Home → Spills & Site Cleanup → Programs → Petroleum Clean Up
Petroleum Clean Up
- Contacts
- Petroleum Clean Up Program Guidelines, Information, Lists, Policy and Procedures
- Related Programs and Links
Introduction
Maine's underground and aboveground petroleum storage facilities located across the state store motor fuels and heating oil. In addition to spills associated with transporting and delivering fuel, the storage tanks and associated piping can fail due to corrosion, physical damage, inadequate maintenance and vandalism. The spilled petroleum can contaminate soil, groundwater and air and exposure to petroleum contaminated media can b harmful to ones health., DEP has guidelines to measure levels of petroleum contamination and determine the clean-up necessary to minimize risk to public health.
Written approval of clean up plans required. Oil discharges are required by Maine statute (38 MRSA §568) to be cleaned up to the satisfaction of the Commissioner. Maine statute also limits payments to reimburse applicants to the Maine Groundwater Oil Clean-up Fund to those clean up expenditures that are in accordance with a written agreement between the applicant and the Commissioner and which includes a remedial action plan and schedule (38 MRSA §568-A.4). Remedial action agreements are to be entered into before the start of clean up. For non-emergency response clean-ups, remedial action plans are expected to include a thorough evaluation of the feasible clean up alternatives and their cost effectiveness.
Contacts
The Petroleum Remedial Planning Unit manages the cleanup at large or complex sites.
- For further information:
Contact:Tom Benn at 215-3692
- For information on Remediation Hydrogeology:
Contact: Bruce Hunter at 287-7672 or 287-2651 - For Engineering questions:
Contact: Fred Lavallee at 287-7677 or 287-2651 - For indoor Air Issues:
Contact: Peter Eremita at 822-6364 or 287-2651
Petroleum Clean Up Program Guidelines, Information, Lists, Policy and Procedures:
- Remediation SOPS
- Compendium of Field Testing of Soil Samples for Gasoline and Fuel Oil (pdf format)
Contact: Fred Lavallee, Troy Smith, Rob Peale (207) 287-2651
- August 2009 - Explanation of petroleum contaminated drinking water laboratory results for homeowners - (pdf format)
- LUST Program Quality Assurance Plan - Guidelines for environmental sampling and analysis under the Leaking Underground Storage Tanks program
- Fund Coverage Cost Guide: The Fund Coverage Cost Guide is intended to give guidance regarding what will be considered as eligible for payment or reimbursement from the Ground Water Oil Clean-Up Fund on a site where an applicant has been found eligible for coverage by the Fund program, under 38 M.R.S.A. Section 568-A. For further information, contact the Oil Remediation and Claims Unit at (207) 287-7860
- Long Term Petroleum Remediation Priority Lists - The following Priority List refers only to petroleum-contaminated sites referred to the Division of Technical Services for long-term remediation. It is presented in two documents that differ only in how they are sorted: one sorted alphabetically by towns, the other sorted by its state priority ranking.
- View the Priority List sorted by state ranking (pdf format)
- View the Priority List sorted by towns (pdf format)
- Groundwater Sampling - Low Flow Ground Water Sampling, 6/96
- Historical Oil Contamination Travel Distaces in Groundwater at Sensitive Geological Sites in Maine, APRIL 30, 2002
Contact: George Seel - (207) 287-2651 - Land Treatment Guidelines - The file is the guidance for land treatment of petroleum contaminated soils. October 2006. (pdf format)
Contact: Robert Sypitkowski - (207) 941-4564 - Petroleum Site Clean-up Guidelines: Updated November 20, 2009 (Effective December 1, 2009)- Remediation Guidelines for Petroleum Contaminated Sites in Maine (pdf format) - These risk-based guidelines apply to the investigation and clean-up of petroleum contaminated sites, including gasoline, aviation fuels, methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), kerosene, #2 heating oil, other heating oils including heavy oils, diesel fuel, or other comparable petroleum hydrocarbons. It applies to DEP staff, potential responsible parties, Maine Ground Water Oil Clean-up Fund applicants, Voluntary Response Action Program applicants and others remediating oil sites in Maine. These guidelines go into effect on December 1, superseding on January 1, 2010 the Department’s “Procedural Guidelines for Establishing and Implementing Action Levels and Remediation Goals for the Remediation of Oil Contaminated Soil and Ground Water in Maine” (December 5, 2008), which are based on gasoline range organics (GRO) and diesel range organics (DRO). Both sets of guidelines will be in effect for one month to allow for the transition to the Volatile Petroleum Hydrocarbons (VPH) and Extractible Petroleum Hydrocarbons (EPH) approach used in the new guidelines.
Contact: George Seel - (207) 287-2651 - Petroleum: Estimating EPH & VPH from DRO & GRO results. Development of Risk-Based Cleanup levels for Petroleum Hydrocarbons, Interim Final, Prepared for the Maine Department of Environmental Protection by MACTEC Engineering and Consulting, Inc. in April of 2010. This report presents correlations between diesel range organics (DRO) and gasoline range organics (GRO) to Extractible Petroleum Hydrocarbons (EPH) and Volatile Petroleum Hydrocarbons (VPH). These guidelines complement, and do not replace, the petroleum site clean-up guidelines (above), by in some cases allowing the use of DRO/GRO sample results with the EPH/VPH soil clean-up guidelines.
Contact: Nick Hodgkins (207) 287-2651 - Vapor Intrusion Guidance: Investigation procedures to determine if petroleum products have volatilized from soil or water into indoor air, & associated risk-based evaluation guidance. Contact: Nick Hodgkins (207) 287-2651 or Pete Eremita (207) 822-6300
- Oil Discharge Notification: Notification of Environmental Evidence of an Oil Discharge. These interim guidelines provide guidance on the Department’s expectations for reporting evidence of petroleum contamination based on soil and ground water sampling and analytical results conducted in the course of environmental site assessments at underground and above ground oil storage facilities.
Contact: George J. Seel (207) 287-2651 - Evaluation of PID and FID Field Instrument Responses to Weathered Petroleum Products June 2004.
Contact: Fred LaVallee - (207) 287-2651 - Guidance for Well and Boring Abandonment (pdf format) January 7, 2009
Contact: Rob Peale - (207) 287-2651 - Guidance: Sampling Procedure for EDB & 1, 2-DCA in Drinking Water Supply Wells and Ground Water (pdf format) June 1, 2010
Contact: George Seel - (207) 287-2651
Related Programs and Links
- Aboveground Oil Storage Tanks
- Homeowners
- LUST Program Quality Assurance Plan
- Underground Oil Storage Tanks
- Environmental Protection Agency - Underground Storage Tanks web site. (Off Site)
- Ground Water Oil Clean-Up Fund - Information sheet on the fund. Explains fund coverage for owners and operators of underground and aboveground oil storage facilities.
- Remediation Program Guidance: Guidance for the Investigation and Clean-up of Contaminated Sites in Maine
