Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 13, 1995 TAG: 9505170002
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CATHRYN McCUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: MONTVALE LENGTH: Long
Regulators would come in when a spill was reported and work out cleanup plans with the responsible company. Routine monitoring for ground-water pollution was not required.
There was "nothing really in place except requirements to contain and clean up a spill," said David Ormes, who supervises the Department of Environmental Quality's above-ground tank program.
Then, in 1990, a leak in Fairfax was discovered. An estimated 200,000 gallons of oil had oozed into the ground water and spread under nearby homes. The leak, eventually traced back to Star Enterprise, a Texaco affiliate, had gone unnoticed for years.
"The Star facility in Northern Virginia brought this to our attention," said David Miles, ground-water specialist in the DEQ's Roanoke office. "Our group cranked out four sets of regulations in record time. I think we did a pretty good job."
What resulted was one of the most aggressive programs in the country, one that other states look to as a model. Virginia's now requires:
Registration of every tank, with tank description, location and history.
A response plan for worst-case spills.
Reports of ground-water conditions with routine monitoring at large tank farms.
Leak detection.
Pollution prevention, including inventory control, daily visual inspections, weekly checklist inspections, examinations of all tank interiors by 1998, vapor monitoring, employee training, pipeline safeguards and strict record keeping.
"I think we're more proactive" than the federal government, Ormes said.
Under the new program, that's true. Previously, the Environmental Protection Agency was the chief watchdog.
For years, EPA required only that oil companies draft plans to prevent spills to surface waters. Ground-water pollution was not addressed. And the EPA didn't have to approve the plans, said Ruth Podems, spokeswoman for the EPA's Region III office in Philadelphia.
After the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989, the agency stepped up its requirements to include emergency response and liability for spills - but still little in the way of prevention.
EPA inspectors last came to Montvale in 1990, Podems said. The six oil companies operating there were told to develop individual response plans, rather than a joint one they had used.
Now Virginia is negotiating with the EPA to conduct inspections on behalf of the federal government, Ormes said. "We're going to be visiting these facilities anyway, and since the programs are similar, why not do it all together anyway?"
The six companies in Montvale have filed their Virginia plans, although Conoco, Hess and Amoco were late, the DEQ says.
Colonial Pipeline, which ships refined oil through Montvale on its way from Houston to New York, is regulated by the U.S. Department of Transportation and is not covered by Virginia's new program.
When the plans were all in, Virginia regulators found ground water contamination at almost all of the state's 96 large tank farms - twice as much as they had previously known about.
The Montvale farms were among those with some degree of contamination. Under state rules, Amoco and Conoco are pumping out "free-product" - oil floating on top of the water table - which turned up in relatively small amounts at their terminals.
Beyond that, further cleanup is a judgment call. It all depends on risk to human health and the environment. And, Miles said, that in turn depends on how much petroleum is there, where it's going, and whether it could affect creeks, drinking wells or other "receptors."
Some would say it also depends on politics.
Last year, the department adopted a more flexible approach, rather than ordering cleanups whenever contamination exceeded a "parts-per-million" standard.
Gov. George Allen's administration said the old policies cost too much, took too long, and hindered economic activity. Now, "small leaks determined to pose no risk to public health or the environment will not require further action," according to a DEQ memo.
Critics say this could leave potential problems unchecked.
"What you're saying is, if it hasn't gotten anywhere, it doesn't count," said Patti Jackson, director of the James River Association, a nonprofit watershed conservation group in Richmond. "I think it's going to spell disaster down the road."
She also questioned why regulators in Richmond have the right to determine which communities get cleaned up. "Who should be deciding what level of risk is acceptable?" she asked. "The people in that community, because they're the ones that have to live with it."
"Ground water is not a resource we're going to protect for the future," said one agency staffer, describing the DEQ's present attitude. Low levels of petroleum in the ground are now deemed acceptable, said the employee, who asked not to be named, fearing recrimination on the job.
But leaving small amounts of petroleum in the ground may not cause harm, some experts say. Petroleum degrades naturally in soil because bacteria eat the organic components, said John Novak, an engineer professor at Virginia Tech.
"It could be that all this is just sitting there and it might not be a big deal," he said.
This process, called bioremediation, frequently is referred to by the oil industry and regulators alike as the wave of the future.
Politics also may play into the survival of Virginia's above-ground storage tank program. Allen has ordered a review of all state regulations, and vowed to eliminate ones that are burdensome, intrusive and beyond what federal and state law require, unless they are "essential to protect the health, safety and welfare of citizens."
DEQ officials say they are reviewing the tank program, like all environmental regulations, to see if it's good or bad for Virginians.
"If we don't plan for these kinds of emergencies," said Jim McDaniel, head of the agency's spill response and remediation office, "it's more costly to just let it go unchecked and have a catastrophe."
Jackson agrees, but worries that the decision on the tank program and other environmental rules will be politically motivated to save industries money.
"These are the same kinds of ways decisions were made in the 1950s," she said. "Out of sight, out of mind."
by CNB