HAYDEN MAYNARD
Montlake businesses Mont’s Market and Jay’s Cleaners occupy a spot on 24th Avenue East that used to be a Gull gas station. There were steel tanks underground that stored toxic substances. What no one knew until it was too late was that these tanks were leaking.
“Since the 1990s, there have been several underground storage tank requirements that are aimed at detecting leaks and preventing leaks,” Washington State Department of Ecology (DOE) public information officer Larry Altose told me. “When gas stations were started, there weren’t such requirements. There wasn’t any way to notice the tank was leaking until it was too late.”
