Environmental Enforcement

It’s Always Polluted in Philadelphia

EvilCorporations.com • RCRA-03-2024-0124 • 20 min read

A Philadelphia car wash sat on top of 28,000 gallons of underground fuel for years. Its alarms screamed. No one investigated. The EPA finally showed up in 2022.

The Non-Financial Ledger: What $4,577 Doesn’t Buy Back

The 19150 zip code sits in the northwest corner of Philadelphia, running through Ogontz, Fern Rock, and the surrounding blocks where generations of Black and working-class families have built lives largely without the attention of city planners or environmental watchdogs. Ogontz Avenue is not a tourist strip. It’s the kind of street where you get your car washed, grab something from the corner store, and walk home past row houses with postage-stamp yards and basement windows at street level.

Under that street, buried since 1998, sit four steel-and-fiberglass tanks packed with fuel. Twenty-eight thousand gallons of kerosene, diesel, and gasoline sitting in double-walled containers that are supposed to alarm, and be investigated, the moment something goes wrong. The word “supposed to” is doing a lot of work in that sentence.

On September 8, 2021, an outer wall fuel alarm on Tank #4 sounded. This alarm exists for one reason: to tell someone that fuel may be leaking from the inner tank wall into the interstitial space between the two walls. It is the early warning system. It is the thing that exists specifically so that a neighborhood doesn’t end up with gasoline in its groundwater. When the alarm sounded, the law gave the owner seven days to begin an investigation. The law was ignored. No investigation happened. Not that week. Not that month. Not that year.

On June 16, 2022, the same alarm sounded again. Still no investigation. On July 11, 2022, it sounded a third time. Still nothing. The alarm, functionally, was screaming into a room where no one was listening. Three times over the span of ten months, a system specifically designed to protect the soil and groundwater beneath a Philadelphia residential neighborhood triggered a warning, and the operator of that facility decided, three times in a row, that it wasn’t worth the cost or inconvenience of calling someone to check.

The people who live in that neighborhood didn’t know any of this was happening. They couldn’t have known. Underground tank alarms don’t ring on your block. Gasoline doesn’t announce itself until it’s already in the ground, and by then, the question isn’t whether contamination happened; it’s how far it has spread. The EPA’s enforcement document is careful not to confirm an actual release occurred. What it does confirm is that for nearly a year, no one was checking. And the monitoring records that were supposed to prove the system was working? Gone, or never made. Seven documented time gaps, some as short as a day, some stretching nearly a week, where the required monthly check-in paperwork simply does not exist.

The penalty for all of this, for three ignored alarms, for a year of spotty monitoring records, for 28,000 gallons of fuel sitting under a neighborhood with zero documented investigation: four thousand, five hundred and seventy-seven dollars. That is less than a month’s rent on a modest Philadelphia apartment. It is less than the deductible on most environmental remediation insurance policies. It is, by any honest measure, the cost of doing nothing.

No one from the 19150 zip code is named in this document. No resident testified. No community group was notified. The case was filed and closed on the same morning by bureaucratic signature. The neighborhood isn’t a party to the settlement. It is simply the place where the tanks are buried.

Legal Receipts: What They Actually Said

These are not paraphrases. These are the exact findings documented in EPA Docket No. RCRA-03-2024-0124, signed and filed September 19, 2024.

“Respondent stated that the UST #4 Outer Wall Fuel Alarm sensor sounded on September 8, 2021, June 16, 2022, and July 11, 2022, indicating a suspected release. Respondent stated that no investigation was conducted subsequent to any of the times the Outer Wall Fuel Alarm sensor sounded for UST #4.”
— Consent Agreement, Paragraph 23, RCRA-03-2024-0124

• This is the company’s own account, provided in response to an EPA Information Request Letter. The business admitted, in its own words, that the alarm signaling a suspected fuel release sounded three times and that zero investigations followed any of those three events.
• The admission covers a span from September 8, 2021 through July 11, 2022, nearly ten months during which a 28,000-gallon underground fuel system was flagging potential releases with no follow-up under a residential commercial corridor in Philadelphia.
• Pennsylvania law (25 Pa. Code § 245.304(a)) required that an investigation begin within 7 days of each alarm. Three separate 7-day windows opened. All three closed with no action taken.

