Owners of the state’s gas stations and convenience stores are asking Iowa lawmakers to set up a state grant program to replace aging underground storage tanks for gas and diesel. Dawn Carlson is president of the Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Stores of Iowa, representing more than two-thousand business locations in the state.

Since 2006, the state has been offering grants to retailers who promise to offer E-85 to customers. The grants of up to 50-thousand dollars each are to help retailers pay for new equipment to dispense the higher blend of ethanol. Carlson’s group is asking for an expansion of that program, so tanks that have been in use for more than 25 years can be replaced with a “green” underground storage tank.

In 1989 state officials set up a fund for removal and cleanup of underground storage tanks that are already leaking. Over six-thousand sites have been evaluated over the past 25 years. According to the Legislative Services Agency the state has spent over a quarter of a billion dollars removing the tanks and cleaning up the underground leaks.