Long history of select Lake Tahoe Basin gas stations contaminating soil, groundwater
By Lauri Kemper
The Lahontan Water Board is considering closing a groundwater pollution cleanup case at the USA gas station in South Lake Tahoe after years of cleanup work following fuel spills and leaks at the site. The site is now considered a low threat to the environment and drinking water supplies.
The USA gas station is one of five Lake Tahoe Basin gas stations named in a recent lawsuit filed by the attorney general on behalf of the State Water Resources Control Board. In the past, the five sites all caused significant groundwater contamination and threatened or shut down community water supplies.
The lawsuit filed in May, alleges that Azad Amiri, Sarbjit S. Kang, and their affiliates committed numerous leak prevention violations at 10 underground storage tank facilities in Contra Costa, El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento and Yolo counties. The facilities are fueling and convenience stores that operate under several brand names. The lawsuit addresses current and ongoing violations at the sites.
Lahontan Water Board staff efforts have resulted in the restoration of water quality and protection of drinking water at the five locations in the Tahoe basin that are named in the lawsuit.
Below is a summary of the Lahontan Board’s regulatory activities at those five stations:
Former USA Gas Station No. 7, 1140 Emerald Bay Road, South Lake Tahoe
In 1983, fuel was observed leaking from an underground storage tank following excavation work at the site. The tanks and some contaminated soil were removed and new tanks installed. From 1986 through 1993, some groundwater monitoring was conducted, but the responsible party failed to meet Water Board orders.
By 1996, Water Board staff determined an additional release of petroleum occurred at the site based on high concentrations of MTBE in groundwater. In 1997, the Water Board issued its third cleanup and abatement order to the owners.
From 1997-2013 significant cleanup efforts were conducted. At its maximum, the contaminated groundwater plume extended approximately 2,000 feet north, west, and northwest of the source area, and affected or threatened private and community drinking water supply wells in the area. Currently, the residual petroleum plume is about 150 feet long, and MTBE has been removed except for a small area surrounding one monitoring well.
The responsible party has requested case closure under the State Water Board’s Low-threat Underground Storage Tank Case Closure Policy. Water Board initiated a 60-day comment period. In response to comments by the South Tahoe Public Utility District, the Water Board has requested additional information from the responsible party to support case closure.
Former Beacon Station, 8070 North Lake Blvd., Kings Beach
In 1998, North Tahoe Public Utility District staff notified the Water Board of gasoline sheen on Lake Tahoe, near its drinking water intake pipeline. Gasoline discovered in monitoring wells between the lake and gas station confirmed leaks in the underground storage tanks.
With the station within 100 feet of the lake, the North Tahoe PUD ceased pumping lake water at Secline Avenue for municipal water supply. Over the next 10 years, the Tesoro Company, which owned the gas station operated by Kang and Amiri, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to clean up soil and groundwater pollution (funds reimbursed by the State Underground Storage Tank Cleanup Fund). When cleanup was completed in 2010, the Water Board closed the case. The North Tahoe PUD resumed pumping the Secline Avenue intake pipeline for municipal water supply.
The site now operates as a Mobil Gas Station.
Former Beacon Station, 3208 Highway 50, Meyers
In 1997, South Tahoe Public Utility District shared with the Water Board sampling results of MTBE (a fuel additive) in two municipal supply wells in Meyers. The Lahontan Water Board issued orders to five businesses in Meyers requiring all to conduct groundwater sampling. The results showed extensive contamination at the Beacon station at the west end of Meyers. Further investigations showed gasoline had moved through the porous granitic soils from leaking pipelines, dispenser pumps, and tank sumps at the gas station.
The station was owned by Tveten Corporation and operated by Sarbjit Singh Kang.
STPUD ceased operating the affected municipal supply wells along with a third supply well located farther away. The loss of these wells created a burden on STPUD to provide enough drinking water to its customers.
Upon the death of the property owner, the Water Board took on cleanup of the site using special State funds earmarked for emergency, abandoned, and recalcitrant sites. A contractor hired by the Water Board spent the next six years investigating the extent of groundwater contamination and conducting cleanup actions. When the drinking water aquifer had been restored in 2005, the Water Board closed the case.
