Oil Tank Abandonment

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Advanced Environmental does not recommend ABANDONMENT an out of service oil tank and feels if possible oil tanks should always be removed. Please see OIL TANK REMOVALS. Leaving an unused tank in-ground greatly increases the possibility for environmental damage to your property and economic loss for you, your family.

ABANDONMENT of an oil tank should be used only as a last resort. There are some circumstances that would justify ABANDONMENT of an unused tank. These would be situations where your oil tank is located in a place, which if the tank were to be removed, would dramatically disturb your home or business. (I.e. under the basement floor, or under a brand new deck or walkway).

Advanced Environmental highly recommends, wherever possible, that your oil tank be removed and replaced instead of abandoned. Some municipalities in Westchester County NY actually do not allow oil tank abandonments at all, and if they do, it is required we take a soil sample from the bottom of the tank by cutting a hole in the tank floor after a trained technician has entered the tank to thoroughly clean it.

If you must leave the tank in the ground, the tank must be thoroughly cleaned and completely filled with an inert material. We provide two fill options: Sand, OR K-Crete (watered down concrete). These options depend on local town codes and our preliminary site assessment.
Once a fill material has been established, we will cut a hole in the tank, and a highly trained Haz-Mat technician will enter the tank to clean it. Our technicians closely inspect the tank condition, making sure that there are no holes or cracks. As per our policy on ANY ABANDONMENT PROCEDURE, we ALWAYS cut a hole into the bottom of the oil tank and a soil sample is collected and analyzed by our trained technicians. If we can see or smell contamination in the sample from under the tank, we must remove the tank from the ground and call a spill number into the NYSDEC. If there is no clear evidence of contamination, we may suggest sending the soil sample out to a lab for further analysis where there is a cost incurred, but it is great to have for your records for a real estate transaction! Some municipalities require a soil sample to be sent to a lab. If all is clear, the abandoned tank is then filled to capacity with the desired inert material. If there are holes found in the tank, the tank must then be removed, as there is an assumption of a spill event. We can no longer go ahead with an abandonment.

If your municipality requires an inspection, the town inspector will come out to the site after the tank has been cleaned and again after it has been filled to capacity to ensure all proper procedures have been followed.

Advanced Environmental will backfill the excavation with clean dirt and restore the site to its original condition applying, if appropriate, grass seed and protective hay.

Before the job is considered complete, an official Certificate of Completion is issued to you and all requisite reports are delivered to the appropriate municipal offices as required.