News Releases - 1996

Illinois EPA Pays $4.6 Million in August for Underground Tank Reimbursements as New Environmental Impact Fee Takes Hold

Springfield, Ill. - The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has instructed the Illinois Comptroller to pay a record $4.6 million from the Underground Storage Tank (UST) Fund to tank owners and operators whose reimbursement claims were received by the Agency between Nov. 16 and Dec. 14, 1994. Expected to be mailed in mid-August, the payments will retire 128 claims from a backlog of 1,930 claims totaling more than $60 million as of July 26, 1996.

Until now, reimbursements to UST owners and operators for completed cleanup work averaged $300,000 a month, far below what is needed to avoid fund deficits. Seeking to raise fund income, the Illinois legislature in May placed an "environmental impact fee" on UST owners and operators. Each time a 7,500-gallon tanker truck replenishes an underground tank, the tank owner sends the fund $60. Altogether, these fees are projected to produce an estimated $45 million annually.

"We're delighted to see the UST Fund beginning to make monthly reimbursements that can significantly reduce the fund's deficit," said Bill Child, chief of the Illinois EPA's Bureau of Land.

"If nothing disrupts the fund's inflows, we can expect the next monthly payout will wipe out the remainder of December 1994 reimbursement claims and whittle away those received in January 1995. Each month we'll dig into the backlog of claims in roughly $4-million increments. Allowing for new claims, we believe we can chop about $10 million off the current backlog of $60 million by the end of 1996.

"New reimbursement claims are placed at the bottom of the backlog list, and these we expect will be paid by the end of 1997, or perhaps in early 1998. This process may appear to be slow until you realize what an enormous improvement it is compared to last summer. Back then, when there was no environmental impact fee feeding the UST Fund, tank owners and operators faced the prospect of waiting 12 to 15 years for reimbursement. Their prospects are much brighter today," Child said.