Leaking Underground Oil Tank? Fixing Things Is Not a Tank-less Job!
May 22, 2009 — Despite what the old song says, you really don't want people tripping the light fantastic on the sidewalks of New York. They trip on your sidewalk, they may end up suing you, and that's hardly fantastic. And while that may or may not have been a specific concern of the board members at the Lenox Manor co-op at 176 East 77th Street — a building designed by the same architect as The Carlyle hotel — they knew that when their old oil-tank began leaking beneath a sidewalk of New York, they didn't want to end up singing the blues.
There are relatively few such oil-storage tanks built underground in Manhattan. Though a space-saver, it's much more expensive than installing a tank aboveground, because of the digging and earth-moving and extra layers of metal needed to help protect against oil seepage into the ground. Nonetheless, when time came to replace its underground tank last year, the building's board opted to abandon it and get a new one— leaving a relic for future archeologists and a case study for other boards facing a similar dilemma.
"A lot of people want to do underground — out of sight, out of mind," says Gabriel Zinn, a spokesperson for Rand Engineering & Architecture , which oversaw the project. "So the first question they ask is, 'Can we put it in the same place?' "
If there's a leak involved, as was the case here, then the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) needs to get involved. And, explains Joseph Menasce, who with Fayyaz Khan was one of Rand's two project engineers on the endeavor, "Most of these tanks are within the property line. But in this case, its under the sidewalk, so it's [also] under the jurisdiction of the [New York City] Department of Transportation." Among other challenges, he notes, "There's piping above the tank, for cold water, gas, fire protection" and, presumably, telecommunications and electricity.
When the board discovered that the old, 15,000-gallon tank was leaking oil into the ground, there was concern that some fuel or contaminant might have gone into the subway, half a block away, Menasce says, though that turned out not to be the case.
The first order of business after emptying the oil "was to clean the tank and file a spill-incident report with the DEC. We also had to contain the spill and get an environmentalist — basically a geologist — to file a report stating there is no more oil coming back into the tank."
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Wait — back into the tank? That turns out to be part of the process to confirm that the leaking had stopped. "The water table in that area is relatively high," says Menasce, "and since oil tends to flow on the surface, we first allowed oil and water to come into the tank" — which had been emptied of oil — "by boring a hole in the bottom of the tank and then seeing how much oil comes in. Then we pump it out and come back on a monthly basis and check. Once no more oil is observed in the tank, we put in a request with DEC to abandon the tank. We also need to get approval from DOT to abandon the tank in place, since it's under a sidewalk."
Abandoning the tank is more complicated that just walking away, however. Once DEC approval arrives, "We'll fill [the tank] up with slurry — a sort of sand or concrete — and the job is complete."
Or at least the underground part. There's still the matter of the new, smaller tank, which the board choose to place aboveground this time. "We had certain limitations as far as size within the building," Menasce says. "But we located a space not being used other than for storage, below a ramp leading to the garage. We designed for an 8,000 gallon storage tank; they're gong to have more frequent fill-up, but that's about it."
None of this is to suggest that the tank wasn't top-notch when installed in 1956. The architect was the well-regarded Sylvan Bien (at left), whose many other buildings around the city include The Schwab House (1950), spanning Riverside Drive to West End Avenue from W. 73rd to W. 74 Streets.; 860, 922 and1050 Fifth Avenue (1950, 1951,1960); 710 and 737 Park Avenue (1949, 1940); the American Machine & Foundry Building (1953) on Madison Avenue from E. 38th to E. 39th Street; and, with Harry M. Prince, his partner in Bien & Prince, The Carlyle luxury hotel (1930). Arriving in New York City from California in 1919, he initially worked for Warren & Wetmore and then for Emery Roth in the 1920s as he developed a versatility that ran the spectrum from Moderne style to white glazed-brick simplicity. His son, Robert L. Bien (1923-2002), followed in his footsteps to become a prominent architect himself.
The $112,000 Lenox Manor project was overseen by Alan Warshavsky and Daniel Wollman of Gumley Haft Real Estate Management, with The Bronx-based CC Controlled Combustion Co. installing the new oil tank and associated equipment.