Underground Storage Tanks

Under 40 CFR 280.64, at sites where investigations under § 280.62 (a) (6) indicate the presence of free product, owners and operators must remove free product to the maximum extent practicable as determined by the implementing agency.

Guidance

• How to Effectively Recover Free Product At Leaking Underground Storage Tank Sites: A Guide for State Regulators. (EPA 510-R-96-001). September 1996.

Assessment Tools/Models

• The Hydrocarbon Spill Screening Model (HSSM) This model was developed by the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency to serve as a simplified model for subsurface releases of fuel hydrocarbons.  The most common problem that the model may be used to address is that of a  leaking underground storage tank.  The model tracks the flow of the water-immiscible fuel, simulates the dissolution of various chemicals (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylenes or MTBE) into ground water, and the transport of contaminants to receptors in aquifers.
• OnSite Calculator OnSite provides a set of online calculators for estimating transport parameters from field data, running simple models and performing unit conversions. The intent is to provide aids to planning site assements or in reviewing modeling reports. The calculators include estimates of hydraulic gradients, the retardation factor, temperature-dependent Henry's Law constants, effective solubilities from fuels, estimated longitudinal dispersivity and transport calculations from pulse or fuel sources. Example applications show how to use the suite of calculators for site assessment and report review.

Other Web Sites/Resources

• American Petroleum Institute (API)
• The API Soil and Groundwater report "Distribution and Recovery of Petroleum Hydrocarbon Liquids in Porous Media" is available from API publications department by ordering pub. no. 4760.
• The API LNAPL Distribution and Recovery Model (LDRM) is available at http://www.api.org/ehs/groundwater/lnapl/lnapl-reg.cfm.
• The API Soil and Groundwater report "Free-Product Recovery of Petroleum Hydrocarbon Liquids" by Randy Charbeneau, et al., has been published. It is available from the API publications department by ordering pub. no.I4682.
  A summary of the report can be found at http://engineers.ihs.com/document/abstract/HKCXIAAAAAAAAAAA.
• Federal Remediation Technologies Roundtable (FRTR)
• Dual-Phase Extraction
• Bioslurping
• Chapter 9 - Free Product Recovery

Top of page