Dungog Council is seeking legal advice to its potential liability relating to active and abandoned underground petroleum storage systems (UPSS).
In a report to last week’s council meeting, manager of environmental services Terry Kavanagh said new regulations were implemented in June 2008.
These regulations aim to reduce the environmental risks and harm from leaking UPSS and ensure operators adopt appropriate operational management systems to investigate and report on leaks and consistently record and keep details on them.
There are currently 11 businesses in the Dungog Shire who sell fuel, with a total of 19 tanks on council’s road reserve and 14 known to be in active use.
“There are at least five redundant tanks in the council’s road reserve and could be more that have been abandoned and forgotten through the succession of operators on each property,” Mr Kavanagh said.
“Many commercial operators in the Dungog local government area are situated within the mapped environmentally sensitive area.
“In addition to putting in place loss monitoring procedures and an environmental management plan, operators will be required by June 1 next year to have installed groundwater monitoring wells.
“Drilling of monitoring wells and associated monitoring equipment can cost up to $3000 per well.
“Depending on the environmental characteristics of the site, numerous monitoring wells may have to be installed.”
Mr Kavanagh said there are significant costs associated with meeting the requirements of the various legislations.
“In many cases, given the location of the tanks and various owners who may have operated these systems on the one property, there is some confusion as to who is responsible for the individual tanks.
“If monitoring procedures in place identify that the UPSS is leaking the systems will need to be replaced and surrounding area remediated.
“Responsibility of the UPSS regulations will fall to local councils from June 1, 2012 and the future monitoring of these systems will require significant resources once it is handed to council.
“There are currently 10 operators that provide fuel to the residents of Dungog Shire.
“The financial cost of implementing aspects of the regulation may force these operators to decommission their UPSS, reducing the number of outlets available to purchase fuel.”
Proprietor of Davey & Olsen Ford dealership in Dungog Tim Olsen said it is a case of “cause it and you fix it”.
“I know of an incident in another town where fuel from a nearby petrol station has leaked a fair way underground,” he said.
“While the petrol station is now closed action is now being taken against the estate of the former owner.
“We recently put three testing wells down which cost $8000. They are tested every six months and the results recorded.
“The first test was okay and that is a good sign there are no leaks, so we are legit with the UPSS monitoring scheme.”
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