Petroleum Clean Up

Introduction

Maine's underground and aboveground petroleum storage facilities located across the state store motor fuels and heating oil. In addition to spills associated with transporting and delivering fuel, the storage tanks and associated piping can fail due to corrosion, physical damage, inadequate maintenance and vandalism. The spilled petroleum can contaminate soil, groundwater and air and exposure to petroleum contaminated media can be harmful to ones health. DEP has guidelines to measure levels of petroleum contamination and determine the clean-up necessary to minimize risk to public health.

Written approval of clean up plans required. Oil discharges are required by Maine statute (38 MRS §568) to be cleaned up to the satisfaction of the Commissioner. Maine statute also limits payments to reimburse applicants to the Maine Ground and Surface Waters Clean-up and Response Fund (38 MRS §551) to those clean up expenditures that are in accordance with a written agreement between the applicant and the Commissioner and which includes a remedial action plan and schedule (38 MRS §568-A.4). Remedial action agreements are to be entered into before the start of clean up. For non-emergency response clean-ups, remedial action plans are expected to include a thorough evaluation of the feasible clean up alternatives and their cost effectiveness.

Contacts

The Petroleum Remedial Planning Unit manages the cleanup at large or complex sites.

  • For general information:
    Contact: Molly King at 458-8839
  • For information on Remediation Hydrogeology:
    Contact: Sean Dougherty at 441-7159
  • For Engineering questions:
    Contact: Tim MacMillan at 458-9484
  • For indoor air Issues:
    Contact: Peter Eremita at 592-0592

Petroleum Clean Up Program Guidelines, Information, Lists, Policy and Procedures

Remediation SOPS

LUST Program Quality Assurance Plan - Guidelines for environmental sampling and analysis under the Leaking Underground Storage Tanks program

Fund Coverage Cost Guide: The Fund Coverage Cost Guide is intended to give guidance regarding what will be considered as eligible for payment or reimbursement from the Ground and Surface Waters Clean-up and Response Fund on a site where an applicant has been found eligible for coverage by the Fund program, under 38 MRS §568-A. For further information, contact the Oil Remediation and Claims Unit at 287-7860.

Long Term Petroleum Remediation Priority List - The Priority List contains only petroleum-contaminated sites referred to the Division of Technical Services for long-term remediation and is updated quarterly.

Land Treatment Guidelines - The file is the guidance for land treatment of petroleum contaminated soils. October 2006. (pdf format)
Contact: Sean Dougherty, 441-7159

Petroleum Site Clean-up Guidelines: Remediation Guidelines for Petroleum Contaminated Sites in Maine (pdf format) -Effective November 15, 2023 These risk-based guidelines apply to the investigation and clean-up of petroleum contaminated sites. Be sure to review the Petroleum Addendum in Attachment C.   These guidelines supersede the May 23, 2014 Petroleum Guidelines.  The guidelines address ground water, drinking water, direct soil contact and indoor air impacts resulting from petroleum discharges.
Contact: Molly King, 458-8839

Petroleum: Estimating EPH & VPH from DRO & GRO results. Development of Risk-Based Cleanup levels for Petroleum Hydrocarbons, Interim Final, Prepared for the Maine Department of Environmental Protection by MACTEC Engineering and Consulting, Inc. in April of 2010. This report presents correlations between diesel range organics (DRO) and gasoline range organics (GRO) to Extractible Petroleum Hydrocarbons (EPH) and Volatile Petroleum Hydrocarbons (VPH). These guidelines complement, and do not replace, the petroleum site clean-up guidelines (above), by in some cases allowing the use of DRO/GRO sample results with the EPH/VPH soil clean-up guidelines.
Contact:  Nick Hodgkins 592-0882

Guidance: Sampling Procedure for EDB & 1, 2-DCA in Drinking Water Supply Wells and Ground Water (pdf format) June 1, 2010
Contact: Kelly Perkins - 287-7878

Related Programs and Links