Binghamton Gas Stations to Pay Fine, Install Leak Detection
A Binghamton, N.Y. gas station owner, Manley's Mighty Mart, LLC, will spend $160,000 to improve how its 12 gas stations detect leaks from their underground petroleum storage tank systems as the result of an agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The company also will pay a $17,800 fine under the agreement, which addresses the company’s failure to properly monitor and test underground petroleum storage tank systems for leaks at 11 gas stations in the area.
EPA Regional Administrator Judith Enck said: “It is important that Manley’s Mighty Mart quickly came into compliance when the violations were identified and that their leak detection upgrades will go beyond required compliance, and provide an added measure of safety for protection of public health.”
The leak detection system upgrade is considered a supplemental environmental project under the agreement. A supplemental environmental project is an environmentally beneficial project that a violator voluntarily agrees to undertake in settlement; it must be a project that a violator will not otherwise be required to perform. In this case, the company is replacing conventional leak detection devices with more technologically advanced electronic leak detection devices at the company’s 12 area gas stations.
Routine EPA inspections of the gas stations showed that from 2005 to 2007 Manley’s violated the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act requirements for monitoring and testing underground petroleum storage tank systems at 11 of its gas stations in the Binghamton area. The company also failed to keep and submit to EPA annual records for testing the storage tank systems. Manley’s facilities are now in compliance with the requirements.