{"id":61493,"date":"2023-12-29T10:36:20","date_gmt":"2023-12-29T18:36:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/energi.media\/?p=61493"},"modified":"2023-12-29T10:36:20","modified_gmt":"2023-12-29T18:36:20","slug":"the-environmental-disaster-lurking-beneath-your-neighbourhood-gas-station","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/energi.media\/news\/the-environmental-disaster-lurking-beneath-your-neighbourhood-gas-station\/","title":{"rendered":"The environmental disaster lurking beneath your neighbourhood gas station"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article was published by Grist<\/a> on June 14, 2023 and was co-published with\u00a0Crosscut<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

By Kate Yoder<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

A black, electric-powered Nissan Leaf pulled up to a gas station \u2014 not to fuel up, of course. Matthew Metz, the founder of Coltura, a nonprofit trying to speed up the country\u2019s shift away from gasoline, climbed out of his car with printed maps in hand, prepared to give me a tour.<\/p>\n

It was a sunny spring day, and the Arco station in North Seattle looked like any other on a busy street corner, with cars fuelling up and a line of bored people waiting to buy snacks and drinks inside the convenience store. Metz knows a lot about gas stations, and it changes what he sees. Looking around, he marvelled at the risks that everyone was taking, even if they weren\u2019t aware of it. \u201cThis is a hazardous materials facility,\u201d he told me.<\/p>\n

Drivers pumped their tanks with gas, breathing carcinogens like benzene, the source of\u00a0gasoline\u2019s signature sweet smell<\/a>. On the east side of the property, tall white pipes that vent\u00a0toxic vapours<\/a> from petroleum kept underground stood just 10 feet away from the window of a childcare center. Hidden below the station is a tract of\u00a0contaminated soil that extends underneath a neighbouring apartment building.<\/p>\n

The Arco station has a long history of leaking, with petroleum products discovered floating in the septic tank beneath it in 1990. After decades of efforts to remove and break down that pollution \u2014\u00a0a host of contaminants<\/a>\u00a0including lead, benzene, and the suspected carcinogen\u00a0methyl tertiary-butyl ether<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 trace amounts remain, with some highly polluted patches in the soil. One sample taken late last year showed levels of gasoline-related compounds 72 times higher than Washington state\u2019s allowable limit.<\/p>\n

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Matthew Metz, the founder of the nonprofit Coltura, walks in front of an Arco gas station in Seattle.\u00a0Grist \/ Jesse Nichols<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>
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This Arco station is hardly unique. Almost every gas station eventually pollutes the earth beneath it, experts told Grist. The main culprit: the underground storage tanks that hold\u00a0tens of thousands of gallons of fuel<\/a>, one of the most\u00a0common sources<\/a>\u00a0of groundwater pollution. Typically, two or three of these giant, submarine-shaped tanks are buried under a station to store the gasoline and diesel that gets piped to the pump. A large tank might be 55 feet long and hold as many as\u00a030,000 gallons<\/a>; a typical tank might hold 10,000 gallons. Leaks can occur at any point \u2014 in the storage tank itself, in the gas pumps, and in the pipes that connect them. Hazardous chemicals can then spread\u00a0rapidly<\/a>\u00a0through the soil, seeping into groundwater, lakes, or rivers. Even a dribble can pollute a wide area. Ten gallons of gasoline can contaminate\u00a012 million gallons of groundwater<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 a significant risk, given that groundwater is the source of drinking water for nearly half of all Americans.<\/p>\n

As a result, time-consuming cleanup efforts are unfolding all across the country, with remediation for a single gas station sometimes topping $1 million. Leaks are such a huge liability that they\u2019ve led to a high-stakes game of hot potato, where no one wants to pay for the mess \u2014 not the gas station owners, not the insurance companies that provide coverage for tanks, not the oil companies that supply the fuel. In some states, polluters have shifted tens of millions of dollars in remediation costs onto taxpayers. Roughly\u00a060,000 contaminated sites<\/a>\u00a0are still waiting to be cleaned up, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA \u2014 and those are just the ones that have been found. Washington state has about 2,500 in line, one of the biggest backlogs in the country.<\/p>\n

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