Who is going to clean it up?

[flatbutt]

Can it even be cleaned up after 100 years of operation? What a mess it must be.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/what-contamination-lurks-on-—-and-under-—-shuttered-south-philly-refinery/ar-BB105349?ocid=spartanntp

[GH85Carrera]

You know who, the taxpayers all across the country. The EPA will call it a superfund site, and spend a few hundred million. I would never want to live on that site. They should seal it off, and stay off.

[Porchdog]

Any remaining companies that are determined by the EPA to be responsible - Then the excess from Superfund.

The article seems to be trying to pump up the problem as being worse than they have any evidence for.

Superfund is a big government program that can actually show some success.

[flatbutt]

Originally Posted by Porchdog

Any remaining companies that are determined by the EPA to be responsible - Then the excess from Superfund.

The article seems to be trying to pump up the problem as being worse than they have any evidence for.

Superfund is a big government program that can actually show some success.

From your location it seems that you are in the area. From your PoV it's not as bad as the article states?

[sammyg2]

Lots of speculation, based on .....?

The owners, and the previous owners, are on the hook for the clean-up.
And you would be surprised at how easy it is to clean up the site of a previous refinery.
Doesn't take long and doesn't cost that much.

Example:
I worked here in the late 80s into the 90s:



They shut it down and finished tearing it down several years ago maybe 5 I'm guessing, maybe a little longer.
They then remediated the site and sold it.
This is what it looks like today:






The cost to clean it up was a tiny fraction of what the land was worth.
Oil refineries are cleaner than most people think.

[sammyg2]

2007, refinery still intact but mothballed. They were trying to get permits to restart.

2012, most of the refinery torn down but you can still see the fractionation tower from the alkylation unit and some other misc. equipment still standing.



2016, remediation completed, new construction in progress:



2017, new buildings up and running.



PS that refinery has been there since before WWII

[MRM]

Sure, it can be cleaned up. Worse projects have been accomplished and turned into high demand development. Here's an excellent article on the Sparow's Point redevelopment in Maryland that shows how it can be done if the demand for the land is high enough and the ownership is flexible enough to think outside the box.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-08-15/amazon-under-armour-and-fedex-set-up-shop-in-an-industrial-graveyard


The site was once the location of the world's biggest steel plant. The old owner went through bankruptcy and a really sharp and nimble management group bought it and figured out how to redevelop it. They'll make hundreds of millions of dollars on it, and they earned every penny of it.

As in the OP's article, the biggest barrier to redevelopment was the unknown environmental risk. The turning point in the project came when the property owners contracted with an environmental engineering company to "buy" the environmental liability from the property owners. After years of research, the engineering company was comfortable that they knew what it would take to remediate the site and how much it would cost. They had the expertise to do it themselves so they felt they understood the risks and could handle the project because they weren't depending on anyone else's judgment or expertise. The property owners then paid the engineering company to accept legal responsibility for the cleanup. They had to put up a huge bond, but the result was a project where the property owners could finally get financing and move ahead with development because they and the lenders were no longer on the hook for unknown and unlimited environmental cleanup liability. The engineering company got the job done on time and under budget and made out like bandits. The lenders got their money back plus their exorbitant interest rate. The property owners got a project that was hugely profitable. And the local government got a huge boost in their tax base.

So, yes, it can be done. But it's not going to be done if industry, the government and local neighbors insist on a 1970s-era approach to a 21st century problem.

[RWebb]

1970s-era approach??

not possible - CERCLA became law in 1980 - "Superfund" with some big amendments in 1986

if the perps are still around and not bankrupt, they pay first; next are others who were involved (maybe even banks); finally a govt. fund

the above depends on various contingencies and whether the site is placed on the National Priorities List

it is all expensive and complicated, both the cleanup and the law

[GH85Carrera]

There was a local site in the city that was the site of an old gas station for many years. Evidently they had a gasoline leak in a tank, and the soil conditions were just right, or just the wrong type is more accurate. The site was sold, and a circuit city was going in. I used to drive past and saw the giant OMG hole they dug to get to all the contaminated soil. The hauled it off, and brought in a lot more new clean dirt. That had to be expensive. Circuit city went away long ago, Now it is is a grocery store.

