Editor's Query

a simple tank, thanks

By Kyle Capizzi

More in the Fall 2009 issue

This is the story of a short-lived B100 filling station in Milwaukee, as told by Kyle Capizzi. As the Milwaukee Biodiesel  Co-op learned, creating a public filling station is more complicated than just sticking a pump in a tank behind your friend's store.

We did a kind of soft opening, then we had a grand opening in July 2007. Really got a lot of public information out there, and also got ourselves onto a lot of media. We had some really good news articles written and there seemed to be this real push! We had a grand opening that alderman Tony Zielinski showed up for. We had support from the state. They said "Oh, this is great!"
About three weeks later, the inspector came around and said, "Look, you guys are in violation. We got a problem here. Here's a series of things you're in violation of."
[These] largely came out of the state regulations that affect class 3B liquids, which biodiesel is one of. Because it gets treated like petroleum, there are many problems that co-ops (or any group that wants to store a quantity of fuel) will have.
This inspector came after us with a vengeance. We had to have at least a UL-80 tank that was [professionally] installed and certified. That required a certified tank installer, which I got a couple quotes for. The price was going to be around $4,500 to put a tank in.
There were numerous other [unmet requirements]: a drawing of a site plan, some other things.
When the inspector came around for the second inspection, he cited the business where the tank was located. I think it was a $50 ticket. It was basically a shot over the bow: "You're going to be in a lot of trouble if you don't essentially empty this tank."
Literally that night I drove down there with a trailer and some 55-gallon drums. There wasn't a whole lot left in the tank at that time, so I just emptied it. That was the last time there was any fuel in that tank.
We switched back over to the buying club model that [we] had originally. People show up to the garage and pick up 5-gallon jugs, exchanging their empties.