks in the state will be posted on DEP's Storage Tank webpage.