Farmers are gradually switching from old overhead fuel tanks to more environmentally friendly doubled walled fuel tanks, but getting rid of the old tanks is not easy.
Aimee Wonsik, assistant agricultural fieldman with the Municipal District of Wainwright, said there is little information about disposal.
“There’s not a lot of guidelines out there about what to do with old fuel tanks,” said Wonsik.
Rules are different in each province and even differ between municipalities within each province.
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Some landfills take old tanks, others don’t and others will take tanks, but only with certain rules.
In the M.D. of Wainwright, the Wainwright Waste to Energy facility will accept tanks, but they must be steam cleaned and punched with holes to eliminate vapour buildup. A $34 per ton fee is also applied to old fuel tanks.
In Camrose, some of the landfills accept the tanks. The only rule is they must be empty, said Don Gregorwich, Camrose county reeve.
Wonsik said the easiest way to get rid of old tanks is to sell them to another farmer, but that doesn’t address the environmental problem.
“That’s just giving your neighbour your problem. A fuel tank is really designed to hold fuel. If it leaks on your place, it will leak on your neighbour’s place.”
Under the old federal environmental farm program, a subsidy was available to offset the roughly $5,000 cost for new fuel tanks.
Gregorwich, a former EFP co-ordinator, said several people used it to replace their tanks, but for others, the cost was still too high.
“By some people’s standards, the cost is still prohibitive.”
Under the new Growing Forward program, Saskatchewan and Manitoba partially cover the cost of tank replacement. Alberta will begin to subsidize the cost of replacement tanks when its Growing Forward program begins next year.
Joel Mowchenko, executive director of Saskatchewan’s Provincial Council of Agricultural Development and Diversification Boards said they encourage “beneficial management practices” like replacing or improving farm fuel storage, but there are no rules on disposal of old tanks.
“It’s one of the issues out there. There are very few regulations for on-farm storage and products.”
Don Edgecombe, operations manager with the Petroleum Tank Management Association of Alberta, said unlike other industries, there are no rules governing farm fuel tanks in Alberta, either in what kind of tanks are used, or their disposal.
“I don’t know what does happen to them, frankly. They’re pretty thin steel so will corrode quickly. I suspect farmers will just put them in an area of their farm where they won’t be noticed,” said Edgecombe.
Farm tanks are a creation of a “void in regulation” or rules, he said.
Fuel tanks in other industries must be steam cleaned and sent to a scrap dealer for recycling.
“We have very strict rules.”
Edgecombe said with existing farm fuel tanks, there is always the possibility of fire and explosion. In one case in the County of Leduc in 1990, one person was killed and three more were injured when a neighbour’s fuel tank was set ablaze by a grass fire.
With no ventilation, the ends of the tank exploded and rocketed across the yard, killing one person who was standing about 200 metres away.
Edgecombe said some farm tanks have made their way to industrial parks by farmers who have gone to work in the energy industry, but they are slowly being eliminated.
“Farm boys tend to do things the way they’ve always done and when they go to work in an industrial park bring their farm tanks with them.”
