https://www.rawstory.com/hidden-cost-of-gasoline-grist/
"A black, electric-powered Nissan Leaf pulled up to a gas station — not to fuel
up, of course. Matthew Metz, the founder of Coltura, a nonprofit trying to
speed up the country’s shift away from gasoline, climbed out of his car with
printed maps in hand, prepared to give me a tour.
It was a sunny spring day, and the Arco station in North Seattle looked like
any other on a busy street corner, with cars fueling up and a line of bored
people waiting to buy snacks and drinks inside the convenience store. Metz
knows a lot about gas stations, and it changes what he sees. Looking around, he
marveled at the risks that everyone was taking, even if they weren’t aware of
it. “This is a hazardous materials facility,” he told me.
Drivers pumped their tanks with gas, breathing carcinogens like benzene, the
source of gasoline’s signature sweet smell. On the east side of the property,
tall white pipes that vent toxic vapors from petroleum kept underground stood
just 10 feet away from the window of a childcare center. Hidden below the
station is a tract of contaminated soil that extends underneath a neighboring
apartment building.
The Arco station has a long history of leaking, with petroleum products
discovered floating in the septic tank beneath it in 1990. After decades of
efforts to remove and break down that pollution — a host of contaminants
including lead, benzene, and the suspected carcinogen methyl tertiary-butyl
ether — trace amounts remain, with some highly polluted patches in the soil.
One sample taken late last year showed levels of gasoline-related compounds 72
times higher than Washington state’s allowable limit.
This Arco station is hardly unique. Almost every gas station eventually
pollutes the earth beneath it, experts told
Grist. The main culprit: the
underground storage tanks that hold tens of thousands of gallons of fuel, one
of the most common sources of groundwater pollution. Typically, two or three of
these giant, submarine-shaped tanks are buried under a station to store the
gasoline and diesel that gets piped to the pump. A large tank might be 55 feet
long and hold as many as 30,000 gallons; a typical tank might hold 10,000
gallons. Leaks can occur at any point — in the storage tank itself, in the gas
pumps, and in the pipes that connect them. Hazardous chemicals can then spread
rapidly through the soil, seeping into groundwater, lakes, or rivers. Even a
dribble can pollute a wide area. Ten gallons of gasoline can contaminate 12
million gallons of groundwater — a significant risk, given that groundwater is
the source of drinking water for nearly half of all Americans.
As a result, time-consuming cleanup efforts are unfolding all across the
country, with remediation for a single gas station sometimes topping $1
million. Leaks are such a huge liability that they’ve led to a high-stakes game
of hot potato, where no one wants to pay for the mess — not the gas station
owners, not the insurance companies that provide coverage for tanks, not the
oil companies that supply the fuel. In some states, polluters have shifted tens
of millions of dollars in remediation costs onto taxpayers. Roughly 60,000
contaminated sites are still waiting to be cleaned up, according to the
Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA — and those are just the ones that have
been found. Washington state has about 2,500 in line, one of the biggest
backlogs in the country."
Via Alex Feldstein.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
