Yellowstone cleans up fuel tank sites

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Published: November 6, 2009

CODY, Wyo. (AP) — Contractors are cleaning up several sites around Yellowstone National Park where leaky underground fuel tanks had contaminated soil and groundwater over the past few decades.

The park's environmental protection specialist, Jim Evanoff, says some of the polluted sites are near pristine waters but don't pose an immediate threat to drinking water.

The National Park Service is working with the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality on the $3.5 million project.

Most of the 11 contamination sites are at service stations operated by concessionaires, and most of the leaks occurred or were discovered more than a decade ago.

They include gas stations at Grant Village, Bridge Bay Marina, Old Faithful, Lake, Canyon and Fishing Bridge, as well as a National Park Service maintenance facility at Canyon and a gas station at Pahaska Tepee, just outside the park's east entrance.

The buried fuel tanks are a small part of a mostly invisible infrastructure that runs throughout the developed sections of the nation's oldest national park, including water and power for many of Yellowstone's 1,500 buildings, Evanoff said.

Storing fuel above ground is not an option at many sites for safety or aesthetic reasons, and diesel fuel tanks must be buried to prevent the fuel from thickening during Yellowstone's extremely cold winters, he said.

Cleanup work includes a combination of removing contaminated soil and groundwater, as well as pumping oxygen underground to promote the growth of aerobic bacteria that metabolize hydrocarbons.

New underground fuel tanks installed in Yellowstone are all double-walled and equipped with leak sensors between the tank walls, Evanoff said.

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Information from: Billings Gazette, http://www.billingsgazette.com