The city also must bring substandard tank systems into compliance with federal law and undertake an additional environmental project to improve the city´s ability to identify releases from its underground storage tanks.

The lawsuit charged that New York City has committed numerous violations of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and federal Underground Storage Tank regulations issued by the EPA. Among other things, the complaint said the city failed to upgrade or close noncompliance storage tank systems, to provide proper methods to detect releases of hazardous substances, and to report, investigate and confirm suspected releases of regulated substances.

New York City owns at least 1,600 underground storage tanks in at least 400 locations throughout the metropolitan area. The city has agreed to undertake a multiyear project to monitor releases and suspected releases from tanks operated by the police, fire and transportation departments.