Today I went to a great class by the DEQ, sponsored by First American Title downtown. I learned so much! Evidently there are an estimated 100,000 underground storage tanks for heating oil in Oregon, and about 80,000 in Portland alone. They are so prevalent because oil companies put the tanks in for free after WWII, but now they are old, leaky, and have been replaced by natural gas lines. Decommissioning oil tanks found on properties has become a common occurrence during the sale of a house, but it is not required by law. The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has a list of license service providers (www.deq.state.or.us/lq/pubs/docs/tanks/hot/LicensedServiceProviders.pdf) who can locate the tanks, test the soil for contamination, remove or decommission the tank, remove contaminated soil, and test for air quality in the home. This all costs money, of course, but the sooner the oil is gone and the area is clean, the cheaper it will be. The DEQ is not in charge of doing any of the decommissioning, only certifying, after it's all done, that the proper procedures were followed. Once they review the paper work, photos, and lab results, they can issue a letter of closure for the site. To find out if the property you want to buy, or currently own, has had an oil tank found, decommissioned, and closed by DEQ, search there online database at www.oregon.gov/DEQ and the less information put in the fields, the better, usually the house number will be enough. The letter of closure is very important, just having the certificate from the licensed service provider does not mean that the job was done correctly. It can take 4-6 weeks to get it, but they can rush jobs for imminent closings.
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