Leaking Underground Storage Tanks (LUSTs) in Rhode Island
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Transcript of Leaking Underground Storage Tanks (LUSTs) in Rhode Island
Leaking Underground Storage Tanks in Rhode Island
DO THI THIEN HUONG
NGUYEN THI MINH THUAN
DUONG THI TAM
1
Picture source: Internet
OUTLINE
¤ Executive Summary
¤ Summary of Decision
¤ Description of Context
¤ Stakeholder Analysis
¤ Decision Criteria and Metrics
¤ Data/Model
¤ Alternative Analysis
¤ Recommendations
¤ Sensitivity Analysis
¤ Q&A
2
Map of Rhode Island Map author: Thien Huong
LUSTs in a nutshell
¤ Background: The case represents the intergrated impact of LUSTs in Rhode Island and how to address the issue.
¤ Recommendations: We highly recommend that the state and EPA should continue law reinforcement.
¤ Implication: When the authorities try to strenghthen the law, policy gap will be filled, health impact on community would be minimised and the environment will be better saved from being contaminated.
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What can be done to minimize the impact of LUSTs on human health and environment?
How we choose workable option?
¤ We weighed our indices of performance (Economic values, Human health and safety, Environmental Sustainability, media and public attention, political and legal framework) and considered the utility of each IP based on our perspective.
¤ We came up with 3 different alternatives:
¤ Effectively use EPA Fund ¤ Enforce state Law about LUSTs
¤ No USTs
¤ Our decision to support the enforcement of state law about LUSTs
¤ We came to this conclusion after simply adding utilities with weights across three alternatives.
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How the case began? ¤ 1980: A family in Canob Park in Rhode Island reported problem
with their tab water
¤ 1983: Their story on air on CBS show called “60 minutes” and became national hot spot
¤ 1984: President Reagan signed amendments to the Resources Conservation and Recovery Act
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¤ 1985: EPA disseminated regulations about: prevent Underground Storage Tanks (UTS) from leaking and clean up the leaks
¤ 1986: LUSTs Trust Fund was established
Picture source: Internet
¤ 1988: EPA promulgated 165 pages of Federal Register guided on the management of UST
¤ 1996: Rhode Island became the 31th state to comply with LUSTs regulations
¤ 2005: EPA was given the authority to regulate USTs
¤ 2011: Rhode Island issued the Rules and Regulations for Underground Storage Facilities Used for Petroleum Products and Hazardous Materials
6 Picture source: Internet
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Issues Behind Underground Storage Tanks
Silent threat - LUSTs
¤ LUSTs posed serious impact on human health:
¤ High rate of cancer incidence
¤ Hazardous substances released
¤ LUSTs contaminated the water sources and environment
¤ Harmful substances leaking into soil
¤ Contaminate water sources
There is bad need to continue reinforcing law to keep people safe and protect the environment
Who plays with LUSTs? Groups Representatives Objectives
Federal authorities Congress, President, EPA, GAO
Provide Rhode Island funds to improve training, inspections, and enforcement efforts; • Provide EPA and RI additional enforcement authorities • Prevent leaks from tanks • Find leaks and clean them up • Support for state and local level successful in detecting and
implementing program
Environmental group, scientists
• Protect the environment: groundwater quality, air, soil • Protect people health • Collect data and do research to gain evidence
Local authority DEM, DOH • Improve the quality of public drinking water system • Prevent public health • Keep Rhode Island safety • Ensure the business activities
Members of the petroleum industry
Tank owners and operators
• Maintains their business activities • Ensure the revenue streams • Job creation
Community groups • Prevent health risks and keep safety • Ensure economic values (property and land)
Eco
nom
ic v
alu
es
Environmental Protection Conflicts Positively interact
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Community
Media
Scientists
• Oil industry
USTs owner and operators
Environmentalist
Congress
How they are interacting in the LUSTs game?
Local Authority
Criteria Jus+fica+ons MetricsEconomicvalues - Costofopera,ngLUSTsandcleanup
- Landandpropertyvalueaffected
- Numberofundergroundstoragetanks- Costofopera,ng,cleanupandcomplyingwithLUSTs
regula,ons- Numberoflandandpropertyvalueaffected
Humanhealthandsafety
- Indirectanddirectharmsonhumanhealth,andsafety
- Encouragemoreresearchintothehazardoussubstancestopeoplehealthandenvironment
- Rateofasthma,andbenzene-relateddiseases- Numberoffireandexplosion- Numberofresearchaboutthehazardoussubstances
Environmentalsustainability
- Leakingundergroundstoragetanksreleasehazardouscomponentsthatcontaminatewater,soilandair.
