Leaky tanks drain state's money

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Toxic tanks

Out of sight, out of mind was long the policy for leaking underground storage tanks - a particularly unsexy topic despite the acronym they give rise to. (That would be LUST.)

But leaking tanks are a sure-enough environmental menace. Think about what gets leaked. Underground storage is the rule at gas stations, for example, and has been for decade upon worrisome decade. That has meant plenty of time for tanks to corrode.

A conscientious owner will have old tanks replaced before they begin to leak their toxic contents. What happens, though, if a facility using underground tanks goes out of business, without the resources to undertake a pre-emptive clean-up? What happens if tanks rust out prematurely or simply without anyone realizing it? The stage is set for a major pollution episode, with property values and human health at risk. Certainly health is at risk if gasoline seeps into the groundwater and shows up in nearby drinking water wells.

Where do those donated dollars go?

North Carolina hands out hundreds of millions of dollars to nonprofit organizations each year but fails to adequately keep track of the money, according to a legislative report released Monday.

The legislature's Program Evaluation Division reported that the state awarded $694 million in state and federal funds to nonprofits during the 2007-2008 fiscal year. Although there are regulations and laws governing the money's use, they don't require sufficient documentation, don't adequately focus on programs' performance, and lack sufficient enforcement, according to the report.

The report said more than a quarter of the grant recipients that received $500,000 or less were not required to file documentation on how the money was spent.

Progress on underground tanks

We read with great interest your Nov. 24 news article on leaking underground gasoline and oil tanks and your Nov. 25 editorial "Toxic tanks." While we agree that this is an important issue, the article and editorial failed to address the years of work that have gone into making this program, according to many, a high-water mark in the successful combination of industry, farm, advocacy groups and the state working to solve a complex societal issue.

Currently, cleanup work is being directed at all sites considered high risk. These are sites where wells used for drinking purposes are either impacted or in close proximity to a release incident. It is misleading to state that it will take 25 years to clean up a release discovered today. Actually, based on the current level of funding it, will take 25 years and $513 million to address all sites currently eligible for funding, most of which are not currently threatening drinking water supplies.

Insurance would be difficult if not impossible for these sites to

Water fund goes to 4 houses

No one disputes that Bonita Fox and her family needed help after benzene, a cancer-causing chemical, turned up in the well that serves their string of four small homes, lined up like boxcars along the Great Smoky Mountains Expressway in Jackson County.

The benzene makes the water undrinkable, state officials say. Two of Fox's grandchildren, ages 1 and 3, can't even bathe in it, while the rest of the family is limited to five-minute showers.

The solution that state and county officials have devised is hard for some advocates for clean drinking water to accept. The state plans to spend nearly $740,000 to run a two-mile water line to the narrow valley that the Fox homestead overlooks. The project will consume the entire $300,000 state lawmakers put in the 2006 budget to identify contaminated water systems, notify users and pay for improvements.

Consultants to pay $250,000

Environmental consultants accused of trying to rig prices for cleanup jobs will pay the state more than $250,000, the state Attorney General's Office said Tuesday.

Mid-Atlantic Associates of Raleigh is barred from bidding on Department of Environment and Natural Resources contracts for 18 months, under an agreement that Business Court Judge Ben Tennille approved this week.

The company was one of eight that state Attorney General Roy Cooper sued in April 2003. The suit accused the companies and a private trade association of working together to inflate prices on future contracts for cleaning up pollution from leaking underground fuel tanks.