Slightly more than $1 million was spent to investigate and cleanup the contamination. The Water Board issued a fine in 1999 to Kang, the estate of Joe Tveten, and the J.E. Tveten Corporation in the amount of $112,500, which was never paid.
Swiss Mart Gas Station, 913 Emerald Bay Road, South Lake Tahoe
State mandated tank upgrades resulted in the identification of soil and groundwater contamination at the Swiss Mart gas station in 1998 from leaking tanks, pipelines and dispensers. The business was owned by the Amiri Oil Company and operated by Sarbjit Singh Kang.
Gasoline and diesel impacted one of the Lukins Brothers Water Company’s municipal supply wells located one block away and two private domestic wells two blocks away. The municipal well was taken out of service. Under Water Board orders, some groundwater cleanup, with off and on operations of the system occurred over 10 years. Failure to comply with cleanup and abatement orders resulted in the Water Board levying fines in 1999 and 2009, of which $256,000 are still unpaid.
The Water Board also pursued injunctive relief in El Dorado County Superior Court to require Kang and Amiri to keep operating the remediation system in order to protect nearby water supply wells. The site was cleaned up in 2010 and the case was closed.
Former Beacon 3688, 2304 Lake Tahoe Blvd., South Lake Tahoe
In 1988, a site assessment by Beacon indicated petroleum vapors in the subsurface. The Water Board required groundwater investigation and by 1991, soil and ground water cleanup began. In 1992, the underground storage tanks were replaced and approximately 1,500 cubic yards of contaminated soil was removed.
In 1998, a leaking gas dispenser was observed, and monitoring showed MTBE in groundwater at previously clean locations. In response to these detections, South Tahoe Public Utility District preemptively shut down their Helen supply wells.
Because of this new release Beacon increased the pumping rate of their groundwater treatment system. By 2002, more than 22 million gallons of contaminated groundwater was pumped and treated at the site. The site was closed in 2004 with groundwater contaminant levels at or near laboratory detection limits.
The Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board’s mission is to preserve, protect, enhance and restore the quality of California’s water resources for the benefit of present and future generations. For more info about contaminated sites, go online. Here is a link to the gas station maps.
Lauri Kemper is assistant executive officer of Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board.
These foreigners have no respect for Tahoe’s water or the environment. They live in filth and bring their ways here. There will be further issues with these polluters. Interesting that it appears every gas station they own has polluted OUR environment and they refuse to pay fines all the while, cashing in on people foolish enough to buy gas from them. They should all be shut down and never permitted to open another business in this country.
Wow Gaspen! “They (foreigners) live in filth and bring their ways here.” The same thing was said about Black, Irish and Italian immigrants many years ago. Perhaps they are just ignorant? Perhaps they purchased the businesses while the leaks were in progress? You brush is a bit wide.
If it weren’t for the internet I would not have any reason to believe that trash like gaspen still exist. Hahah keep it up.
What kind of dirty foreigners built the Keys?
If memory serves just about every station in town had issues during the MTBE debacle.
how about the 3 tanks discovered under Rude Brothers last month, one with 1500 gallons of gas, this had to have been there over 50 years. Wonder what country those people were from? Stupidity and greed is not a nationallity.
Gaspen Aspen, Racisim, to me, is intolerable! It doesn’t matter what nationality of the person is that owns the leaking gas tanks is! The important thing is that they and the surrounding areas gets cleaned up.
These “foreignors”, as you call them, came from around the world, helped built this country and our town! Let them fix the leaky tanks and pay any associated fines and the clean up costs.
Ever live next door to a Swiss / Itailain famliy?…I did! Good folks! We rented a room at the motel every year to a big family of Armenians…good folks and man could they cook! Ever go to school with a Hispanic or black person? I did and they became some of my best friends ever. Not becauase of their skin color or appearence, it was because they were GOOD PEOPLE!!!!
