National Petroleum News (NPN) has been the independent voice of the petroleum industry since 1909 as the opposition to Rockefeller’s Standard Oil. So, motor fuels marketing and retail is not just a sideline for us, it’s our core competency.
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/31797
territories spent approxi- mately $66.9 million of their LUST cooperative agreement money through the end of fiscal year 2010 awarded by the LUST Recovery Act. The EPA spent an additional $2.3 million to help clean up tank releases in Native American country. As of Sept. 30, 2010, 56.3 percent of state grants provided by LUST ARRA had yet to be spent. The review of the UST pro- gram for last year boasts some achievements for states, ter- ritories, tribes and the EPA. According to the 2010 Annual Report, the EPA set a goal for 65.5 percent of all active USTs to be in compliance with leak- age preventive and detection requirements. More than two- thirds, or 68.6 percent, of USTs were found to be compliant, exceeding the goal. By the first three-year inspection mandate on August 2010, the EPA found that almost all states met the require- ment. Also, the number of new UST releases reported expe- rienced an 11 percent drop, with around 6,300 new leaks reported last year. The EPA has beefed up their release pre- vention requirements, as also mandated in the Energy Policy Act of 2005, by producing guidelines to help states carry out the rules. The EPA reports $32.4 million was provided to states in fiscal year 2010 for UST prevention activities. The cleanup process of the program has also made some strides recently. The EPA reports that about 80 percent of 495,000 releases reported since the beginning of the pro- gram have been cleaned up by UST partners. That leaves approximately 93,000 releases remaining. In FY 2010, the EPA’s goal was to clean up 12,250 LUST sites. Although the goal fell a bit short, 11,591 sites were completed. “Colorado received $2.54 million in ARRA funding. We were able to do work at 40 LUST sites, and closed 9 sites,” said Mark Larson, executive director at the Colorado Wyoming Petroleum Marketers Association. “Wyoming received $929,000 in ARRA funding. Twenty-seven LUST sites were worked on with the funding and two were com- pleted and closed.” However, some states had a mixed experience with the addi- tional funding, as the executive director of the Independent Connecticut Petroleum Association Gene Guilford reported. Guilford said he hasn’t seen much of the ARRA dollars mak- ing a difference in the UST program because the state’s legis- lature keeps allocating the money elsewhere. www.npnweb.com n NPN Magazine Preventing the state’s legislature from using funds for activities other than storage tank cleanup functions has been important to the Colorado program’s smooth operation, said Larson. “A few years ago, OPS (the Division of Oil and Public Safety) sought and was allowed to fund enforcement and clean up oversight out of the fund. This provision has worked well in an environment of drastic budget cuts and personnel reductions.” The key to success in Colorado, which has an exemplary storage tank program and has been held out as a national model by the EPA, is that the regulating administration has consistently included the regulated community. “OPS has listened and infused private industry practices and norms into regulation updates while assuring all compliance thresholds are met,” Larson said. “No, the marketers and retailers don’t always agree, but then again, the division has also bent when mandated practices seemed overly burdensome or excessive.” The EPA has begun a regulatory review process to evalu- ate existing regulations, soliciting input from a variety of stakeholders, including tank owners. This review has the potential to make it easier for tank owners by eliminating outdated requirements. However, as NACS explains, the process could also result in additional compliance burdens imposed on tank owners. Looking towards the future, the EPA is addressing alter- native fuels concerns. The agency is clarifying how tank owners and operators can be in federal compliance if they store increased levels of biofuels. The EPA requested com- ments on the draft guidance, published in the Federal Register on Nov. 17, 2010. The final guidance is planned to be issued sometime in 2011 after considering the public commenting. MAY/JUNE 2011 15