- Numberofgallonsofgroundwaterprotected/1year- NumberofClean-upscompleted- Gramsofhazardouscomponentsofgasolineleaks
(benzene,tolueneandethylbenzene..)insoil,groundwaterandair
Mediaandpublica8en9on
- ItisimportanttoarousemorepublicaNen,ontoeffectofleakingundergroundstoragetanks.Involvementofmassmediaplayskeyroleindissemina,nginforma,on.
- Ensurethepublictransparency
- Numberofnewscoverage(publica,on,review,ar,cles..)- Numberofpeoplepar,cipatedincampaigns- Numberoftanksregisteredandnon-registered
Poli9calandlegalframework
- Ensurethestricterregula,ononLUSTs - Numberofprogramssuppor,ngcleanupac,vi,es- AmountofSuperfundallocated- Newrules/regula,onspassed 10
What to measure?
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Decision Tree
HumanHealthWellbeingofEnvironment
• Economicvalues• Humanhealth
andsafety• Environmental
sustainability• Mediaandpublic
aNen,on• Poli,calandlegal
framework
IP1:NumberofUndergroundStorageTanks
IP2:Costofopera,ng,cleanupandcomplyingwithLUSTsregula,ons
IP3:Numberofbenzene-relateddiseases
IP4:Numberofgallonsofgroundwaterprotected
IP5:NumberofClean-upsbacklog
IP6:Numberofpeoplepar,cipatedincampaigns
IP7:Numberofprogramssuppor,ngcleanupac,vi,es
IP8:AmountofSuperfundallocated
IP9:Numberoftanksregisteredandnon-registered
DATA talks about impact of LUSTs
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¤ Three most products stored in USTs are Gasoline (42%), Heating oil (39%), Diesel fuel (12%).
¤ Petroleum contaminants have unfavorable impacts on heath. Some are known as cause or suspected to be the cause of cancers, almost all are harmful to the immune, nervous and respiratory system.
¤ All of them are known with moderate to very high mobility in soil when leaking.
Gasoline
42%
Heating Oil
39%
Diesel Fuel 12%
Others 7%
What is in USTs?
Data source: STATE OF RHODE ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE PLANATIONS 2006 Section 305(b) Report
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¤ A tiny hole in an UST can leak 400 gallons of fuel per year.
¤ One gallon of petroleum can contaminate one million gallons of groundwater.
¤ The direct cost to clean up a leaking UST on average is $125,000
¤ Budget for clean up approved by Congress was $72 mil annualy. Cost estimated by GAO:12 billion
¤ In 2006, estimated there are 705,000 underground storage tank systems nationwide and about 9,000 new leaks are discovered annually.
¤ Nationally, there are 3.8 million non-federally regulated USTs buried across the US.
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Total active tanks (2003)
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¤ Rhode Island: Top 13 highest cancer incidence
¤ About four out of ten people in Rhode Island will develop cancer in their lives and half of them will die. Close to 43,000 people suffer from cancer at any one time.
¤ Estimated cost for Rhode Island of cancer is about $993 million per year, including: $379 million in direct medical costs, $77 million in lost productivity due to illness, and $477 million in lost productivity due to premature death.
Direct Medical
Cost 42% Lost
Productivity (Illness)
8%
Lost Productivity
(Death) 50%
Annual Cost
Data source: The American Cancer Society
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Mapping and analysing Underground water quality vs LUST in Rhode Island
GIS data achieved from http://www.edc.uri.edu/rigis Mappning & GIS Analyst: ThienHuong
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Closeup: Population potentially in danger by living with LUSTs in 4 towns.
Hundreds of LUSTs are found in an densely populated area (upto about 95,000 people per square mile). Total population 124,082
All four towns are with higher than a thousand cancer incidence per 100,000. (Foster (1123,6), Johnton(1072.8) , Cranston (1023,1) and Sciatute (1040.2)
GIS data achieved from http://www.edc.uri.edu/rigis Mappning & GIS Analyst: ThienHuong
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REGRESION: We ran the regression to see there is any relationship between the cancer incidences and other variables: Permitted Water Polluters, Business Releasing Toxics, Superfund site, Landfill active and closed and specially LUSTs
As you can see F-test<0.95, we do not have evidence to reject the null hypothesis or it seems there is no relationship between cancer incidences and other causes of pollution in Rhode Island.
