Wiping Out the LUST Legacy in Tacoma

By Jill FitzSimmons

Not long ago, cities seemed to have a gas station on every corner. But as more highways and Interstates were built, roadways bypassed the old neighborhood filling stations. As early as the 1970s, the number of gas stations in the United States began to sharply decline. Many were sold or redeveloped. Others were simply abandoned and their underground storage tanks were left behind.

Today, it’s estimated up to 400,000 former petroleum sites can still be found throughout the country, their underground storage tanks (USTs) sitting idle and deteriorating. The rapid growth in cities and counties over the past half century has caused some of these sites to disappear off the radar screen, according to Steven McNeely, environmental protection specialist with the EPA’s office of underground storage tanks in Washington, D.C. As more state and local officials do redevelopment work in their communities, it will be important to have an inventory of these sites, McNeely says.

Where did Tacoma’s Gas Stations Go?
“We have a legacy of former petroleum sites along old highway corridors throughout the U.S.,” agrees Sharon Kophs, Washington State Community, Trade and Economic Development brownfield program manager.

In Tacoma, Washington, the health department, looking to guard its wellhead protection zones, set out to inventory those sites. Like the rest of the nation, Tacoma saw a boom in gas stations in the 1930s and 1940s, but that number today has sharply decreased. The city had 240 gas stations in 1930 and now has about 60.
Combining old-fashioned research and new technology, the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department found 746 properties that once had gas stations. About half had no record of ever being cleaned up or redeveloped. Kophs has driven through the south corridor in Tacoma, which has its share of abandoned sites. Often these properties are on corner lots. Many are great sites; however, they are in older, blighted neighborhoods. Still, Kophs believes they are good properties in urban areas where the existing infrastructure is in place for redevelopment.

While other communities are focused on the post-1980s UST regulations and preventing any leaking of known USTs, the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department is looking at the bigger picture, Kophs says. And no other city or county in Washington is believed to have inventoried its historical USTs using a combination of old city directories and a geographic information system.