“Respondent did not maintain, and was not able to provide to the EPA, tank release detection monitoring records for each UST documenting monthly compliance (every 30 days) during the following time periods: June 23, 2021–July 4, 2021; August 4–5, 2021; September 5–7, 2021; December 8–9, 2021; January 9–10, 2022; February 10–11, 2022; and April 7–12, 2022.”
— Consent Agreement, Paragraph 31, RCRA-03-2024-0124

• Seven separate gaps in the required monthly monitoring record are documented here. “Did not maintain, and was not able to provide” means the records either never existed or were lost. Both outcomes represent a violation of federal tank compliance requirements.
• Some of these gaps are short (one to two days), but the April 7–12, 2022 gap stretches five days, immediately preceding the April 28, 2022 EPA inspection. The absence of records in the weeks before a federal inspection is particularly notable.
• This violation covers all four tanks (USTs 1 through 4), meaning all 28,000 gallons of stored fuel lacked documented leak-detection compliance during these periods.

“Respondent did not maintain and failed to provide to the EPA, LTT records for UST #1, nor monthly line release detection monitoring records for UST #1 documenting monthly compliance (every 30 days).”
— Consent Agreement, Paragraph 34, RCRA-03-2024-0124

• UST #1 holds 4,000 gallons of kerosene. Unlike Tanks #2, #3, and #4, Tank #1 was not subjected to line tightness testing. That meant monthly monitoring of the piping was the legally required backup method. That documentation was also missing for the same seven time gaps listed above.
• Line tightness testing checks whether the pipes connecting to a tank are leaking. Without that test or monthly records proving an alternative monitoring method, there is no documented proof that the kerosene lines were intact during these periods.

“The EPA reserves the right to commence action against any person, including Respondent, in response to any condition which the EPA determines may present an imminent and substantial endangerment to the public health, public welfare, or the environment.”
— Consent Agreement, Paragraph 51, RCRA-03-2024-0124

• This boilerplate reservation language carries real weight here: the EPA is explicitly preserving its right to return if contamination is later confirmed. The settlement resolves the penalty for paperwork violations and monitoring failures. It does not resolve any underlying contamination liability.
• The document states Respondent “currently is in compliance” as of the certification date. That certification covers compliance with the monitoring and documentation rules. It does not confirm that no release occurred.

Societal Impact Mapping: Who Pays When Tanks Leak

Public Health

Underground fuel leaks in urban neighborhoods don’t stay underground. The documented failure to investigate three separate fuel alarms creates a window of unquantified contamination risk for one of Philadelphia’s densest residential corridors.

• Gasoline contains benzene, a federally classified carcinogen with no safe level of exposure. A release from Tank #3 (12,000-gallon regular gasoline) or Tank #4 (8,000-gallon ultra gasoline) into soil or groundwater would introduce benzene into the immediate subsurface environment beneath a neighborhood where residents garden, children play in yards, and basements sit close to grade level.
• The 19150 zip code is a majority-Black community. Environmental health research consistently documents that communities of color in U.S. urban areas bear disproportionate contamination burdens from commercial fuel storage facilities, a pattern driven by where these facilities are permitted and how rigorously they are monitored by regulators and operators alike.
• Three alarm events with no investigation represent three separate intervals during which a potential subsurface fuel release could have been migrating through soil without detection. The EPA’s document confirms violations. It does not confirm that contamination did not occur. That distinction matters: the absence of an investigation is not the same as the absence of a release.
• Kerosene (Tank #1, 4,000 gallons) contains polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons that are persistent in soil and linked to respiratory illness and developmental harm. Tank #1 had no documented line tightness testing and the same seven gaps in monthly piping monitoring as the other tanks.
• The EPA’s settlement document explicitly states the agency reserves the right to act if conditions present “imminent and substantial endangerment to the public health.” That reservation is standard boilerplate, but its inclusion reflects the agency’s own acknowledgment that contamination liability here is not yet closed.

Economic Inequality

A $4,577 penalty for three ignored alarms and nearly a year of documentation gaps is a pricing problem. When non-compliance is cheaper than compliance, the cost gets externalized to the community.

