Leaking Underground Storage Tanks in Rhode Island

DO THI THIEN HUONG

NGUYEN THI MINH THUAN

DUONG THI TAM

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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

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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