If you want to say these people who ” live in filth ” as you say, then I suggest you move back to your country of origin and leave this great melting pot of cultures that is America. OLS
p.s. Are YOU flying your flag today? It is Flag day you know.
Sadly, Gaspen Aspen, you seem to match the hate-mongering racist radio-mouth Michael Savage (who was UC Berkeley teacher Michael Weiner) who broadcast: “Why are those gibberish-speaking slant-eyed foreigners…(allowed)… here on OUR Golden Gate Bridge?”
I hope you think far better than that.
Thank you, OLS, for remembering Flag Day today!
Love it! I have stirred you all up. Yes OLS, I did live next to an Italian Swiss who was one of the best people I have ever known. He was the poster child of what immigrants USED to be. He came here with a loaf of bread and a block of cheese. He NEVER asked for a hand out and made his life here, became a contractor, raised a family, etc. Sadly he has passed and I miss him all the time.
These gas station foreigners have NOT paid for the pollution they have caused and it appears they don’t care. I never once made a RACIST comment about them as you who don’t agree with me would have one believe. I would feel the same if they were from any other country. You head in sand people will continue to sit on the side lines and say it’s OK, they are just trying to make a life here. Nothing wrong with that I say, BUT, when they continually and without any remorse pollute our land and lake I GET PISSED. It’s a FACT, they come here for whatever reason to “improve” their lives but at the cost of OUR lake and land. If you don’t believe their culture affects us then you better get back to reading the books. I call it like it is and don’t care if I’m not PC.
Cosa…..you need some lemon to help your stench.
rock4tahoe, “perhaps” you should be better informed.
Curmudgeon: You will NEVER find me thinking like someone from Berkeley!!!
reloman: You tell us…what country ARE they from???
reloman says: Enlighten us…what country are they from??
Xenophobic piece of trash.
GFYS.
‘ I never once made a RACIST comment about them as you who don’t agree with me would have one believe. ‘
Correct. You made a XENOPHOBIC comment. Which is on the same level as racism. It is racism’s more cowardly cousin.
‘You will NEVER find me thinking like someone from Berkeley!!!
Why? You are uneducated and read at an 6th grade level?
‘Nothing wrong with that I say, BUT, when they continually and without any remorse pollute our land and lake I GET PISSED.’
Self-hating old white man. Right? Palin 2016.
GFYS.
How on earth did an article about ground contamination become a discussion on racism? Your hatred and vitriol do not belong here.
‘Nuff said.
I’ve got a loaf of bread and a block of cheese for Gaspen Aspen….maybe he could relocate to some other country-say, North Korea- and make his way to the top of the economic food chain…instead of being the bottom feeder that he is here. I would call you an “ignorant piece of sh it” but Kae would probably blip it.
Cosa, quit trying to understand the way people think. It will drive you nuts. Obviously Mr. Kang is the individual that seems to have no regard for the legal system or the environment. Gaspen Aspen is just an uneducated person who is afraid of the inevitable change in society in our country. Those types of people lash out verbally because they have no other recourse in alleviating their fears. You on the other hand sound as if you have a grip on reality. Don’t lower yourself to trying to get these misanthropic individuals to change.
GFYS? Go Find Yourself? Go Fool Yourself? Go Fund Yourself? Gee, what could it mean? LOL!!!
Haddi T. Uptahere, Hmmm, Copper, Cosa and so many others here, you all bring a smile to my face! Subtle humor mixed with intelligent comments make for a delightful read!
Thank you Kae, for allowing the comment section to go along as it is. With your journalisitc skills, photography and Bill Kingmans excellent “Then and Now” series it’s no wonder you have such high readership numbers!
Haddi? You get the the best laugh of the day with your last couple of sentences! Keep it comin’. OLS
I feel as though I should comment here… All I can say us WOW!… Now could we get a bus to Meyers?!
Shenja and worldcycle, Shenja, do not give up hope for bus transportation to Meyers. With enough pressurre it WILL happen! Look what Tahoe4Tahoe did with prop.S to get rid of the parking meters!!!!