I heard later the contaminated soil was brought to a burner, and they ran all of it through a large kiln like gizmo, and literary burned all the contaminates out, and were left with "clean" dirt.

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

There was a local site in the city that was the site of an old gas station for many years. Evidently they had a gasoline leak in a tank, and the soil conditions were just right, or just the wrong type is more accurate. The site was sold, and a circuit city was going in. I used to drive past and saw the giant OMG hole they dug to get to all the contaminated soil. The hauled it off, and brought in a lot more new clean dirt. That had to be expensive. Circuit city went away long ago, Now it is is a grocery store.

I heard later the contaminated soil was brought to a burner, and they ran all of it through a large kiln like gizmo, and literary burned all the contaminates out, and were left with "clean" dirt.

A few decades back, the gubmint passed new regs requiring reformulated gasoline.
The way to meet those regs? methyl tertiary butyl methyl ether, MTBE.

It was an oxygenate that resulted in cleaner burning. A side benefit was slightly higher octane index.
But it was later found to be bad juju
It wasn't listed as a carcinogen but it was suspected to leak from tanks and seep into groundwater really fast and efficient-like, more than other things like gasoline. it was outlawed in the 2000's and the gubmint decided the clean-up rules that in most cases required replacing under ground tanks at stations and often doing zackly what you described. Removal and incineration of the dirt around the tank.
MTBE was replaced with ethanol, which doesn't hurt groundwater or fishes in tiny concentrations like MTBE was said to do (and ethanol doesn't leak through underground tanks like MTBE was said to do).
But ethanol also reduces the efficiency of gasoline resulting in burning more of it to do the same work. Ethanol results in more pollution than it prevents, go figure.

The money spent doing that to gas stations was in the go-zillions, which the consumer paid for at the pumps.

But that really doesn't have anything to do with refineries as MTBE was usually added by the shipper/distributor after the gas left the refinery.

[Bob Kontak]

Originally Posted by sammyg2

But that really doesn't have anything to do with refineries as MTBE was usually added by the shipper/distributor after the gas left the refinery.

I know that BP's Toledo Refinery did inline blending of ethanol but I was the RFG attestation auditor after BP stopped using MTBE so I don't know what was done before they switched over. Suspect same.

IIRC, much of their ethanol addition was splash blended at terminals on the east coast.

[sammyg2]

Yep, some refineries blended it in tanks, the ones I am familiar with blended it in shipments going down the pipeline or after receipt at a third party facility.
I never had much to do with it.

I remember the good ole days when we still had a tetra-ethyl lead blending shack on premises, that was fun.

[Bob Kontak]

Originally Posted by sammyg2

the ones I am familiar with blended it in shipments going down the pipeline

This is what I remember.

Originally Posted by sammyg2

I remember the good ole days when we still had a tetra-ethyl lead blending shack on premises, that was fun.

My Mom's Dad was an operator at the Toledo Refinery and they filled trucks there in the 50's/60's. Spill? Just fire up a fag, get the hose and wash it down the drain. Easy peasy. Simpler times.

[Shaun @ Tru6]

Standard privatize profit and socialize risk model for superfund site clean-up.

[RWebb]

sometimes the PRPs (potentially responsible parties) are long gone...

the real issue is to what std. should something be cleaned up to - e.g. a place to safely raise kids (including gestation/lactation) or to an industrial park?

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by Shaun @ Tru6

Standard privatize profit and socialize risk model for superfund site clean-up.

Standard knee jerk reaction when you don't have a clue.

[RWebb]

He's right tho - polluters often want to cut & run. They even set up shell co.s to avoid responsibility. This was such a problem that CERCLA specifically includes statutory veil-piercing provisions.

[Shaun @ Tru6]

Originally Posted by sammyg2

Standard knee jerk reaction when you don't have a clue.

Standard droid response when you are an idiot and literally dumb as brick.

[island911]

la brea tar pits

who is going to clean up that oil fest.

it's been a tarry mess for tens of thousands of years.

[island911]

Originally Posted by Shaun @ Tru6

Standard droid response when you are an idiot and literally dumb as brick.

hmmm.. smart, or standard droid response. ^