Underground Storage Tanks

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Information about LUST Recovery Act Assistance Agreement between U.S. EPA Region 4 and the State of Florida as of July 9, 2009

In the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, Congress appropriated $200 million from the Leaking Underground Storage Tank (LUST) Trust Fund to EPA for assessing and cleaning up leaks from underground storage tanks. This money will pay for activities at shovel-ready sites and may be used either to:

Oversee assessing and cleaning up eligible underground tank leaks, or
Directly pay for assessing and cleaning up leaks from federally regulated tanks where the responsible party is unknown, unwilling, unable, or the cleanup is an emergency response.

Because the underground storage tank program is primarily implemented by states and territories, EPA allocated the vast majority of LUST Recovery Act money to state and territorial underground storage tank programs.

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Assistance Agreement between U.S. EPA Region 4 and the State of Florida

Date Assistance Agreement was awarded: July 9, 2009

Amount of Assistance Agreement: $11,276,000

Summary of Work:

The State of Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection (Department) will utilize the LUST Recovery Act money to assess and remediate petroleum contamination at sites throughout the state.
These are Consent Order sites where the site owner or person responsible for the contamination has been determined to be indigent through the programs Ability to Pay Review process.
Currently sixteen candidate sites have been identified. It is anticipated that some sites may be removed from the list and others added as the site assessments activities are completed. If a site is sold, the Consent Order is typically no longer valid and this too could cause a site to drop off the list and another be added in its place.
Four state cleanup contractors that are under direct contract with the Department will be assigned these sites to clean up the petroleum contamination.
Once the work at a site has been completed the Department will review the ability to pay status of the site owners or responsible parties and then seek cost recovery if appropriate and in accordance with the terms and conditions of the Consent Order. If costs are recovered the funds will be used to address other LUST Recovery Act eligible sites through this grant.

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Please note the information provided here comes from the EPA/state assistance agreement. Activities described are subject to change.