Free Gas

Much too free, in all probability. The Orlando Sentinel is carrying a wire service dispatch this morning that reports FEMA "has known since at least the 1990s that tanks under its supervision across the country could be leaking fuel into soil and groundwater."

Some of them are in Pensacola and Ft. Walton Beach, but FEMA isn't saying exactly where.

Many of these tanks were built to store 5,000 gallons of diesel fuel and placed across the country at the height of the Cold War in the 1960s to fuel electric generators that could sustain emergency broadcasts by radio stations in case of a nuclear attack or other catastrophe. Made of steel, the tanks inevitably rust over time and allow fuel to escape.

Steel tanks left in the ground for decades rot like Swiss cheese, said Pat Coyne, director of business development for Environmental Data Resources Inc. Coyne said a joke in the industry is: "What percentage of steel tanks leak? 100 percent!"

That joke is as funny as Benzene in your drinking water.