Sorry to chime in late here, but I was away with the army for a bit.
Here is my feelings on the issue.
REMOVE THE TANK NOW!!!! I was of the opinion that I could 'always remove
it later.' Then, one day I was out of oil and their should have been
about 600 gals in there. My tank leaked.
They don't give any warning before a leak, and the don't let you know they
leaked until after it's all gone. Even worst, if the leak is only halfway
down the tank, it may take you years to know it leaked.
As for the remediation programs, here is what I found out.
NJ has a program that covers the cost. Right now, its completely unfunded
and may never be funded again.
I had the insurance from a company that specializing in tanks. They
covered the cost (less deductible) but IF the oil hit the water table or a
neighbors property, they wouldn't cover any of that. Not to mention the
cap was about $100,000.
If the tank would have been pulled WITHOUT a leak, it would have only cost
me about $1200 for the removal and new tanks. If the tank was pulled with
a leak and no insurance, I would most likely be bankrupt right now.
I got lucky. But I will never chance that again. I will not buy a
property with any inground tanks, and I could not in good conscience tell
a friend to wait or leave it alone if they had one.
I'm sorry this email may seem like a downer, but I just spent the past 2
months dealing with this in an massive state of panic. It is a seriously
important issue. The environmentalist have made this process nothing less
than catastrophic if you don't have insurance (or if your coverage doesn't
cover the clean up.)
Don't wait, do it now, do it 100% legally and pay the (smaller) price now.
Moose
"Be as beneficent as the sun or the sea, but if your rights as a rational
being are trenched on, die on the first inch of your territory." Ralph
Waldo Emerson
"Aric" <shop@shariconglobal.com>
Sent by: shop-talk-bounces@autox.team.net
08/04/2011 15:57
To
<shop-talk2@mcfetridge.org>, "'Shop Talk'" <shop-talk@autox.team.net>
cc
Subject
[Shop-talk] Follow-up: New house / underground oil tank
Howdy Folks,
Now that we're through closing and working on fixing up the house I
figured
I'd do a bit of a follow-up to the question I had about underground oil
tanks. Thanks to my buddy Pete (who I sucked into the list years ago and
recently brought me back onto it after a prolonged absense) for sending
along copies of the threads I recalled seeing. Apparently he's in a
similar
situation and squirreled the emails away for future reference.
Anyway, after lots of calls to the realtor, the company that's been
supplying the oil for the past 40 years, the company that tested the well,
several oil tank remediation companies it looks like our state (PA) has a
grant program that should cover a good bit of any remediation that needs
to
be done when we remove the tank. Why only the one remediation company
knew
of the program is beyond me, but they say it gernerally covers the whole
thing provided the tank is in decent shape (no odor in the basement,
furnace
firing properly, etc). So we'll be leaving things be for the moment since
there's no evidence of a problem and there's enough oil in it to get us
through a good chunk of the winter. Come Spring (when we have a renter in
the place and rental income coming in to offset the cost of removal) we'll
pull the tank and either convert to gas or put an above-ground one in.
Thanks again to everyone for their help.
-aric.
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