Sites across NSW have been used to store petroleum, diesel, waste oil and other fuels underground, not just service stations, but depots, car dealerships, marinas, airports and works yards. Service stations alone are the single largest source of contaminated land in NSW. Underground tanks and their pipework leak through corrosion, spills and poor maintenance, and that contamination spreads into soil, groundwater and air, with real risks to the environment and to human health if it isn’t dealt with properly.
Why these sites are difficult
Former fuel sites bring their own complications, and they’re worth knowing before you start:
- Patchy records. There’s often little reliable information about whether tanks are even still in the ground, where they are, how big they are, how they were used, or what’s been changed over the years.
- Tangled responsibility. Working out who’s responsible for the contamination can be its own problem, the landowner, the site operator or tenant, the fuel supplier, or the owner of the tanks.
- Intrusive, and often in residential areas. Getting to the contamination means digging and drilling, and many of these sites sit in or near homes, so the work can generate noise, odour and dust that has to be managed.
None of this stops a site being assessed and cleared. It just means the work needs someone who has done it many times before.
How we assess a former fuel site
We run these as a contaminated land assessment, the same disciplined way we run any site (see Contaminated Land Assessments for the full four-stage process). In short:
- We review the site’s history and records to work out where tanks and contamination are likely to be.
- We carry out an intrusive investigation, boreholes and sampling of soil and groundwater, designed for the site, and recover the samples for analysis at an external NATA-accredited laboratory.
- We assess the results against the petroleum-hydrocarbon criteria in the National Environment Protection (Assessment of Site Contamination) Measure.
- We report what’s there and what it means, set out the remediation or management approach needed, and validate the site once the work is done, the work that supports getting a site removed from the contaminated land register.
If there’s asbestos in the site fill as well, common on older sites, we identify that in our own NATA-accredited laboratory (see Asbestos in Soil).
The rules these sites sit under
Underground fuel systems and the contamination they cause are tightly regulated. Underground petroleum storage systems are governed by the Protection of the Environment Operations (Underground Petroleum Storage Systems) Regulation, which sets the standards for design, monitoring, leak detection, modification and decommissioning, regulated by local councils for most sites, and by the EPA for public-authority, licensed and certain other sites. Contaminated sites themselves are regulated under the Contaminated Land Management Act, which carries a duty to notify the EPA where contamination is found above certain levels. Assessments should follow the EPA’s guidance for service station sites and be carried out by experienced consultants. We’ll keep you the right side of all of it.
We assess. A licensed contractor remediates.
Airsafe is an independent consultant. We investigate the site, write the remediation or management approach and validate the work once it’s complete, but we don’t carry out the remediation, the tank removal or the disposal. A separate licensed contractor does that, and we can put the work out to tender and oversee it for you. Because we don’t sell the remediation, our reports have no stake in the outcome, which is what councils, buyers and the EPA rely on. Our reports are signed off by Michael Edwards, our Certified Environmental Practitioner (Site Contamination Specialist), recognised by the NSW EPA. Where a statutory site audit is required, that is a separate, higher tier issued by a separate EPA-accredited site auditor; Airsafe is not the statutory auditor.
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“I use Airsafe on a regular basis for commercial construction. Liam Matthews and the Airsafe team always get the job done professionally, safely, and in a prompt manner as required. If only I could give more stars.”
Jordan Kissane, September 2021
Frequently asked questions
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Quite possibly. Tanks being gone doesn’t mean the contamination is, fuel that leaked while the tanks were in the ground can still be in the soil and groundwater long after the tanks themselves are out. If you’re developing, subdividing or selling a site that was ever used for fuel storage, an assessment is the only way to know where you stand. Call us on 1300 888 338 and we’ll tell you whether you need one.
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Mainly soil and groundwater, for petroleum hydrocarbons and related contaminants, with the sampling program designed around the site’s history and layout. We recover the samples on site and have them analysed at an external NATA-accredited laboratory, then assess the results against the National Environment Protection (Assessment of Site Contamination) Measure.
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We do the assessment, remediation planning and validation work that supports it. Getting a site removed from the register is a regulatory decision, but it rests on a thorough, well-documented assessment and validation, which is exactly what we provide, and what we’ve done for many former fuel sites.
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No. Airsafe is an independent consultant, we assess, plan and validate. Tank removal, remediation and disposal are carried out by a separate licensed contractor, which we can tender and oversee for you. Keeping assessment separate from remediation is what keeps our reports independent.
Talk to us about a former fuel site
Whether it’s a former service station, a depot, or a site with old tanks no one can quite account for, Airsafe will tell you what’s in the ground and what it takes to deal with it.
To organise an assessment, call us on 1300 888 338.
Last updated: June 2026
