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Welcome to Underground Storage Tank (UST) Program of the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board's web page!

The goal of the UST program is to protect public health and safety and the environment from releases of petroleum product and other hazardous substances from the tanks. An underground storage tank is defined by law as "any one or combination of tanks, including pipes connected thereto, that is used for the storage of hazardous substances and that is substantially or totally beneath the surface of the ground." The UST program primarily deals with leaking underground storage fuel tanks. There may be other constituents of concern in the impacted area, but the materials must be primarily fuels related for the case to be handled directly by the UST program.

The UST Program is carried out exclusively by the Underground Tanks Section under the management of Yue Rong. The Section is divided into three Units, closely following the geographical boundary of the watershed in the Regional Board's jurisdiction: The Los Angeles River Watershed Unit, the San Gabriel River Watershed Unit, and the Los Angeles/Ventura Coastal Unit. UST staff daily performance primarily includes pollution source investigation, monitoring, and cleanup for protection of groundwater resources and enforcement actions.

The Los Angeles Watershed Unit includes the Los Angeles River Watershed and the coastal area associated with the Los Angeles River. It also includes the Palos Verde Peninsula portion of the coastal area. This Unit is under the direction of Maryam Renard (213) 576-6699.

The San Gabriel Watershed Unit includes the San Gabriel River Watershed and the Port of Long Beach. The Unit is under the direction of Ann Lin (213) 576-6702.

The Los Angeles/Ventura Coastal Unit includes the coastal areas north from Ventura County to the Los Angeles County in the south. It also deals with the methyl tertiary butyl ether problems in the groundwater that impacted City of Santa Monica drinking water supply. The Unit is under the direction of Weixing Tong (213) 576-6715.


There is a variety of information contained under the UST Program web site. We are currently tracking our leaking UST cases via State GeoTracker database. We also implement the paperless office in Los Angeles Region. For all parties who upload electronic documents to GeoTracker, it is no longer necessary to submit hard copies of the documents to this office. Our data is available to the public and can be accessed through the following link: http://geotracker.waterboards.ca.gov/. If you have any questions regarding to our database, please contact Nhan Bao at (213) 576-6703.