EPA removing abandoned underground gas tanks in Fresno County

FRESNO, Calif. -- The Environmental Protection Agency is removing a problem that's more than 75 years old by excavating four underground tanks. They were once buried beneath an abandoned gas station at Ventura and Broadway in Downtown Fresno.

It took a number of heavy equipment operators to pull the fuel tanks from beneath 603 Broadway, where they've sat since 1937. They fueled cars and trucks until 1982, when George Guzelian and his dad put a halt to the gasoline business as they couldn't afford to modernize.

Since then the tanks have weighed on George's mind. "I wanted to remove the tanks 3-4 times by myself but the banks wouldn't talk to me because of the underground tanks."

It's quite a pricy process and George always wondered what those more than 75-year-old tanks were doing underground. Turns out the EPA has also been wondering as they found hundreds of abandoned gas stations up and down the state.

Deirdre Nurre, a program leader with the underground storage tanks office for EPA's Region 9 said, "We discovered that there were any number of tank sites that were improperly closed meaning the tanks were left in place the owners had essentially walked away and the tanks had never been closed nobody knew whether there were substance in the tanks whether they were leaking."

Nurre says it's not easy as streets have to be blocked off and heavy equipment has to come in, and then there's the cost. The EPA's Brownfields program is contributing $138,000 to this clean up they're testing the soil at least ten feet below and they're wondering about contamination as it's anyone's guess as to what's been happening underground for the past 77 years.

"It's possible that because there is gasoline that may have leaked out historically there could be petroleum, benzene, other types of harmful constituents," explained Nurre.

That means the possibility of a leak into our ground water or vapors hampering our already bad air. All of this has been bothering George who says he's never been more relieved to see those tanks go. "It's my American dream coming true."

Now he says the once known gas station which he claims is William Saroyan's birthplace will soon be home to a restaurant. It'll be a few weeks before those tests come back so no word on whether there is contamination and the site is just one of 38 abandoned gas stations in Fresno County that need to be cleaned up.