Virgin Islands Get $57,000 in Stimulus for Fixing Petroleum Leaks
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency awarded $57,000 to the U.S. Virgin Islands to assess and clean up underground petroleum storage tank leaks.
The cooperative agreement between EPA and the Virgin Islands Department of Planning and Natural Resources includes a detailed plan for how the funds will be spent.
"Leaking underground storage tanks are a major source of groundwater contamination in the United States," said EPA Acting Regional Administrator George Pavlou. "These funds will rapidly create jobs to investigate and clean up petroleum releases from leaking tanks, which pose threats to people’s health and the environment.”
The greatest potential hazard from a leaking underground storage tank is that the petroleum or other hazardous substances seep into the soil and contaminate groundwater, the source of drinking water for nearly half of all Americans.
The funds will be used for overseeing assessment and cleanup of leaks from underground storage tanks or directly paying for assessment and cleanup of leaks from federally regulated tanks where the responsible party is unknown, unwilling, unable, or the cleanup is an emergency response.