Taylor County BOE (West Virginia) discusses removal of underground fuel tank that could potentially cause environmental concerns | Newspaper for Grafton and Taylor County WV | wvnews.com

Oct 25, 2024

GRAFTON, W.Va. (WV News) — The Taylor County Board of Education met to discuss the potential for environmental concerns centering on a below-ground fuel storage tank on the Taylor County Bus Garage grounds.

According to Superintendent John Stallings, the underground tank has far exceeded its life expectancy and could potentially cause issues, but the school system wants to be proactive and remove it before any problem could arise.

Stallings

After reaching out to Greg Martin at Williamson Shriver Architects, he recommended the board decommission the tank and remove it as soon as possible. To ensure proper fuel storage, the board would need to install new above-ground tanks.

Martin told the board they would have to decide on the size and location of the new tanks, as only they would know what would work best for the county’s transportation needs.

“Currently your diesel tank is 10,000 gallons and your gasoline tank is 5,000,” he said. “With you guys utilizing more propane buses, you could maybe reduce to 5,000-gallon tanks for both the diesel and gas and have somewhat of a smaller footprint.”

The installation of the new tanks would allow them to become operational before the decommission of the existing underground tank, limiting any disruption to the fueling process for the county’s buses.

Martin said he did not foresee any environmental issues that would need addressed with the removal of the old tanks.

“In discussion with Dr. Stallings, the tank is not actively leaking, so there should be no contamination area to deal with,” he said. “Once it is removed, you would then fill the hole back in with appropriate material, and you could use it as normal.”

In determining the location of new tanks, Martin said site studies would have to be conducted to learn of the best areas to utilize at the current location. There was always an option of placing tanks elsewhere, he said.

He presented the board with some estimated costs for both the removal and installation of new tanks.

“We were given a number of $3-$4 per gallon to remove the old tank,” Martin said. “That puts us in the range of $45,000 to $60,000 for just the removal.”

He then told the board the cost of the installation would be determined by the size of tanks they chose to place on the grounds.

“For a 10,000-gallon tank, you’re looking at $45,000 minimum,” Martin said. “For a 5,000-gallon, it is between $25,000-$30,000 per tank. Then you’re going to have to pay for construction costs and there are always miscellaneous unknown costs that arise, too.”

He reported an estimated $130,000 base price tag for construction costs but said it could be as much as $160,000.

Board member Melissa Knotts expressed concern that more solid plans were needed, because the underground tank would need addressed sooner than later to prevent any contamination of the ground or the river.

Knotts

“If we can strategize in a way that we can remain operational for fueling, we need to move forward with things,” she said.

Board member John Taylor expressed his gratitude to Martin for doing the initial work in coming up with some type of plan for the board to consider.

Taylor

“The quickest we can get this done, the better,” he said. “I personally would like to see this board move as quickly as we can to get his underway. Dr. Stallings, my request is that you expedite as much as you can, please.”

The board, citing a need to move quickly, asked Martin to start creating a definite proposal, allowing him to move forward with site surveys to better determine costs.

They asked him to return to meetings in the beginning of November with a solid plan in hand.

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