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Tanks
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L.R. Waters, a petroleum distributor in Culpeper, said replacement is often not an option for merchants with smaller tanks because of the cost of upgrading.
Mr. Bankhead’s company distributes gasoline products to Jenkins Garage, a More station in Amissville. Upgrading that one station cost the company more than $6,000 and mandatory pollution insurance will cost thousands of dollars annually and per tank on the premise.
“It’s too expensive to carry the insurance on all the little places,” he said, explaining that the owner or operator of the tanks is obligated by law to carry the insurance.
Store owners agree their profits will never meet the premiums for $1 million coverage on each tank.
“You will notice when you travel around that even Exxon and some of the larger companies have eliminated their smaller stations,” Mr. Bankhead said, using this as one example of how the law has affected gasoline consumers.
“Consumers will pay for the new regulations,” he said, adding that gasoline locations will become scarce and prices inflated.
The change in distribution will affect even Bankhead’s business.
He suspects 15 locations will be affected in Culpeper. “This is almost going to put us out of business with the small tank holder,” he said.
Some small tank holders — those with farm tanks, those with heating oil, those with tanks under 110 gallons or less and a few others — are exempted by the new regulations.
But most underground storage tanks are affected in some way.
“My tanks are safe until about 1998,” Jerry Foster of Hillsdale Grocery on U.S. 211 said. “But, that doesn’t mean my equipment doesn’t have to undergo all kinds of tests.”
Mr. Foster is faced with adding devices that prevent overflow spills,
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