Hazardous Materials

Upgrading of Underground Storage Tanks Can Be Improved to Avoid Costly Cleanups Gao ID: NSIAD-92-117 May 13, 1992

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that hundreds of thousands of underground storage tanks containing petroleum or hazardous chemicals are leaking and threatening public health and the environment. Although the Defense Department (DOD) reportedly owns more than 30,000 underground storage tanks across the country subject to EPA or state regulations, the accuracy of this inventory is doubtful due to a lack of historical records and other factors. DOD is trying to accurately pinpoint the number of underground storage tanks it owns, and it has made progress in meeting EPA requirements. For example, although DOD failed to meet EPA leak-testing standards in 1989 and again in 1990, its compliance level increased from 41 percent to 78 percent during the 2-year period. Yet progress on other problems posed by the underground tanks has been limited due primarily to a lack of funding.

GAO found that: (1) in 1989, DOD owned 30,692 underground storage tanks (UST) in the continental United States, Alaska, and Hawaii that were subject to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) or state regulations; (2) the services reported a lack of historical data and records on older tanks which raised questions about the inventory count; (3) there may have been thousands of additional DOD-owned tanks excluded from the inventory count, because they were excluded or deferred from EPA regulations; (4) in April 1991, DOD collected more data and reported that it had about 24,000 regulated tanks and 17,000 unregulated tanks; (5) DOD made progress in meeting EPA leak-testing requirements by increasing its compliance level to 78 percent in 1990; (6) DOD progress in upgrading and cleaning up UST has been limited due to a lack of funds and funding rules; (7) the Army, Navy, and Air Force have all issued policies that require full compliance with the new EPA tank standards and encourage the use of above-ground replacement tanks and upgrading single-walled tanks; (8) DOD lacks a comprehensive plan to improve its implementation of EPA regulations; and (9) over half of DOD UST are unregulated, which poses significant risks to public health and the environment.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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