Mayor shutting down fueling stations due to LUST

Mayor to shut most of city's fuel stations

Mayor Annise Parker plans to shut down two-thirds of the city's 99 fueling stations, a cost-cutting measure intended to reduce the city's potential liability for leaking contaminants.
While the closures will save the city in the long run, the process of removing underground fuel storage tanks can be expensive. The price skyrockets if underground tanks are found to be leaking fuel or oil, requiring expensive remediation to dispose of contaminated soil to safeguard surrounding neighborhoods. In some cases, monitoring wells have to be drilled to make sure the leaking fuel products have not contaminated the groundwater under the sites.

In the last three years, the city has paid private contractors $5.8 million to replace underground storage tanks at city fire and police stations, public works facilities and parks. A number of the sites where tanks had leaked had to undergo extensive soil removal and other remediation efforts, according to records obtained by the Houston Chronicle.

For example, in February the city had to increase a $323,375 tank replacement contract to haul off 200 tons of soil and dispose of thousands of gallons of contaminated fuel at its Northwest Vehicle Maintenance Facility, in the 1200 block of Judiway.

Last December, the city paid $840,000 to replace six older fuel tanks at Wheeler Park and install three new ones. The cost grew when a larger amount of contaminated soil and fuel than expected was discovered in the bottom of one tank pit, records show.
$1.1 million tab

Similarly, the city ended up with a $1.1 million tab in January 2008, after paying more money to contractors who had to remove buried electrical conduits and 284 cubic yards of contaminated soil as they replaced two leaking fuel storage tanks at the old Houston police station at 61 Riesner.
"We have dozens and dozens of fuel storage facilities," Parker said recently. "We want to have a certain number of them for strategic purposes — for emergency vehicles and post-hurricane, for example - but, for the most part, they are a liability issue and we end up with fuel inventory that just sits there. And in Houston, you're not very far from a gas station."

Parker has identified 55 city fueling stations she intends to shut down immediately. Eventually, the number of stations may be trimmed to as few as 30, aides confirmed. The city plans to retain fueling stations in locations that are distributed around the city to make it convenient for city vehicles to gas up.

Councilman Steve Costello, a civil engineer, backs Parker's plan and envisions some of the fueling sites being sold to bolster city finances.
"Anytime we can consolidate resources and make better use of our fueling stations, I think that's a great idea," Costello said. "If that means closing down some of these stations and having excess property we can sell, that's even better to help us bridge some of the budget gaps we have."

Reducing the number of fuel stations is one part of an ambitious effort under way by Parker to balance the budget by shaving $22 million from fleet operation costs this year and next, including a cut in the number of municipal employees with take-home vehicles and consolidation of city vehicle garages. Parker is searching for a director to head a new city fleet management office, and is planning to ask the City Council to approve the hiring of CST Fleet Services, a North Carolina consulting firm known for reducing fleet operation costs.

A LUST problem
Houston is not alone in contending with a serious environmental problem known as LUST - Leaking Underground Storage Tanks - that has festered quietly across the state and nation for decades. Texas environmental officials say their database of leaking fuel tanks dates back to 1972.
Texas currently has more than 55,600 underground storage tanks in use, including 7,536 in Harris County. Leaks have been discovered at 26,048 sites, including 3,411 in Harris County. To date, the majority across the state have been cleaned up, but there are 2,363 underground tank sites where cleanup operations are still going on, state officials say.

"Monitoring tanks that are being used is very important, because, if you have fuel in those tanks, we want to make sure it doesn't get out into the environment because it can definitely cause problems for people," said Victoria Modak, a specialist with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality's leaking tank program in Austin. "As great as our technology is ... there still are releases, despite all of our efforts. So, it's good to keep a handle on that, make sure we're tracking when they have a release and things are getting cleaned up."

Modak said the TCEQ estimates the average cost for environmental cleanup of the site of an underground tank is $84,705, although she noted there is a procedure for sealing the tanks and leaving them in place. That practice can lead to problems in future land sales, however.
It makes sense, Modak said, for cities such as Houston to replace aging tanks, even if they are not leaking, and invest in storage tanks with updated technology to prevent and detect leak