North Carolina
Non-UST Petroleum Releases
In North Carolina, the Underground Storage Tank (UST) Section of the Division of Waste Management (DWM), North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), also manages a Non-UST petroleum releases program, which the section's page says takes in releases from petroleum aboveground storage tanks and other petroleum releases. DEQ's aboveground tank page says a release from an aboveground tank has to be reported to the right UST Section regional office and cleaned up as the state requires.
In a Phase I ESA
ASTM E1527-21 lists the state's leaking storage tank records as a standard source, and that list reaches leaking storage tanks of every kind, not only underground ones. This handbook pairs the program with that record type, beside the UST Section Corrective Action Branch for underground tanks. DEQ's UST databases page posts a download it labels the Aboveground Incident Management Database, for regional aboveground storage tanks, and the page's note describes it as current and past activity at individual sites, gathered from the regional offices. This handbook did not open it, so the pairing rests on that label and on the section's account of the program, and is the handbook's reading. The general reading of a leaking tank listing is on the LUST page.
Two North Carolina details shape the search.
- A notice of its own. The UST Forms page lists a separate Notice of Residual Petroleum form, with instructions, for aboveground tank and other non-UST releases. For a release closed with petroleum left in place, ask whether the file holds one. The program page also links statutes it labels as dealing with land-use restrictions and how they are recorded, G.S. 143B-279.9 through 143B-279.11.
- The guidance is the UST Section's. The program page links a flowchart of the requirements for non-UST petroleum releases, the UST-62 24-Hour Notification of Discharge Form, and the section's guidance documents, naming among them its Guidelines for Site Checks, Tank Closure, and Initial Response and Abatement (STIRA) and its assessment and corrective action guidelines. It also links the groundwater rule, 15A NCAC 2L (Classification and Water Quality Standards).
Where to look a site up
- The Aboveground Incident Management Database download on DEQ's Underground Storage Tank Databases and Reports page, which this handbook did not open.
- The pages read link no other list of non-UST release sites. The program page gives no contact of its own; the UST Section's central line is (919) 707-8171.
Getting the file
The UST file review page places closed UST and non-UST incident files together at the central office in Raleigh, as image files on CD or DVD, which can be viewed or bought through the UST Section at (919) 707-8171. It says the section also keeps files in DEQ's regional offices, each with its own terms for a visit. DEQ's online request form is the department's general route; see Requesting Public Records.
Sources
North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality pages, read October 13, 2026, no modified date shown: