Colorado
Petroleum Storage Tank Fund
Colorado Petroleum Storage Tank Fund
The Colorado Petroleum Storage Tank Fund (PST Fund) reimburses costs of assessing and cleaning up petroleum contaminated sites. The Fund Section of the Division of Oil and Public Safety (OPS) receives and processes the applications, and presents its evaluations each month to the Petroleum Storage Tank Committee, where eligibility decisions are made.
In a Phase I ESA
ASTM E1527-21 does not name a cleanup fund among its standard record sources. The Fund matters on a property with an open petroleum release event, because it decides who pays for the cleanup and whether that carries over to a buyer or a lender.
- Two categories of eligibility. Responsible parties are tank owners and operators, and a $10,000 deductible is imposed on their reimbursements. Non-responsible parties include property owners, orphaned or abandoned tank owners and lenders, with no deductible. OPS lists insurance companies, federal facilities, railroads, airports and neighboring property owners as not eligible.
- Limits. Reimbursement cannot exceed $2,000,000 per release occurrence. For a single applicant remediating several occurrences, the total per fiscal year cannot exceed $3,000,000.
- Compliance history decides. OPS says eligibility depends primarily on the tank compliance history. A facility not operated in full compliance may be assigned percent reductions on its awards by the Committee, and a facility operated in substantial non-compliance may not be eligible. Among the criteria for a tank owner or operator: the release was discovered on or after July 1, 1989, and the tanks were registered with the annual fees paid on a timely basis.
- Eligibility can be transferred, with its reductions. OPS says a transfer usually occurs when a responsible party wishes to sell the site before remediation is complete. Any penalty reductions imposed on the original party transfer and apply to later buyers for all remediation through closure. On a purchase with an open release, ask whether eligibility is established, whether it will be transferred, and what reduction applies.
- A property owner who never ran the tanks. Eligibility as a non-responsible property owner is open only to an owner who can prove, among other things, that the property was acquired no later than June 3, 1992, that the owner did not install, operate or lease out tanks there, that the owner had no reason to know a release had occurred when the site was acquired, and that the contamination was discovered after December 22, 1988. The application asks for a chronology that says whether a site assessment was performed before the acquisition.
- Lenders need a certificate first. A lender establishes eligibility by obtaining a Certificate of Eligibility, which must have been issued before the lender acquired the property through default. OPS issues one only if the site is an operative site with tanks, the operator is in full compliance with the tank regulations, petroleum contamination does not exist on site when the certificate is issued, and the mortgage or loan is dated on or after September 30, 1995. Eligibility established by a non-responsible party cannot be transferred to a person who owned or operated tanks at the property before the contamination was discovered.
Former tank sites that were not eligible for the Fund are the subject of the Petroleum Brownfields Program.
OPS says the Fund's money comes predominantly from the state environmental response surcharge on all petroleum fuel products except railroad or aircraft fuel, and that the surcharge varies with the fund balance. Tank registration fees also go to the Fund.
Where to look a site up
The pages read do not say where the Fund eligibility of a particular site can be looked up. The Fund Section's mailbox is cdle_fund@state.co.us.
Getting the file
OPS's Petroleum Data & File Request page links a Petroleum File & Data Request form for individual files from a facility, such as reports and letters.
Sources
Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, Division of Oil and Public Safety pages, read October 7, 2026, no modified date shown: