Saranac Lake, N.Y. Gas Station Owner to Install New Equipment to Ensure Underground Petroleum Tanks Are Not Leaking Into Groundwater

(New York, N.Y.) The owner of 4 gas stations around Saranac Lake, N.Y. will spend $60,000 to enhance how its gas stations detect leaks from their underground petroleum storage tank systems, and will assist another gas station and a hotel to do the same as the result of an arrangement with the E.P.A. (EPA). P.J. Hyde & Son, Incorporated will also pay a $16,000 fine under the agreement, which addresses the company's failure to properly test the leak detection equipment of underground petroleum storage tank systems for leaks at 5 gas stations in Saranac Lake, Tupper Lake and Indian Lake, and a hotel in Lake Clear. Leaking underground storage tanks pose significant threats to soil, surface water and ground water.

"Out of sight does not mean out of mind when it comes to underground storage tanks, which is why it is critical that facilities monitor their tanks and make sure they are not leaking," said E.P.A. Regional Administrator Judith Enck. "The Adirondack Park is an environmentally-sensitive area of the state that is teeming with clean water, which could easily be impacted by leaking tanks."

The leak detection system upgrade is considered a supplemental environmental plan under the agreement. A supplemental environmental plan is an environmentally-beneficial plan that a violator agrees to undertake in settlement; it must be a plan that a violator will not otherwise be required to perform. P.J. Hyde & Son, Incorporated is replacing conventional leak detection devices with more technologically-advanced electronic leak detection devices at the company's 4 area gas stations as well as another gasoline station owned by another company and a hotel in Lake Clear, Charlie's Wilderness Inn, that the company used to own.

Routine E.P.A. inspections of P.J. Hyde & Son, Incorporated gas stations and the hotel showed that from 2007 to 2009, P.J. Hyde & Son, Incorporated violated the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act yearly requirements for testing automatic line leak detectors at its gas stations in Saranac Lake, Indian Lake and Tupper Lake. P.J. Hyde & Son, Incorporated also failed to install an automatic line leak detector and an overfill device at the one gasoline tank at a hotel it then owned in Lake Clear. P.J. Hyde & Son, Incorporated is now in compliance with the requirements.

Petroleum delivers from underground storage tanks can contaminate water, making it unsafe to drink, pose fire and explosion hazards, and can have short and long-term effects on people's health. In excess of 600,000 underground storage tank systems exist nationwide, and In excess of 375,000 leaking tanks have been cleaned up over the last decade because of strict environmental oversight.

For more information on underground storage tanks, visit http://www.epa.gov/region02/ust/.

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