Underground Storage Tank Surveying
Often our clients are new owners of property that once functioned as a service station or military facility, where evidence of underground storage tanks may be present. Yes, those little pipes peeking up from the concrete are typically indicative of an underground storage tank (UST), which may pose a variety of development issues for you.
How big is it? Where is it? Do you remove it or work around it? Good grief, did it leak?!
Call the experts at EMC and we’ll answer those questions for you. More than that, we can show you where the tank once rested and even the material used to fill the void it occupied. Our reliable team has decades of experience unearthing UST’s by employing a host of complimentary tools that confirm their presence, or absence, but one that ultimately enhances your understanding of what lies beneath.
Generally speaking, the UST search begins with a Phase I survey usually conducted by our client companies. This is useful in getting an idea of where a tank may have been located in the past. Based on historic aerial maps or Sanborn insurance maps a general idea of tank location can often made.
Once a location is suspected, we bring in our geophysical equipment to pinpoint any anomalous areas and buried pipelines, which may lead to the UST’s location. In those anomalous areas, a simple 6-foot probe can sometimes be inserted into the ground so as to test for the presence of the buried tank. Often time’s tanks have been removed and no record of the removal exists. In these cases, having data that may indicate no tank is present but that a former tank hold is suspected due to the presence of different fill material can be beneficial to close a case.
A word about GPR
Many of our clients face a major problem in void and tank-hold delineation. It’s the mud, specifically clay, which is commonplace in our local soils. The high electrical conductivity of this earthly constituent renders the use of ground penetrating radar less effective as it attenuates, or absorbs the radar pulse and restricts maximum penetration depth to just a few feet. Additionally, high precipitation rates mean high soil moisture content, further increasing the attenuation rate of the transmitted radar signal. Our team is well aware of this natural limitation to GPR and so, we have a variety of tools at our disposal that are much more adept at revealing ‘that which is concealed by clay’. We mention this admittedly, because we have been made aware that some companies provide GPR services in high clay environments with ineffective results. So, just sayin’ - call the professionals… call EMC!
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