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I never understood the move of gas tanks from above ground to underground. The few stations left with above ground tanks were forced to bury them ages ago. To
by jmclnx 3y ago
I never understood the move of gas tanks from above ground to underground. The few stations left with above ground tanks were forced to bury them ages ago.
To me, you can easily detect leaks if above ground and correct. The local Gov can even hire someone to check above ground tanks. Seems oil companies did the move to avoid inspections.
- aeternum 3y agoAbove ground seems more dangerous from an exposed tank point of view. A car could run into it, debris from a wind storm or natural disaster, foul play. These could be mitigated with some kind of containment structure but then you require more land area and investment.
- xenomachina 3y agos/Below/Above/ ?
- aeternum 3y agoyes thanks, edited
- tivert 3y ago> I never understood the move of gas tanks from above ground to underground. The few stations left with above ground tanks were forced to bury them ages ago. > To me, you can easily detect leaks if above ground and correct. The local Gov can even hire someone to check above ground tanks. Seems oil companies did the move to avoid inspections. Above-ground tanks might be better for detecting leaks, but I'd imagine they're much more vulnerable to catastrophic accidents (e.g. a truck slamming into one and causing a giant fire).
- wak90 3y agoDo you not consider contaminating a city's water supply catastrophic
- ars 3y agoNo, because that's not something that actually happens due to underground storage. The leaks are local, and cause minimal long term harm. They are not "contaminating a city's water supply", that's simply not true.
- atshane253 3y agoIts absolutely true, one of my city's primary aquifers is directly under ground. Future underground tanks will not be permitted because they've been leaking into the groundwater, especially if and when they're abandoned because the business failed.
- kortilla 3y agoSo make failed businesses empty their fuel tanks? Seems like a dumb reason to regulate tanks for active businesses.
- smileysteve 3y agoFailed businesses don't often fail because they executed things perfectly. When you bankruptcy and shut down, you don't necessarily sell property immediately.
- semicolon_storm 3y agoThat’s demonstrably false. Google the red hill fuel tanks
- AnimalMuppet 3y agoA truck slamming into an above-ground tank could easily contaminate a city's water supply, so I'm not sure you've got a valid argument here.
- tonyarkles 3y agoHeh, I did some work on a pretty cool tank monitoring hardware/software solution with a major fuel supplier here about a decade ago. They have facilities with about a dozen large vertical 40-80,000L above-ground fuel tanks for agricultural use. One of the features I was working on was leak detection, and we got the sensors and statistical analysis down to the point where, when testing with water, I could accurately detect the rate of evaporation from a smaller indoor tank. Anyway, we’re in an area that doesn’t have a whole lot of “acts of God” kind of destruction; no hurricanes or earthquakes, high winds occasionally but tornados are quite rare, etc. They reported to me that the number one cause of leaks on their above-ground tanks was bullet holes. Just… people randomly shooting at the tank farms. They don’t catch fire when this happens generally, they just spill out from the hole until someone catches it and transfers all of the fuel out of the tank.
- joker_minmax 3y ago>Anyway, we’re in an area that doesn’t have a whole lot of “acts of God” kind of destruction Are you in the US? And if so... mind sharing your vague region? I'd love to know where to actually avoid tornadoes.
- ericpauley 3y agoOne example: much of Pennsylvania has none of these.
- joker_minmax 3y agoPhilly doesn't count as a natural disaster?
- tonyarkles 3y agoSaskatchewan in Western Canada. Just north of North Dakota and Montana. What we do get is wild amounts of cold and snow some years, but those don't generally harm fuel tanks a whole lot :).
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- landemva 3y agoI have been to many industrial sites, and oil/gas/diesel tanks have been above ground. Some had bollards to block physical bumps. Many had spill containment knee walls. There are probably regulations depending on type of tank and contents to allow these private tanks. Above ground does make identification of a leak more rapid.
- 13of40 3y agoAbove ground tanks also have the benefit of being gravity fed, so you can use them in rural areas without a power supply or complex pumping equipment.
- landemva 3y agoThe tanks for fresh product (gas/diesel) which I saw had 220v electric pumps and were outside. Some had meters like a gas station to track usage to a machine. Fresh oil tanks were pneumatic. Used oil tanks were pumped out by the service truck. OSHA regulated. Free-standing tanks for fresh product which are in rooms (drifts/bays) underground (mines) seem to be pneumatic with small tanks using a rotational hand pump simply because not a lot of whatever is being used. MSHA regulated. (Never call used oil "contaminated".) Maybe farmers use gravity? As an aside, I happened to recently see a setup 2/3 mile underground with two free-standing used oil tanks. One was marked "abandoned in place" because someone realized if both tanks fail when full, the retaining wall would not contain all of the used oil.
- rr808 3y agoDoes this happen? Here in NJ underground is now banned, finding a buried tank on your property is an expensive nightmare.
- evanelias 3y agoI believe that's only true for heating oil, but not for gas stations' storage of gasoline.
- cameldrv 3y agoA small airport I used to fly out of switched to an aboveground tank when the old underground one was found to have a leak. The permitting and construction costs for an underground tank were much higher with double walls and I believe sensors to detect leaks. The rationale was exactly as you say -- with an aboveground tank you can easily see fuel leaking out and fixing a leak is also very easy by comparison.
- bluGill 3y agoUnderground tanks are best thought of as indoor tanks these days. They build an underground room, put the tanks in and then inspect them visually, and the room collects any leaks. Not always of course, but that is a common way to do them.
- Broken_Hippo 3y agoTornadoes are more likely to ruin an above ground tank.
- limitedfrom 3y agoTornadoes are very uncommon in the west coast of US (also, much of the Northeast and the rest of the world)[1][2] [1] https://hazards.fema.gov/nri/Content/Images/StaticPageImages/map-tornado_risk.png https://hazards.fema.gov/nri/Content/Images/StaticPageImages... [2] https://64.media.tumblr.com/64f5e2b83554ea3342a609c64bd8b4dc/tumblr_pzawcx6z2K1rasnq9o1_1280.jpg https://64.media.tumblr.com/64f5e2b83554ea3342a609c64bd8b4dc...
- kortilla 3y agoOil companies don’t own the gas stations.
- Obscurity4340 3y agoI mean, you probably answered your own question. Easier to obfuscate or straight up ignore if its completely outta sight, outta mind.