SURVEILLANCE, MANAGEMENT, AND REMEDIATION OF INCREMENTAL CONTAMINATION FROM STORAGE TANKS

The use of storage tanks, both underground and aboveground, has grown rapidly over the past decades. Although initially used for kerosene and gasoline storage, they now store a multitude of chemicals and petroleum products. For various reasons, the structural integrity of the tanks gets compromised resulting in both liquid and gas phase leaks contaminating air, soil, and water resources. Large volume leaks are easy to detect, receive much stakeholder attention, and hence, are cleaned up promptly. However, often ignored, and difficult to detect are small volume incremental leaks and releases which may inflict far greater environmental harm than the major ones. Loss of small volume of fluid is often within error margin of measuring devices, giving a false sense of mechanical integrity. Such incremental leaks can sometimes go on for days, months, and even years without raising any concerns on the part of facility operators, causing significant environmental damage. Not only do the released chemicals directly impact health and wellbeing of neighboring populations, but such releases also produce a cumulative negative impact on global climate. Continuous and effective surveillance, and remediation strategies are thus essential for managing these risks to prevent both short- and long-term environmental harm. The presentation explores the challenges associated with such incremental contamination and highlights the importance of managing contamination through its entire life cycle: from storage tank surveillance including use of modern technologies such as aerial surveillance, big data analysis, and artificial intelligence; timely detection of release, and effective remediation, to overall management. The objective of this study is to create awareness of the environmental risks posed by incremental releases from storage tanks and to provide practical guidance for managing these risks to protect human health and the environment.