• The total penalty of $4,577 is almost certainly less than the cost of a professional investigation following even one of the three alarm events. The regulatory structure, as implemented here, created a situation where ignoring three legal obligations and three fuel alarms cost the company less than following the law would have.
• Environmental remediation costs for a confirmed underground fuel release in Pennsylvania typically run from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars, depending on plume size and soil type. If a release occurred and was not investigated, the eventual remediation cost will be borne either by the responsible party under RCRA enforcement or, if the company cannot pay, by state cleanup funds backed by taxpayer money, not by the company that sat on three alarms.
• Property values in affected blocks decline when underground contamination is confirmed or suspected. Homeowners in the vicinity of 7900 Ogontz Avenue had no mechanism to know that their neighborhood’s subsurface environment was going unmonitored for multiple windows between June 2021 and April 2022.
• Pennsylvania’s underground storage tank program was approved by the EPA in 2003 and operates as the primary enforcement mechanism. The EPA’s federal enforcement action here was a backstop, not a first response. The state had primary enforcement responsibility during the entire period in question. Neither the state nor the federal government triggered an investigation until the EPA conducted its own inspection in April 2022, six and a half months after the first alarm sounded.
• The settlement allows the company to deduct nothing from federal taxes for the penalty paid. That provision, while standard, also underscores the modest deterrent value of the fine: a company willing to absorb $4,577 as a non-deductible expense has effectively calculated that the cost of compliance exceeded the cost of the violation.

The “Cost of a Life” Metric

Put the penalty in context. The number is not abstract.

What Now? Who to Watch and What to Do

The settlement is closed, but the tanks are still there, still buried, and the neighborhood still has no public record of whether those three alarms signaled an actual release.

Named Parties in This Case

• Yongsun Nam, President, Yong’s Car Wash, Inc., 7900 Ogontz Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19150. Signed the consent agreement on behalf of the company.
• Karen Melvin, Director, Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Division, U.S. EPA Region 3. Signed for the EPA on September 19, 2024.
• Jeffrey S. Nast, Sr. Assistant Regional Counsel, U.S. EPA Region 3. Attorney for the EPA complainant.
• Joseph J. Lisa, Regional Judicial and Presiding Officer, U.S. EPA Region 3. Signed the Final Order on September 19, 2024.
• Peter Paik, Paik and Associates, LLC, Upper Darby, PA. Served as attorney for Respondent.

Watchlist: Agencies With Ongoing Jurisdiction

• U.S. EPA Region 3 (Philadelphia): Retains RCRA enforcement authority and has explicitly reserved the right to act on any imminent endangerment finding. Contact: U.S. EPA Region 3, Philadelphia, PA 19103.
• Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP): Holds primary enforcement authority over Pennsylvania’s approved UST program. Was given prior notice of this settlement. PADEP’s Storage Tank Program covers ongoing compliance requirements for the facility.
• Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board: The state-level body for appealing PADEP decisions, relevant if state enforcement is sought or contested.
• U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ): EPA may refer matters to DOJ for litigation if future violations or contamination findings warrant criminal or civil action beyond administrative penalties.

What Residents and Organizers Can Do

• Request the facility’s full UST compliance history from PADEP under Pennsylvania’s Right-to-Know Law. Ask specifically for any inspection reports, tank registration records, and release investigation reports for 7900 Ogontz Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19150.
• File a formal inquiry with PADEP’s Southeast Regional Office asking whether any release investigation has been conducted on Tank #4 subsequent to the September 2024 settlement. The state’s primary enforcement role means PADEP should have visibility into any follow-up actions.
• Connect with environmental justice organizations already active in Philadelphia’s northwest neighborhoods, including PennEnvironment, Clean Air Council, and the Clean Air Council’s environmental justice programs, all of which have capacity to support community-level monitoring requests.
• Contact EPA Region 3’s Community Involvement office to request that the facility be flagged for follow-up inspection. The EPA’s enforcement document explicitly states the agency reserves the right to act on any endangerment finding. A written community request creates a documented record that neighbors are watching.
• Organize a block-level water and soil testing effort through mutual aid with local environmental health advocates. Private soil and groundwater screening tests are available and can provide baseline data independent of agency action.