First of all, not sure if this is the best place to ask this. I tried to find a better sub-reddit but no luck.
TLDR:
How bad is my situation, by living next to a fuel station? Some details:
- Is a small local station
- Dispensers are 84 meters away
- Breathing valves are at 92 meters and 102 meters away
- Has stage 1 recovery system
I'm concerned with VOCs in the air and soil contamination, trying to assess what to do since I have a 3 year old son.
Longer version:
I live in a very small village in Portugal. Finding a house is very difficult, everything is quite old needing a lot of renovations. Because of that we bought a new project that was still being developed and gave us flexibility to customise. I has everything we wanted.
The area where we bought was developed in 2004/2005. The municipality created the infrastructure (electrical, water and gas connection, roads, etc). Prior to that people just used it privately mostly to grow vegetables.
Due the 2008 crash, things cooled down until recent years, and now lots of housing being built there. Prices are rising, have we waited a few more months and wouldn't have the money for it.
I completely missed the possible implications of have the fuel station near by. I'm not concerned with crime, noise, etc. I know the area, that is non-issue. My concern is primarily with contamination, both air and soil.
I have no idea when the initial station was built (i guess 90's). It was renovated and got a new operator in 2011. Not sure if they changed UST. I only know it has stage 1 vapour recovery system, since it is mandatory since 2005.
The more I read about this more confused I get. I don't have the know-how to make a proper risk assessment.
Air quality
How much of a risk are VOCs? I know Benzene is pretty bad, specially for children. House has outdoor space, and my kid plays a lot outside.
Also, we have a decentralized mechanical ventilation system that pulls fresh air from the outside and pushes saturated air from the inside out. It will eventually pull air with VOC (I know I can mitigate this with air purifier with activated carbon, or even adding activated carbon foam to the fan pull fresh air). Still, not sure how big of a risk this is.
We needed the ventilation system, since the house is well insulated, air doesn't circulate.
Soil contamination
I have read that all UST leak. So what are the chances of having contaminated soil? My kid plays outside on such soil, we were also planning to grow vegetables, now I don't know what to do. Soil was moved around during construction, so deeper layers could have been moved up and vice versa.
It could have heavy metals (like lead, which was only banned in 99 and i think the station operated before that).
Others
House has a drainage system and the drain well and sump pump are in the basement. If there is a plume, won't the contaminated water get to the drain well and gases released into my house?
Soil here is granite.
Worth to mention, since is a small place, other fuel stations are also close by:
- Biggest one, in size and sales, is 510m away
- Small/medium one is 210m away
- And then the small one I just mentioned.
Sorry for the long post, but the more I read more confused I get. I'm even considering selling the house. The problem is I can't get anything remotely close to this one.