The California Leaking Underground Fuel Tank Field Manual: A Guidance Document for Assessment of Underground Fuel Leaks

An effort to develop more consistent, systematic, and defensible procedures to assess the significance of soil contamination from underground fuel tanks, and its relationship to potential groundwater pollution, was initiated in California in October 1985. A result of this effort is the “California Leaking Underground Fuel Tank (LUFT) Field Manual,” 1 a 121-page document that was issued in December of 1987 and updated in May of 1988. The manual was developed by a 40-member task force coordinated by the State Department of Health Services (DHS) and the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB). State, regional, and local environmental regulatory agencies were represented. The intent was to apply the California Site Mitigation Decision Tree 2 process to the case of subsurface contamination associated with underground fuel tanks. Over 20 meetings of the task force or its committees were held. In addition, 320 comments were received and considered as a result of two public workshops. The LUFT Field Manual is thus a compromise, and, insofar as possible, a consensus document.