_cons 1010.725 27.52769 36.72 0.000 954.7197 1066.731 LUSTs 1.030812 .6985016 1.48 0.149 -.3903007 2.451924LandfillsActiveandclosed .786389 10.66383 0.07 0.942 -20.90933 22.48211 Superfundsite .9350475 5.191618 0.18 0.858 -9.627379 11.49747 BusinessReleasingToxics -3.681516 1.877226 -1.96 0.058 -7.500761 .1377283 PermittedWaterpolutters 2.372659 3.798344 0.62 0.536 -5.355129 10.10045 ALL Coef. Std. Err. t P>|t| [95% Conf. Interval]
Total 239487.054 38 6302.2909 Root MSE = 79.675 Adj R-squared = -0.0073 Residual 209488.33 33 6348.13122 R-squared = 0.1253 Model 29998.7241 5 5999.74482 Prob > F = 0.4651 F( 5, 33) = 0.95 Source SS df MS Number of obs = 39
> ndclosed LUSTs. regress ALL PermittedWaterpolutters BusinessReleasingToxics Superfundsite LandfillsActivea
Data achieved from RI DEM, Pollution Sources, EPA, RI Division of Planning, Toxic Action Center. Analyst: Duong Thi Tam
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_cons 1.30747 1.203293 1.09 0.284 -1.130634 3.745573 LUSTs .0794783 .0195847 4.06 0.000 .039796 .1191605 TotalPollu~e Coef. Std. Err. t P>|t| [95% Conf. Interval]
Total 1440.01393 38 37.8951035 Root MSE = 5.1896 Adj R-squared = 0.2893 Residual 996.476556 37 26.9317988 R-squared = 0.3080 Model 443.537377 1 443.537377 Prob > F = 0.0002 F( 1, 37) = 16.47 Source SS df MS Number of obs = 39
. regress TotalPollutionSquaremile LUSTs
HOWEVER, when we run the regression of total pollution square mile and LUSTs as independent variable, we have the evidence to reject the null hypothesis at 5% and 10% significant level. The F test is large, p-value is significant; there would be evidence to say there is strong relationship between LUSTs and the total pollution per square in Rhode Island.
Data achieved from RI DEM, Pollution Sources, EPA, RI Division of Planning, Toxic Action Center. Analyst: Duong Thi Tam
Three main approaches for LUSTs
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No Alternatives Description 1 Effectively use
EPA Fund • Increase EPA fund • Improved a regulated community’s compliance • Allocate more fund to strengthen staffing and inspectors Drawback: • Inconsistency in designing and spending fund • Inadequate funding
2 Enforce state Law about LUSTs
Enforce state law with Lusts in the short term and long term implementation plan e.g: • Double-walled tanks, • Formulate the baseline for data, • Make leaking known to community Drawback: • This will trigger strong opposition from tank owners and
operators
3 No USTs • Advantages of above ground tanks • Remove all the underground tanks to above ground tanks Drawback: • Too costly to do and pose challenges for the new regulation
for above ground tanks
IPs, Utility and Weight across Stakeholders
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IPweights IP(1) IP(2) IP(3) IP(4) IP(5) IP(6) IP(7) IP(8) IP(9)Authorities 0.9 0.3 0.9 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.9 0.8 0.9Tankownerandoperators 0.9 0.9 0.2 0.2 0.1 0.2 0.7 0.2 0.8Citizen/Community 0.7 0.2 1 0.8 0.7 0.5 0.7 0.4 0.9
IP(1) IP(2) IP(3) IP(4) IP(5) IP(6) IP(7) IP(8) IP(9)A1-IncreaseEPAfund 0 1 0 0 0 1 0.8 1 0.5A2-Enforcestatelaws 0.8 0.7 1 1 0.7 0.8 1 0.7 1A3-NoUTS 1 0 0.5 0.5 1 0 0 0 0
Utilities
IP1IP2IP3IP4IP5IP6IP7IP8IP9
Costofoperating,cleanupandcomplyingwithLUSTsregulationsNumberofUndergroundStorageTanks
Numberofbenzene-relateddiseasesNumber of gallons of groundwater protected NumberofClean-upscompletedNumberofpeopleparticipatedincampaignsNumberofprogramssupportingcleanupactivitiesAmountofSuperfundallocatedNumberoftanksregisteredandnon-registered
Final option is…
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AuthoritiesIP(1) IP(2) IP(3) IP(4) IP(5) IP(6) IP(7) IP(8) IP(9) Total
A1-IncreaseEPAfund 0 0.3 0 0 0 0.7 0.72 0.8 0.45 2.97A2-Enforcestatelaws 0.72 0.21 0.9 0.9 0.56 0.56 0.9 0.56 0.9 6.21A3-NoUTS 0.9 0 0.45 0.45 0.8 0 0 0 0 2.6Tankownersandoperators
IP(1) IP(2) IP(3) IP(4) IP(5) IP(6) IP(7) IP(8) IP(9) TotalA1-IncreaseEPAfund 0 0.9 0 0 0 0.2 0.56 0.2 0.4 2.26A2-Enforcestatelaws 0.72 0.63 0.2 0.2 0.07 0.16 0.7 0.14 0.8 3.62A3-NoUTS 0.9 0 0.1 0.1 0.1 0 0 0 0 1.2Citizenandcommunity
IP(1) IP(2) IP(3) IP(4) IP(5) IP(6) IP(7) IP(8) IP(9) TotalA1-IncreaseEPAfund 0 0.2 0 0 0 0 0.56 0.4 0.45 1.61A2-Enforcestatelaws 0.56 0.14 1 0.8 0.49 0.35 0.7 0.28 0.9 5.22A3-NoUTS 0.7 0 0.5 0.4 0.7 0.5 0 0 0 2.8
ALTERNATIVES SCORE RANK
IncreaseEPAfund 6.84 2
Enforcestatelaw 15.05 1NoUTS 6.6 3
AGGREGATESCORE(AUTHORITIES+CITIZEN+TANKOWNERS)
How Could We Enforce the State Law?
