David Coates / The Detroit News The New Hudson Service Center is listed as the site of one of the 2,283 deteriorating fuel tanks buried in Metro Detroit, according to research by The Detroit News.

Part 2 -- Looming enforcement

    Yet state environmental officials — now threatening criminal charges for unresponsive tank owners — have taken notice.

    In the next six months, the DEQ intends to file 100 new criminal cases in what it identifies as the end game of a three-year enforcement plan. During the past two years, state officials filed about 50 criminal cases, less than 10 percent of which have resulted in convictions. Most of the cases are still pending.

    “We realize that you have to push some people to get them to do anything,” said Barry Selden, chief of the DEQ’s Storage Tank Division enforcement unit.

The hole in the foreground may signal a deteriorating storage tank buried on the site of a former Marathon gas station in New Hudson.

    One example of the redoubled enforcement is taking place in Macomb County, where county prosecutors have filed four criminal misdemeanor charges against a Clinton Township resident. State tank inspectors investigated and then referred the case to the county.

    If convicted, the tank owner, Philip Augusta Stramaglia, 69, faces up to two years in jail and $2,000 in fines.

    Macomb officials allege one leaking underground fuel tank, possibly as large as 8,000 gallons, remains at a Mt. Clemens construction yard linked to Stramaglia, next to the Clinton River. Other charges relate to illegal removal of a second tank and failure to pay state registration fees.

    “Any threat to the ground water in this county is going to translate as a threat to Lake St. Clair and our surface waters,” said Macomb County Assistant Prosecutor Mark Richardson, who is handling the case.

    “We’re still suffering from decades of unenlightened environmental practices. Macomb County will resolve all 300-plus of these cases,” Richardson said.

    Philip Stramaglia could not be reached for comment. His attorney, Anthony Urbani II of Roseville, declined to discuss details of the charges.

    “I don’t want to jeopardize (Stramaglia’s) defense. There are issues that have to be resolved,” Urbani said.

A national problem

    Michigan’s poor national rating for tank leaks does not distinguish it among other Great Lakes states, where widespread industry and high water tables have joined to create a nagging public health problem.

    For confirmed leaks, Ohio ranks fifth-worst in the nation; Illinois is sixth; and Wisconsin rated just behind seventh-ranked Michigan, in eighth place, according to EPA records. Together, all four states are struggling to monitor more than 100,000 underground sites.

    “We’re the busiest region in the country. We have the largest percentage of leaking tanks of all the regions,” acknowledged Gilberto Alvarez, technical manager for EPA Region 5, which administers tank programs from its Chicago headquarters.

    Although states are following a federal mandate, penalties, clean-up standards and severity of enforcement vary, as does the success of each state in stopping the leaks. Florida, for example, figures among the nation’s more dismal records, with a huge number of leaking tanks and relatively few clean-up efforts.

    “There’s a lot more behind tank numbers than just the numbers,” said Cliff Rothenstein, director of the EPA’s Office of Underground Storage Tanks in Washington, D.C. The EPA office oversees all state tank programs nationwide.

    “If you look at Michigan, which has very stringent clean-up standards and other states like it, you see that compliance may take more time.”

    The late awakening to dangers from corroding underground tanks occurred only during the 1980s, when Congress passed laws banning tanks lacking leak detection devices.

    Federal lawmakers amended the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1984, giving states 10 years to remove faulty tanks, and install spill-protection and safety systems aimed at preventing fuel overflows. The deadline to complete the federally mandated changes: December 1998.

    Many tank owners — especially gas stations, fearful of liability claims — rushed to comply and replaced their tanks years before the final deadline.

    “We think anybody who didn’t replace their tanks should be out of business,“ said William Hickman of the American Petroleum Institute, a Washington trade group that represents service stations and oil companies, including Shell and Exxon.

Part 3 -- Costs hamper cleanup