Standards ·
DC Would Let Old Tanks Live, If They Pass
A reproposed rulemaking drops the 30-year removal mandate for triennial tightness testing. Pass and you keep operating. Fail and a twelve month closure clock starts on a date you did not pick.
The District of Columbia has spent five years telling tank owners that a UST older than 30 years has to come out of the ground. That requirement is now on the table to be rescinded and replaced with a test.
The trade is straightforward. Age stops being the verdict. The tightness test becomes the verdict.
What changes
Under the current 20 DCMR 5700.10, an owner of any UST more than 30 years old had to remove it within five years of February 21, 2020. That put the deadline at February 21, 2025.
DOEE's Second Proposed Rulemaking, published in the D.C. Register on June 26, would rescind that removal requirement. In its place, an owner of a tank more than 30 years old could keep operating it provided the tank passes a tank tightness test every three years, performed under Section 6007, with results submitted to DOEE. A new Section 6007.6 carries the testing obligation.
The timing details matter. The first test is due within 90 days of the tank reaching 30 years of age, or within 90 days of the rule's effective date for tanks already past 30.
And the triennial test is on top of what you already owe, not instead of it. DOEE is explicit that it sits alongside the annual piping and leak detection equipment testing and the monthly leak detection already required.
DOEE's reasoning, drawing on other state programs and federal guidance, is that increased monitoring and testing is more economical than automatic removal at a fixed age, and keeps serviceable tanks in service.
The trapdoor
Read the failure clause before you celebrate.
If an aged tank fails the tightness test, the owner must permanently close it within one year of the test failure.
That is a meaningfully different risk profile than a known removal date. Under the old requirement you knew when the bill was coming and could plan capital against it. Under the new one you can defer the expense indefinitely, right up until a test result starts a twelve month clock you did not choose the timing of.
For an owner with cash and a sound tank, that is a good trade. For an owner with a marginal tank and no reserve, it converts a scheduled expense into a surprise one.
Where this stands
This is a reproposal, not a final regulation. DOEE first proposed the change on September 12, 2025. The comment period on the second proposal closed on July 26, 2026, and final action has not been published as of this writing.
Holland & Knight, in a July client alert by Maggie P. Pahl, flagged the questions stakeholders were being invited to weigh in on: whether three years is the right interval, whether the 90 day initial testing window is workable, whether one year is enough time to permanently close after a failure, and how any of it applies to inactive and abandoned tanks or to tanks already caught by the February 2025 removal deadline.
Those are not academic. If you own an aged tank in the District, the answers determine your next capital cycle.
Why an owner outside DC should still read this
DOEE is not the first regulator to weigh age against measured condition, and it will not be the last. The performance-based direction cuts against the harder line taken elsewhere, most visibly in California, where single-walled tanks lacking secondary containment were pushed toward closure on a fixed date with no test-your-way-out provision.
Two philosophies, both live. If your state ever revisits an age-based deadline, this is the shape the argument takes, and the tank owners who do well under a testing regime are the ones who already know what their tanks would do on a test.
What to check on your site
- Identify every tank at or approaching 30 years of age, with the install date documented rather than remembered.
- Pull your tightness testing history. Under a performance-based regime, the test record is the asset. Gaps in it are the liability.
- Find out what your aged tanks would actually do on a tightness test before a regulator schedules one. A test you commission is information. A test you are required to submit is a countdown.
- If you operate in the District, confirm your tester is a certified UST System Tester licensed there. District requirements call for testing under continuous on-site supervision.
- Price permanent closure for each aged tank now, so a failed test starts a project rather than a scramble.
Requirements described here are from the proposed amendments to 20 DCMR 5700.10, 5700.11, and 6007.6. Federal underground storage tank requirements are at 40 CFR 280. Confirm the current text before relying on it.