More than $75,000 will be spent to renovate the parking lot behind Neptune Hall North and to remove oil tanks under that lot by the fall of 1989.

Campus Parking Manager Lynn Fraser said $40,000 of parking division funds will be spent to reconfigure the faculty/staff lot and include one handicap space.

“The lot is in poor shape. It’s only partly graveled, and some of the parking spaces are up on a curb. It definitely needs to be renovated,” Fraser said.

NIU will be looking for other sources to fund the $35,000 removal of the tanks, Fraser said.

Campus Planning Coordinator Anthony Lorusso said the Environmental Protection Agency has instituted a program requiring that oil tanks not being used be dug out of the ground to prevent oil leakage into the ground.

Conrad Miller, project manager at the physical plant, said, “after a time, fuel tanks underground decay and leak into the earth. The EPA has deadlines and guidelines as to when tanks have to be removed, to protect the environment.”

Lorusso said oil in the tanks under the lot near Neptune North has solidified.

“You wouldn’t want to build a lot with a damaged tank underneath. It doesn’t cost much to remove the tank, but someone has to do away with the oil. That’s a special process, because you can’t dump oil,” Lorusso said.

Miller said there are also fuel tanks north of the east heating plant and South of Chick Evans Field House.

He said parking lot work scheduled north of the east heating plant also will include removing tanks under that lot.

The fuel tanks were placed there for reserves in case of loss of natural gas services, Miller said.

“We feel those tanks have deteriorated and have to be pulled out of the earth,” Miller said.

“If we lose fuel service in January or February it’s a disaster. We like to have some sort of back-up fuel system,” he said.

“To bury tanks now, they have to be made with fiberglass to prevent that type of decay,” Miller said.

Fraser said no date has been set to start work on the lot behind Neptune North and the work would not be accomplished by the fall 1988 semester.