Cleanup continues at former Patten General Store

14 years ago

    PATTEN — The Maine Department of Environmental Protection and the federal Environmental Protection Agency will oversee the continued demolition of the Patten General Store to allow the removal of three recently discovered underground petroleum storage tanks and additional contaminated soil discovered during an excavation two months ago.
    The demolition will take place Monday, Oct. 4, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. the corner of Maine and Founders streets.
    This four-day project is using economic stimulus money provided by the American Recovery and Revitalization Act (ARRA) and state clean-up funds. The Town of Patten took ownership of the former Patten General Store and gas station due to unpaid taxes.  The removal of the three additional underground storage tanks (USTs) and the approximately seven hundred tons of petroleum-contaminated soil, will complete the goal of making the property viable for redevelopment. 
    “It was not a total surprise that there were more tanks and contaminated soil at a location with a long history as a gas station,” says David McCaskill, the DEP senior environmental engineer overseeing the project.
     “Long-time residents recollected that there were tanks left in place and the existing store was built over them.  Despite the use of our advanced subsurface investigation technology you really truly don’t know until you dig,” according to McCaskill.
    The USTs at the former store and gas station are located less than 600 feet from the Town of Patten’s drinking water supply.  To further leverage the ARRA funds used for this drinking water protection project, the DEP is using one hundred thousand dollars from the Maine Groundwater Oil Clean-Up Fund to replace substandard aboveground home heating oil tanks at homes within the wellhead protection zone, the area that contributes recharge water to Patten’s drinking water well.  The first of an estimated 25 replacements took place two weeks ago.
    Gasoline spills from leaking underground storage tanks and piping have contaminated hundreds of private drinking water supplies across Maine including a number of public wells.  Spills from home heating oil tanks also contaminate wells.  “The DEP responds to an average of one spill a day from residential aboveground home heating oil tanks,” says McCaskill. “Spills from corroded tanks, leaking oil lines and overfills cost the state between one and two million dollars a year.”
    The Patten project is one of four such projects taking place in Maine this summer.  The others are the former Victor’s Irving Station in Grande Isle, the Smithfield General Store and a former gas station in Trenton.