NFR USTs, Your thoughts

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Canuck from Kansas

Canuck from Kansas

Aimlessly wondering through life
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As some may know, we are searching the northeast for a property - thought we found one but lo and behold, there is a UST. For those of you in the northeast and maybe some in Oregon (it is apparently an issue there as well) USTs are underground storage tanks (the northeast is lousy with them). This particular UST has apparently been emptied and cleaned, but not filled. We have pretty much decided on our course of action, but I thought I would consult the collective wisdom of you folks. For some reason I trust y'all.

Thanks in advance.

cheers
 
Yup, lousy with them to the point it spawned a whole industry around them.

Check local laws. If it's fuel (most there are) it has to be pressure tested every so often. If it fails during a test, hope it's just a valve and not the tank.

I know Virginia and Pennsylvania used to require total replacement of the tank and vent system after a 2nd test failure. Not sure if that's true anymore.

Good luck on your hunt
 
Already checked with the county for their requirements to abandon in place, and penciled out that cost vs having the tank dug up and hauled off? As a facilities director with an extensive property portfolio, dealt with multiple diesel fuel UST's for emergency generators, and when abandoning in place the standard was to empty and clean, conduct a soil test around and under the tank to verify there has been no leakage, fill the tank with a lightweight concrete slurry.
All comes down to the particular county.
 
Yup, yup, yup. Is not technically abandoned in place as the tanks has not been filled, no soil test to date that we have been made aware of - Not sure I would be satisfied with that anyway as the regs can change and if we were to ever sell, we would face the problem again. I think it has to be pulled, the current owners are unwilling to negotiate around that; seems they want to make their problem our problem, so we will likely abandon any offer.

Thanks for the advice to date.
 
SurfnFish said:
Already checked with the county for their requirements to abandon in place, and penciled out that cost vs having the tank dug up and hauled off? As a facilities director with an extensive property portfolio, dealt with multiple diesel fuel UST's for emergency generators, and when abandoning in place the standard was to empty and clean, conduct a soil test around and under the tank to verify there has been no leakage, fill the tank with a lightweight concrete slurry.
All comes down to the particular county.
Click to expand...
That’s exactly what I had to do with my Mom’s house in PDX when we sold it, wasn’t unreasonable as soils tested clean. Around $1K iirc but that was in 2006.
 
When an UST becomes a documented LUST it becomes a very big and costly regulatory mess, and can also have significant negative impacts upon future sale of a property. Lenders have become far more astute about protecting themselves from acquiring such liabilities.
 
krusty said:
When an UST becomes a documented LUST it becomes a very big and costly regulatory mess, and can also have significant negative impacts upon future sale of a property. Lenders have become far more astute about protecting themselves from acquiring such liabilities.
Click to expand...
This is our exact concern. Probably why no soil test to date, ignorance is bliss and they don't have to disclose. At this point, I think there is too much risk, at our stage in life, nearing retirement, I think we need to be more risk averse.
 
ran a project in Mountain View to build out a high tech campus and critical services data center on 17 acres, a former Siemans chip manufacturing site that had been declared a Superfund site due to 10,000 gal UST's leaking the highly carcinogenic solvent TCE. To get final EPA/CAL-EPA approval took a year of soil remediation work that cost over 10M. And meanwhile, that plume continues to migrate west, evaporating up through the soil of multi-million dollar Silicon Valley properties with the homeowners clueless.
As part of the process we had to monitor the site air 24/7 before, during and after remediation, sending samples daily to the designated reporting lab.
The number of carcinogenic chemicals present in the air samples? Dozens. The one with the highest levels of PPM and considered the most dangerous to humans? Diesel exhaust, it's particulate being the perfect size to lodge in lung tissue when inhaled. The global environmental engineering firm we worked with stated diesel exhaust as the single most prevalent carcinogenic in air around the world.
Next time you're behind that Cummins p/u spewing black exhaust, roll up your windows...
 
SurfnFish said:
ran a project in Mountain View to build out a high tech campus and critical services data center on 17 acres, a former Siemans chip manufacturing site that had been declared a Superfund site due to 10,000 gal UST's leaking the highly carcinogenic solvent TCE. To get final EPA/CAL-EPA approval took a year of soil remediation work that cost over 10M. And meanwhile, that plume continues to migrate west, evaporating up through the soil of multi-million dollar Silicon Valley properties with the homeowners clueless.
As part of the process we had to monitor the site air 24/7 before, during and after remediation, sending samples daily to the designated reporting lab.
The number of carcinogenic chemicals present in the air samples? Dozens. The one with the highest levels of PPM and considered the most dangerous to humans? Diesel exhaust, it's particulate being the perfect size to lodge in lung tissue when inhaled. The global environmental engineering firm we worked with stated diesel exhaust as the single most prevalent carcinogenic in air around the world.
Next time you're behind that Cummins p/u spewing black exhaust, roll up your windows...
Click to expand...


Rolling coal should be mandatory jail time!
 
Guy Gregory said:
Walk away from the property with the tank unless you know what you are doing and you can get the property at a deep discount. If one of those are not true, get away.
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Yep, make them take it out and pay for it as a condition of the sale. Then double check to make sure they actually did it!
 
Canuck from Kansas said:
Yup, yup, yup. Is not technically abandoned in place as the tanks has not been filled, no soil test to date that we have been made aware of - Not sure I would be satisfied with that anyway as the regs can change and if we were to ever sell, we would face the problem again. I think it has to be pulled, the current owners are unwilling to negotiate around that; seems they want to make their problem our problem, so we will likely abandon any offer.

Thanks for the advice to date.
Click to expand...
Currently pulling a UST at work - fun stuff. Have had to pull quite a few of them for work (a lot of old schools have USTs) over the years - they can turn into a pretty spendy ordeal if the soil is no bueno.

If they won't do a soil test, I'd stay away. Never know how bad the tank is leaking and how many yards of soil could be contaminated. Could be a huge cost.

I agree with you though, the tank should go. No reason to mess around with that.

If they did a soil test and it came back clean, you could reduce your offer by the cost to clean/abate/demo the tank.
 
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