Underground fuel storage tanks are being removed in the 300 and 400 blocks of North State Street.
“It’s been a long time coming,” said John Wallace Jr., proprietor of the U-Haul rental business at 415 N. State.
Wallace said the first filling station “was a Hudson, built in 1948,” with several iterations to follow over the years. It’s been 20 or so years since gas was sold there.
George Zartman, Carlyle, worked at the station for many years up until 1994. During that time frame, “It went from Hudson Oil Company to Taylor Petroleum to Texaco,” he said Friday morning.
Buried underneath are five abandoned tanks.
On Thursday, the largest, a 12,000-gallon kerosene tank was unearthed. The other four were 4,0000-gallon tanks; one of which contained lower-grade ethyl and the other three regular gasoline.
Across the street just north of Boren’s Roofing are three buried tanks.
That’s the site of the former Bumper to Bumper, operated by Billy Moore.
“That wasn’t a regular gas station, but sold bulk fuel, like 1,000 gallons at a time to local farmers,” said Jerry Sigg of JD’s Automotive and whose family has deep ties to the automotive industry. 
THE SITES selected for removal were on a list compiled by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. In some cases, KDHE officials notified property owners about the availability of getting the tanks removed, according to Mitchell Osterlund, communications manager with KDHE’s Division of Environment.
Osterlund also said county officials have been notified of federal funding to pay for the removal of abandoned fuel tanks and have been given the green flag to reach out to the owners of properties where they know underground storage tanks are not being used.
The program is voluntary, Osterlund said.
In Iola, SCS Engineering of Overland Park is overseeing the project through a contract with KDHE.
DuPree Testing Services, Inc., is doing the heavy lifting.
Whit Martin and Mikala Postlewait with SCS oversee the local project. SCS is an environmental consulting and contracting business that removes asbestos, lead-based paint and contaminated soil.
