PHOENIX -- Arizona officials are trying to clean up contaminated soil from hundreds of old gas stations along the famous Route 66 in hopes of attracting developers back to small towns in Northern Arizona, reported the Associated Press.
The distinctive stations, built at a time when storage tanks were made of easily corroded steel, closed when the final stretch of Interstate 40 opened in Williams in 1984. Route 66 was officially decommissioned in 1986.
Over time, leftover fuel in abandoned tanks leaked into the ground, poisoning soil and groundwater.
The contamination scared [image-nocss] off potential developers, who didn't want to assume responsibility for the environmental mess underfoot, and hampered growth in the towns along Arizona's stretch of the old highway. Two years ago, in an effort to clean up the environment and revive the ailing corridor, the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) started removing the 350 known underground storage tanks (USTs) lining the state's more than 200-mile segment of the nearly 2,500-mile road that stretched from Chicago to Los Angeles.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) got involved late last year to lend its resources and learn how to replicate the program in other states with the same problem.
About three-quarters of Arizona's leaking tanks have been cleaned up, at a cost of $12 million. More than half of the remaining ones are in Winslow and Holbrook.
Winslow now has only about five stations, down from as many as 30 in the busy years. Many old stations were knocked down and paved over with their storage tanks still in the ground. The findings by the ADEQ show that some of the tanks were leaking even when the stations were operating, though the owners either didn't know or weren't concerned about it. Environmental regulations weren't as strict then as they are now.
But the stigma associated with the old stations has turned out to be economically devastating. No one wanted to buy property where a tank was or may have been for fear of the costly responsibility of cleaning it up.
In June 2004, the ADEQ launched the Route 66 Initiative, a multiyear effort to clean up the leaking tanks and help revitalize the towns. The department pays for 90% of the removal and cleanup of USTs. Property owners pick up the remaining 10%. If the department can't find an owner, as is the case with many abandoned sites, the state picks up the whole tab.
Other states along Route 66 are looking to Arizona as a model for cleaning up the corridor, said Maggie Witt, who is the co-leader of the EPA's project.
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