Form a committee, call the Tahoe Transportation District with your concerns, start a petition drive! You have my support 100%!!!!
worldycle, I figured you moved and container planting is a viable option. I’m tryin’ it out as are my neighbors, so we’ll see how that works out.
Happy pedalling, OLS
All of the clueless ones claiming racism, usually not only have no idea of what their talking about, they are the same ones seen embracing the worst excuse in office in history called the O’Bummer, the clueless one, busy destroying this country and causing, by ignoring, the middle east to implode and be retaken by terrorists while he golfs and naps and travels fund raising and costing more millions. Same ones who voted this country down the road to double the poverty level twice. Yet they don’t want to admit that the majority of gas station owners have names that sure look like they are from India who caused, didn’t clean up, or pay for, nearly all of the pollution. The names are real and the rest is fact. Yelling racism simply means ignorance and they have nothing else in their empty heads.
Thanks OLS… I guarantee that the TTD and most people up there know who I am by now… Petition?.. Eh I know it will happen eventually.. What’s important is that Meyers actually uses it when it becomes avail…. Otherwise ” they” will be right and it will be a wast of time… Eventually it will become a necessity … It just sucks that “they” don’t see the use for it NOW!
Umm Justice… We know you hate President Obama but, Gaspen wrote “These foreigners have no respect for Tahoe’s water or the environment. They live in filth and bring their ways here.”
Xenophobic d. “having or showing an intense or irrational dislike or fear of people from other countries.”
“Yet they don’t want to admit that the majority of gas station owners have names that sure look like they are from India”
Justin, would you be happier if a person of a different ethnicity than the ones you bash owned all the small gas stations? Are you feeling pushed out because folks of only white skin color don’t surround you?
Dude, your living in the wrong century! Come join us in this current one.
Well said, Justice!
Justice,
Well written piece. Bat sh.t crazy but well written. I simply cannot get over the total loss of memory you have of events prior to Mr. Obama being elected. Your petulant name calling and blatant racist remarks will forever banish you into the realm of unenlightened keyboard mashers such as Gaspen Aspen, CJ McCoy etc, etc.
You should also follow Cosa’s advice to Gaspen. GFYS. Better use of your hands than banging out that tripe on your keyboard. :-D
I hope these leaking fuel tanks are replaced and the contaminated soil is removed. Those MTBE spills that happened years ago were quite a mess.
I also hope that slurs thrown at people with “names like they sure sound they are from India” and “living in filth and bringing there ways here” are on hold. I find this type of talk disgusting and hurtful, to me, and espicially those on the receiving end, spewed out by narrow minded bigots!!
Guess what? I went to a Mexican Resturaunt for dinner last night and who was working there? The Mexican owner and his family. Great food and great service!!!
I didn’t run out shocked in horror over people that aren’t white. I actually had a great time!
Yes, some people look beyond race or religous beliefs and accept people for who they are…PEOPLE! HUMAN BEINGS!!!
Sorry for the lecture but I just had to get that off my chest. Now just clean up the leaky tanks and dispose of the dirty soil and we will move on. OLS
This is eighty year old technology how come they can’t stop the tanks from leaking?
I think there is still hope they fixed most of the broken stoplights after more than twenty years. Maybe some genius can design a tank that won’t leak.
As the article states as did the previous article on this
“Long history of select Lake Tahoe Basin gas stations contaminating soil, groundwater ”
Point is these individuals delayed maintenance ,avoided repairs and deliberately continued to operate these facilities polluting South Lake Tahoe drinking water showing little regard for the community,its residents health or the enviromment. I would not be surpised to see a few health realted lawsuits filed sometime. Fines not being paid also shows lack of respect to authorities for the systems in place to provide safe water and to protect the environment. Now, MORE public tax dollars and TIME need to be spent “to address current and ongoing violations”. Kinda looks,smells like extreme negligence to me. To be occuring in the Lake Tahoe basin is an absolute tragedy.
You Knuckleheads think you’re so open minded but whine when others don’t think like you. Barking racism shows your ignorance and that you have nothing else in your narrow minded heads. If I was being a racist I would have called them “Rag-heads or Towel heads”. THAT you fools would be racist. I called them Foreigners and THATS WHAT THEY ARE. Nothing more nothing less. Crawl back under your self-righteous rocks.
