Vaults Emerging as Answer to New Jersey's Tank Dilemma

Thousands of New Jersey businesses need to storeapproaching, tank owners are faced with some
petroleum products at their facilities, whether fordifficult economic decisions. The cost for tank and
heating, to fuel vehicles, for emergency generators,piping upgrades starts at $10,000, and, in most cases,
or a dozen other pressing needs. Today there areretrofitting an existing steel underground storage
estimated to be in excess of 80,000 regulatedtank is a short-sighted and expensive undertaking.
commercial tanks in New Jersey alone. Most areDue to variable water tables and the predominance
underground, some above ground and, recently,of clay and silt soils, both vapor monitoring and
some combining the best of both methods, thecontinuous groundwater monitoring are impractical, if
concrete vaulted tanks. In this article I will take a looknot impossible, and in all cases will only alert a tank
at each approach for its strengths, weaknesses andowner of a leak after the damage has occurred.With
cost factors.UNDERGROUND STORAGE TANKSthese concerns complicating the upgrade, the most
(USTs)Historically, petroleum storage was literallyeffective solution, if we stay with conventional
driven underground by a variety of concernsunderground storage, is often complete replacement
centered around fire safety. Because of theseof a given storage tank system This then expands
concerns, and the regulations they spawned, thethe price range of a standard 2,000 gallon tank job
overwhelming majority of storage tanks in use todayto a minimum of $20,000. (triple this number for a
are underground tanks.In the past five years the12,000 gallon tank).*In addition to these basic
federal EPA and State Departments of Environmentalconstruction costs, there are significant costs
Protection and Energy (DEPE) have formulated newassociated with simply maintaining and operating
construction criteria for both the installation of newunderground tanks. These expenses must also be
tanks and the required upgrade of existing tanks.Withconsidered when we evaluate the total project cost.
scheduled deadlines for these tank upgrades quickly