BERKELEY TOWNSHIP – Township Council members have signed a consent order to remove several defunct underground storage tanks from the Public Works Department across from Town Hall on Pinewald-Keswick Road.
Officials unanimously approved the consent order for the tanks’ removal at the Feb. 25 Township Council meeting. The state Department of Environmental Protection recently notified the township that the two, 3,000-gallon tanks used to store heating oil had to go and at first fined Berkeley a $15,000 penalty.
“They haven’t been used in years,” Township Administrator John Camera said after the meeting. “They got lost in the shuffle. It goes back a little while. The tanks are essentially empty. They were abandoned when the township switched over to natural gas.”
The penalty has already been cut in half, to $7,500, he said.
“The tanks are stored at the Public Works Department across the street from Town Hall,” he said. “Berkeley has already begun making arrangements to have them removed.
“The tanks will be emptied and removed and the soil around them will be tested,” Camera told The Berkeley Times. “The entire job will be done by a licensed contractor.”
