The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Principles for Greener Cleanups outline the Agency's policy for evaluating and minimizing the environmental 'footprint' of activities undertaken when cleaning up a contaminated site. Use of the best management practices (BMPs) identified in EPA's series of green remediation fact sheets can help project managers and other stakeholders apply the principles on a routine basis, while maintaining the cleanup objectives, ensuring protectiveness of a remedy, and improving its environmental outcome. Approximately 543,800 releases of petroleum or hazardous substances from federally regulated underground storage tank (UST) facilities were confirmed by the U.S. EPA as of September 2018. Of these, approximately 65,450 releases at UST facilities had not yet reached the “cleanup completed” milestone. State agencies maintain responsibility to implement and oversee cleanup of all UST releases except those on tribal lands, where the U.S. EPA has jurisdiction. The Association of State and Territorial Solid Waste Management Officials (ASTSWMO) estimated that in 2017, alone, state cleanup funds collectively spent approximately $1.113 billion in cleaning up UST releases.

• Green Remediation Best Management Practices: Sites with Leaking Underground Storage Tanks (PDF)(4 pp, 221 K, 2019, 542-F-19-001)