State monitoring old gas station sites here

HARLINGEN — About six years after it was razed, a gas station’s underground tank site is still leaking.

Now, state officials are trying to trace the source of the groundwater contamination.

City commissioners are considering granting the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality’s request to drill a new well to monitor groundwater under a city parking lot in the 200 block of South Commerce Street.

“There’s contaminated soil underneath there,” City Engineer Javier Zamora said yesterday.

As part of the investigation, the agency is monitoring 10 wells in an approximately 500-foot radius of American Eagle Glass, 101 W. Harrison Ave., the site of another former gas station.

Last August, the agency found gasoline contaminates in a monitoring well located near the intersection of Commerce and Harrison at the site of the former Greg Toler’s Garage, which the city razed during the renovation of the Reese around 2010.

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