The Petroleum Environmental Cleanup Fund Award (PECFA) program received three grants from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA.)  Work associated with these grants was recently completed with results presented on October 25, 2005, to EPA Region V officials, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) Petroleum Team Leaders, Legislative Fiscal Bureau, Wisconsin Department of Administration (DOA) and Commerce officials.

The grants were allocated to do the following:

1. Categorize petroleum storage tank sites and determine the future liability to Wisconsin's PECFA program.  Primary contributors to this study were Lee Delcore, Greg Michael, Will Myers and Ralph Smith.

As a result of this study, Commerce identified 4,632 sites having petroleum constituents.  After identifying a petroleum site, risk was determined followed by potential reimbursement eligibility.  Commerce estimates that the potential liability for the program for open confirmed and potential petroleum-contaminated sites is $412.7 million.

1. Assess the viability of Pay-for-Performance (PFP) as a reimbursement method.  Primary contributors for this study were Jean Beckwith, Beth Erdman and Brian Taylor

PFP created a review, reimbursement, and tracking process making consultants more accountable by only approving payment of invoices upon completion of scopes of work.  PFP also tested the ability to advance sites through closure that were stalled due to financial difficulty.  PFP also reduced site work and bank interest costs.

1. Create a Web-based scoring system for ranking petroleum-contaminated sites.  Primary contributors for this study were David Blair, Alan Hopfensperger, Gena Larson, Ralph Smith, Monica Weis and Shawn Wenzel.

This project created a Web-Based Scoring System and combined it with the annual reporting requirement to minimize duplication of reporting efforts and make the reporting process easier to complete.  The Web-Based scoring system also addressed the workload of PECFA staff anticipated to result from the proposed code revision requirements.  The scoring system can be found at the PECFA Annual Site Reporting webpage.

Copies of these studies can be obtained by contacting Cathy Voges at (608) 261-7717 or cvoges@commerce.state.wi.us.

-- Oscar Herrera

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Please send comments or questions to Barbro McGinn, editor.