¤ Short term ¤ Consider the Residential Tanks and Farm Tanks (below 1,100 Gallon)
to report/register ¤ Simplify the application for registration the tanks ¤ Formulate the baseline data for registered and unregistered tanks ¤ Investigate the impact of LUSTs on people health, property,
underground water quality ¤ Make the leaking incidence known to community and press to
ensure the transparency ¤ Make polluters pay to clean up contamination from leaking USTs ¤ Provide more training to the staff to be more competent ¤ Higher fines for violators ¤ Double-walled tanks
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How Could We Enforce the State Law?
¤ Long term ¤ Continue to promote enforcement authorities and
resources
¤ There should be federal mandate for states to inspect periodically.
¤ Promote the development and possible replacement of the alternative energy to gas
¤ Base on the geographical features of Rhode Island
¤ State of Rhode Island was awarded a grant of $9,593,500 for developing renewable energy
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Risk assessment
¤ There is not enough data to link the causes of non-support to actual sources of the pollutant.
¤ Conflicts between data available about the impact of LUSTs and the cancer incidence in Rhode Island (based on the regression results)
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¤ Rhode Island does not have statewide data on historic freshwater or coastal wetland loss.
¤ Possible hard backlash of tank owners and operators when fee increases
¤ Tornado Diagram:
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Risk assessment
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References
¤ Chicago: 46-12.9-5 - State of Rhode Island General Assembly, http://www.rilin.state.ri.us/Statutes/TITLE46/46-12.9/46-12.9-5.HTM (accessed November 27, 2012).
¤ Environmental Defense, Scorecard.org (2005), Michigan DEQ, RPD Operational Memo. #2 (2004), ATSDR, Toxicological Profiles (various).
¤ 2011 RI Underground Storage Tank Financial Responsibility Fund Annual Report ¤ Leaking Underground Storage Tanks-Remediation with Emphasis on In Situ Bio
restoration EPA, Robert S. Kerr, 1987 ¤ Underground Storage Tanks: Building on the Past to Protect the Future, US
Environmental Protection Agency, March 2004 ¤ Ibid ¤ United States Code of Federal Regulations, 40 CFR 280. Technical Standards and
Corrective Action ¤ Requirements for Owners and Operators of Underground Storage Tanks ¤ IR Underground Storage Tank Review Board, retrieved at
http://www.dem.ri.gov/ustboard/index.htm on 26 Nov 2012 ¤ Rules and Regulations For Underground Storage Facilities Used for Petroleum
Products and Hazardous Materials, DEM, Rhode Island, April 2011
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Choose100%asourbaseresult
EnforceStateLaws Low High DeltaIP1 NumberofUndergroundStorageTanks 90 110 20IP2 Costofoperating,cleanupandcomplyingwithLUSTs 95 110 15IP3 Numberofbenzene-relateddiseases 85 105 20IP4 Number of gallons of groundwater protected 95 105 10IP5 NumberofClean-upscompleted 95 105 10IP6 Numberofpeopleparticipatedincampaigns 95 110 15IP7 Numberofprogramssupportingcleanupactivities 90 105 15IP8 AmountofSuperfundallocated 90 110 20IP9 Numberoftanksregisteredandnon-registered 90 115 25
Appendix for Tornado Diagram
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Alternative IP1 Utility Weight IP2 Utility Weight IP3 Utility Weight IP4 Utility WeightEnforceStateLaws 8 0.8 0.7 8 0.2 0.8 8 1 1 7 1 0.8
Alternative IP5 Utility Weight IP6 Utility Weight IP7 Utility Weight IP8 Utility Weight IP9 Utility Weight ResultsEnforceStateLaws 6 0.7 0.7 7 0.8 0.5 7 1 0.7 8 0.7 0.4 9 1 0.9 5.29