A pilot program developed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to clean up leaking and abandoned underground storage tanks (USTs) is being made permanent, according to Agency officials.

EPA developed the pilot in September 2001, but a $50 million authorization included in the recently enacted “Small Business Liability Relief and Brownfields Revitalization Act” allows the Agency to make the new “UST-fields” program permanent.
Under previous law, EPA could use brownfields funds to clean-up contaminated sites as long as petroleum was not the only contaminant. However, the Act specifically provides funding for contaminated UST fields, such as those found at abandoned gas stations in urban areas. EPA estimates that there are as many as 200,000 such sites around the country. The Agency already has awarded UST-field pilot grants of $100,000 each to ten cities, with 40 more grants to be awarded later this year.

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