By:Cindy J. Roth
A Bellmore couple is facing thousands of dollars worth of damage after their home's underground fuel tank leaked. Oil escaped the tank, penetrated the ground and traveled through a bulkhead into Bellmore Creek. The spill is being controlled by containment booms in the creek and poses no threat to local residents, said Brian Austin of the state's Department of Environmental Conservation.
How much the leak will cost the couple is unknown at this time. It will be several months before a complete clean up of the land and water from the leak is completed.
The price tag could be high, according to Kevin Rooney of The Oil Heat Institute of Long Island. Rooney estimates that about 90,000 homes on Long Island, or about 12 percent, currently use underground storage tanks (USTs) like the Bellmore couple's.
A tank's longevity depends on the soil consistency in which the tank is buried and there is no set amount of time a tank can last. USTs do not leak because they get old and rusty, said Rooney, but rather because pressure from soil packed around the tanks causes pebbles to grind up against them, leading to cracks which can cause leaks.
Homeowners in central Nassau County are most at risk for UST leaks because the soil is very pebbly, Rooney said. The North Shore is least at risk because the area has clay soil. The South Shore, made up of sandy soil, is not a high risk area for leaks from soil pressure, but USTs located near waterways are vulnerable to salt water intrusion, which over time will cause erosion and eat at the walls of the tank.
When spills occur on Long Island they spread quickly because the soil is porous, creating huge migration abilities, said Walter Hang of Toxic Targeting, an environmental mapping agency that charts oil spills to help homeowners avoid purchasing contaminated lands.
Once a leak occurs, excavation work creates a lower resistance pathway for oil to travel through, stopping a leak from continuing to flow into neighbor's properties or nearby waterways.
The 500-gallon UST spill in Bellmore has been dug up to intercept the oil. It is estimated that 10-20 gallons of oil seeped through the bulkhead.
Above ground tanks are much easier to monitor for leaks, but for homeowners with USTs there are preventative measures they can take to catch a leak before it causes major damage.
The best protection against an oil leak is to put in a new tank when purchasing a home or after twenty years of occupancy, Hang said. It is important to think of the oil tank as a part of the house and treat it well even though people do not see it. When people buy a home they put in new windows, floors and doors. It only makes sense to replace the tank too, Hang said.
The Nassau County Department of Health does not require testing of oil tanks less than 1,100 gallons, although the department must be notified once a leak occurs. Rooney said most homeowners catch their leaks in the early stages because many receive their oil on auto delivery. With auto delivery, a computer calculates when a tank needs more oil. Erratic consumption is often the first tip off to a leak.
"As an industry we don't want anyone to have catastrophic loss of product," Rooney said. "We advise [homeowners to] pay attention [to their tanks]."
Rooney, Hang and Austin all said that homeowners are better off replacing USTs rather than trying to test them for a leak. The mere testing of the tank is enough to cause a leak, especially in older models.
The Nassau County Department of Health requires any abandoned, underground tank be removed from the ground unless removal would result in damage to permanent surrounding structures. In these cases, the department uses a process called "abandonment in place", where the UST is emptied and filled with inert materials, such as clean sand, and left in the ground.
Of the 90,000 homes on Long Island with USTs, Rooney said 30 percent have already upgraded to newer aboveground tanks. Rooney predicts the total number of homes with USTs will shrink in the upcoming years because of a state law passed last year giving homeowners a tax credit of $500 for replacing existing tanks with new ones.
The cost of replacing a tank varies by size and the amount of work involved, but with the tax credit, Rooney said a new tank should only cost a few hundred dollars.
Spending a few hundered dollars to replace a UST is well worth the investment when homeowners look at the alternative of having to clean up a spill. Since the Department of Health does not require testing of smaller oil tanks, homeowners therefore become strictly liable for the full cost of clean up of any land or waterway damaged from a spill originating on their property.
"The cost of clean up can be staggering," Hang said. "It runs easily tens of thousands to even hundreds of thousands of dollars. If you have to have oil, you want to make sure if there is a leak you can see it. Aboveground tanks are better."
If you think you have an oil tank leak, you should call the Nassau County Department of Health at 571-3417.