Gaspen, you can tell someone is a foreigner just by their name?
No one ever named Kang or Amiri could have been born and raised here? No one from another country has ever become a citizen? Do you think Joey Tveten was a foreigner?
Last question. Any room under YOUR self-righteous rock?
Gaspen. You could just say you are sorry for the comments, instead of trying to deflect at this point.
This just goes around and around and ends up back at the start. The violators, 99% from India, are the focus of law breaking and polluting and endangering the water sources and environment, where is the outrage? It is directed at those pointing out the violators are all appearing to come from the same country, the very same one where their country’s rivers are used for bathrooms and body disposals. The blindfolded fools of ignorance have no conception of the real world and who is in it and telling it like it is which is becoming rare. This country must protect what is left here before the third world becomes a standard low living lifestyle in this country.
Justice, talk to the oligarch’s who are sending all the jobs to these countries to make more profits for themselves. If you think that the up and comming middle class in these “third world” countries are not as smart or hard working as most of the people in the U.S. then you are the blindfolded fool of ignorance with no conception(sic) of the real world.
The facts of this story have been denigrated into a story on bigotry. You want to tell it like it is? Okay. You are nothing but a sh-t stirring bigot with an IQ that is probably only a little bigger than your pen is.
Haddi, what is even scarier about Justices comments is that he is a law enforcement officer in Douglas County.
Biggerpicture is wrong and has no idea of what they are talking about. The third world realities of crime, pollution, and corruption, along with drug smuggling and gangs who launder their money here, have destroyed enough countries and are working on this one. The lesson here should be a complete intolerance for it. The idea to allow foreign ownership in this country of anything should be revisited and should never have been changed.
These leaky fuel tanks need to be replaced or patcthed. The gas station down the street has replaced theirs twice in ten years. Poor design or cheap material or maybe a little of both?
It doesn’t matter the country of origin of the owner of the leaking tanks. Who built the Tahoe Keys? It wasn’t someone with an “Indian” sounding name and look at the enviromental disaster that turned into!
The tanks and contaminated soil at the gas stations need to be fixed, and I don’t care if their from India or Timbuktoo!
For those of you who hate people from the middle east, the mexicans, the blacks an anybody else who’s not just like you ? Move away! Unless you’re Native American you are a “foreigner” to!
God bless America, where we welcome people from other lands with open arms,a lift up onto our great country, and doing so with a big smile!!!
Now lets get those tanks cleaned up! OLS
Justice and Gaspen For Facts:
Below you will find over a decade’s worth of TRPA violations and settlement agreements for failure to abide by environmental regulations:
http://www.trpa.org/document/legal/
Go back as many years as you want. All you’ll find are white people violating the law and paying HUGE penalties. You’re simply incorrect as a matter of fact.
As a white person myself, I hope you don’t make generalizations that all of my people don’t care about protecting the Lake!
“Biggerpicture says – Posted: June 17, 2014
Haddi, what is even scarier about Justices comments is that he is a law enforcement officer in Douglas County”
Having spent a weekend or two in law enforcement, and very familiar with the current administration at DCSO, I hope that’s not true. Or that, at minimum, he’s some sort of reserve or community service volunteer with no real ties to the professional law enforcement Department.
There was a time many years ago when DCSO might have represented knucklehead opinions like his, but under Sheriff Pierini opinions like that would not necessarily be censored; folks who might hold them would not be hired.
Gaspen is not racist. They are xenophobic. Slight difference, same disgusting mentality.
‘GFYS? Go Find Yourself?’
That is so zen, I like it.
My son and myself, 18 yrs later are still very I’ll from the meyers spill. We will never be healthy as it’s half life is 100 yrs. our medical bills are like a mortgage payment a month. We don’t smoke, drink, eat extremely well and that is just to maintain, survive. The state, gov Wilson, the EPA and the gasoline stations owe us our health and financial back. Please can someone help?