Stuart wheeled his Riviera into the parking lot of Louie's Restaurant, Waukegan, Illinois, a lunch hour favorite of Lake County lawyers for two generations. It was the first Wednesday of the month and Stuart was to meet Maurie, his old buddy from the early years in the State's Attorney's Office, for their standing lunch appointment. Stuart spied Maurie's mint condition '65 mustang in the far corner of the lot, parked next to it and strode across North Avenue.
The front door of Louie's opened into a dimly lit cocktail lounge. Stuart always experienced a moment of near blindness upon entry which caused him to rely on his other senses. The sound of husky voiced laughter coupled with the smell of cigarettes and garlic bread all confirmed that he was at Louie's and it was lunch hour. Seconds later his vision returned. Stuart saw Maurie signaling from the far end of the restaurant, a single room so long and narrow that it could have doubled for a bowling alley. As he walked the length of the restaurant, he passed two active judges, a retired building commissioner and a gaggle of clerks before sliding into a booth in the restaurant's annex just a swinging door removed from the kitchen.
Stuart and Maurie exchanged their usual greetings before beginning their review of the menu. A basket of steaming garlic bread topped the table and in a minute they had ordered the usual, two plates of lasagna and house salads with Italian dressing on the side.
"So what are you working on?" Maurie asked.
"Same as last month. Tanks. Tanks. And more tanks." replied Stuart.
Maurie tore some garlic bread and while chewing asked, "What's with all these tanks? It seems like you can't buy or sell a piece of property these days without tanks screwing up the deal!
"I know what you mean." said Stuart. "Banks don't understand the actual risks posed by underground storage tanks or other operations and so are afraid to lend money for the purchase of such properties. Buyers want to know that they aren't purchasing a piece of property that will cost them more to cleanup than it cost to buy. Naturally, sellers want some assurance that once they've sold the property they are done; no one is going to track them down ten years later ask them to contribute to the costs of cleanup. The current situation is a mess and even sellers who want to sell and buyers who want to buy can't close a deal on properties that based upon an analysis of the income stream appear to have tremendous value."
"Is there any reason to think that soon the situation will improve?" asked Maurie.
"Yes. I think two recent developments may help matters."
"Oh yeah. What are those."
"Remember the underground storage tank fund."
"Sure I do. What a joke. The state sets up a fund to finance cleanups at leaking underground storage tank sites; encourages owners of registered tanks to spend on average $100,000.00 to cleanup dirty soils and groundwater with the promise of prompt repayment; lets the fund go bust; and, then when an owner spends the dough, does a cleanup and submits a request for reimbursement, says, 'The checks in the mail, it should arrive in about twelve years!"
"The tank owners - and all tank owners are not AMOCO and ARCO mind you, a lot of them are Mom and Pop operations - were mad as hell and decided last Spring not to take it any more." intoned Stuart.
"What did they do?"
"They went down to Springfield and proposed a 0.8 cent per gallon gasoline sale surcharge which would raise an estimated $46 million a year to reimburse owners of leaking underground storage tanks for the removal and cleanup of tank sites."
"That seems like a sensible solution. All of us motorist help pay for a problem that we indirectly caused."
"It was a sensible solution. But it smelled like a tax. And the republicans had promised not to raise taxes and the democrats had promised not to let the voters forget the republican's pledge and so the bill died just before the end of the spring session of 1995."
"Scandalous." said Maurie dipping some garlic bread into the Italian dressing which had just arrived along with the salad. "So, what happened?"
"The legislators got some bad press and took heat from their constituents all summer. The bill was brought back during the fall veto session, passed both houses and was signed by Governor Edgar on December 13, 1995."
"So now there is money in the Fund again to reimburse tank owners who undertake cleanups?"
"That's right. Now it makes sense to pay $250,000.00 for a productive parcel of property even if the buyer has to sink another $100,000.00 into a cleanup because the buyer will get her money back from the state before too long."
"I suppose the seller could also agree to a cleanup escrow if she knew she was going to get reimbursed by the state." Maurie opined.
"She could. And banks aren't as nervous about lending if they know that even in the worst case scenario of the bank foreclosing and financing a cleanup, it will eventually get its money back."
The lasagna arrived and the portions were generous. Maurie reached for the shaker of Parmigiana cheese and showered the snowy flakes around the rim of his plate. He brought the first bite to his mouth, "Bon Appetit!"
"Salud." replied Stuart. And for a moment they simply ate in silence.
"You mentioned that there was a second development that might improve the marketability of contaminated properties, what's that?" asked Maurie.
"The second development is being pushed by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, it's a risk-based approach to the establishment of cleanup standards and its embodied in a guidance document issued in January 1996 called, 'Tiered Approach to Corrective Action." IEPA calls it 'TACO' for short."
"The regulators love their acronyms, don't they? What does TACO do?"
"TACO provides a mechanism for site owners to establish site specific cleanup objectives based on the actual risk posed by contaminants at a particular site instead of relying upon generic, worst case cleanup objectives. TACO also lets you use different cleanup objectives depending upon whether the property is going to be used as a gasoline station or a day care center."
"That all sounds great but kind of abstract. What does TACO mean in practice?"
"TACO means that if the contaminants are confined - that is to say, no one is going to eat, drink or inhale them and the contaminants are not going to migrate into basements or drinking water wells - then they can stay in place. TACO means you don't have to cleanup contaminants that don't pose or threaten to pose an actual risk to human health or the environment."
"You mean a tank owner is no longer required to dig up half of her site to a depth of ten or twelve feet and cart all the dirt to a landfill in order to get a no further action letter from IEPA?"
"That's exactly what it means. It also means the site that three years ago cost $100,000.00 to free from the regulatory system may now get out for $30,000.00 or even less. The state and tank owners save money but not at the expense of human health or the environment. A property owner can also perform a TACO cleanup more quickly than many other types of cleanups involving, for instance, soil vapor extraction technologies."
"Terrific. This TACO might be the real enchilada. Desert?"
Stuart and Maurie both ordered coffee and spumoni ice cream. The ice cream arrived red, white and brown in frosted stainless steel chalices. The coffee was black as midnight before sodium vapor lights. They finished desert, left a tip and strode back across North Avenue. It had been many years since their practice of law consisted primarily of prosecuting speeders and DUIs and life in the branch courts allowed for the occasional slow morning at the driving range. They paused behind their automobiles and exchanged a little more chit chat.
"What about next month, Maurie? What will it be?"
"All this talk about TACO has given me a hankering for Mexican food. How about Ophelia's."
"Ophelia's it is. And I'll tell you all about the new environmental audit policy recently issued by the United States Environmental Protection Agency."
Before flooring his Mustang and with barely veiled sarcasm, Maurie replied, "Great. I can hardly wait."