PENNSYLVANIA BP Amoco will clean up 177 sites
All sites must be cleaned up by 2008 under the agreement.
HARRISBURG -- One of Pennsylvania's largest retail gasoline companies has agreed to clean up petroleum releases at 177 sites in Pennsylvania.
The agreement signed by BP Amoco and the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation calls for all of the sites to be clean by 2008 and includes three retail stations in Lawrence County and six in Mercer County.
State officials say the company has agreed to prioritize the problems and clean up the worst sites first. All have varying degrees of contamination, they said. BP Amoco voluntarily approached the DEP to establish an agreement to improve its environmental cleanup program.
What's included: The sites include 166 retail gasoline stations with underground storage tanks and 11 petroleum-storage terminal sites with above-ground tanks.
There have been about 12,000 petroleum releases statewide since the state started tracking them in the 1980s, said Jeff McCloud, DEP deputy press secretary.
About 60 percent or 7,300 have already been cleaned up, and the agreement with BP Amoco will clean up an additional 177 sites in the state, he said.
McCloud said there are about 90,000 petroleum storage tanks in Pennsylvania.