Indiana Storage Tank Rules: Registration, Releases, and Penalties

If you own an underground storage tank in Indiana, you fall under rules enforced by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM), which handles registration, inspections, cleanup oversight, and penalties for every regulated tank in the state.¹ Indiana underground storage tank regulations require you to register the tank and pay an annual fee, meet technical and financial responsibility standards, train your operators, report any release within 24 hours, and follow a specific closure process when the tank comes out of service. Civil penalties run up to $25,000 per day for serious violations, and knowing violations can be prosecuted as crimes.

Which Tanks Are Regulated

Before worrying about compliance, confirm your tank is actually covered. IDEM’s program excludes several categories outright:²

Farm and residential tanks holding under 1,100 gallons of motor fuel for noncommercial use.
Heating oil tanks when the oil is burned on the same property.
Individual tanks under 110 gallons, unless multiple tanks holding the same substance together reach 110 gallons.
Tanks sitting on or above the floor of basements, tunnels, or similar underground areas.
Septic systems and tanks collecting stormwater or wastewater.
Operational equipment like hydraulic lift tanks.
Pipeline facilities, including gathering lines.
Spill or overflow containment emptied right after use.

If your tank doesn’t fit one of those exemptions, every requirement below applies to you.

Registration and Fees

Every regulated UST must be registered with IDEM, and the registration fee is annual.¹ Petroleum tanks run $90 per tank per year. Tanks holding regulated substances other than petroleum cost $245 per tank per year.³ Each compartment of a compartmented tank is billed separately, and each tank in a combination system is billed separately.

For a newly installed tank, federal rules require EPA Form 7530-1 to go to IDEM within 30 days of putting the tank into use. That form also carries your certification that you meet financial responsibility requirements.⁴

Technical Standards, Records, and Operator Training

UST systems have to meet technical standards covering tank design, construction, installation, corrosion protection, and spill and overfill prevention. You also have to keep records at the facility, available to inspectors, covering repairs, tank and line tightness testing, corrosion protection monitoring, release detection, operator training, and financial responsibility.⁵ Sloppy recordkeeping alone can draw a notice of violation even if the hardware is fine.

Every UST facility must designate Class A, Class B, and Class C operators, each with its own responsibilities and certification. IDEM’s Office of Land Quality offers the training and certification at no cost through the state Regulatory Services Portal.⁶ There’s no routine retraining calendar under federal rules, but if IDEM finds your facility out of compliance, your Class A and Class B operators must retrain within 30 days of that determination.⁷

Financial Responsibility and the Excess Liability Trust Fund

You have to show you can pay for cleanup and third-party damages if a release happens. Petroleum marketers and operations handling more than 10,000 gallons per month need at least $1 million per occurrence. Other petroleum UST owners need at least $500,000 per occurrence. Annual aggregate coverage is $1 million for owners of 1 to 100 tanks and $2 million for owners of 101 or more.⁸

Most Indiana owners meet that mandate through the state’s Excess Liability Trust Fund (ELTF), which provides financial assurance, pays cleanup costs, and can compensate third parties for injuries or damages from regulated UST releases.⁹ To use it, you need a Certificate of Financial Responsibility (COFR) on site along with the underlying documentation.

The ELTF is not free coverage. You pay a deductible first, calculated as a flat $15,000, plus any unpaid annual registration fees going back to 1991, plus $1,000 per tank that was never properly registered. Owners of 12 or fewer USTs must show they can pay that deductible; owners of more than 12 tanks must show they can pay twice the deductible.¹⁰ The fund also reimburses up to 50% of eligible decommissioning costs and may cover up to 50% of eligible replacement tank costs when paired with a qualifying closure.⁹

What to Do When a Release Happens

Reporting deadlines are tight. A confirmed release must be reported to IDEM within 24 hours by phone at (317) 232-8900 or by email at LeakingUST@idem.in.gov. After-hours and holiday calls go to (317) 233-7745. Spills or overfills of 25 gallons or more of petroleum, or any amount causing a sheen on nearby surface water, also require a call to the 24-hour spill hotline at (888) 233-7745, no later than 24 hours after the event.

Petroleum spills under 25 gallons still require immediate containment and cleanup of contaminated soil. If you can’t finish that cleanup within 24 hours, you have to notify IDEM. For non-petroleum hazardous substances, the reporting threshold is the substance’s reportable quantity under 40 CFR 302.4.

Once a release is confirmed, you have 24 hours to perform initial response actions, which means containing the release, preventing further spread, and notifying IDEM. After that, you conduct a site assessment of soil and groundwater and, if contamination is confirmed, develop a corrective action plan with cleanup methods, a timeline, and ongoing monitoring for IDEM to review and approve.⁵ The IDEM commissioner can take over cleanup directly if the owner can’t be found within 90 days of a suspected release, if the situation threatens health or the environment, if cleanup costs exceed the owner’s financial responsibility limits, or if the owner refuses to comply with an order — and then recover those costs from the owner.¹¹

Closing a Tank Permanently

Permanent closure is a regulated process, not a decision to just dig the tank out. You must submit a 30-day advance closure request to IDEM’s Office of Land Quality on State Form 56553. OLQ responds with a written approval letter good for 12 months. At least 14 days before the closure date, you also have to notify OLQ, the Indiana State Fire Marshal, and the local fire department.¹²

Every closure requires an environmental site assessment of soil and groundwater. Sampling scales with tank size and excavation length:

Two bottom samples within two feet below each end of tanks 10,000 gallons or smaller; tanks over 10,000 gallons get an additional sample under the middle.
Four sidewall samples for excavation perimeters under 80 feet, or one sample per 20 linear feet for longer perimeters.
One sample per 20 linear feet of piping, plus one under every elbow or connector.
One sample under each dispenser.
At least one groundwater sample from any excavation where groundwater is encountered, with borings reaching the first saturated zone or 30 feet below grade where a release is suspected.

Within 30 days after closure, the closure report and site assessment go to OLQ. If contamination shows up, corrective action starts immediately.¹²

Civil Penalties

IDEM enforcement sits in two tiers under Indiana Code 13-23-14. A general violation of UST requirements, such as failing to register, skipping release detection, or missing a reporting deadline, carries a civil penalty of up to $10,000 per tank per day of violation.¹³ A single unregistered tank left alone for a month can generate six figures in exposure.

If IDEM issues a commissioner’s order and you don’t comply after it takes effect, the penalty jumps to up to $25,000 per day. IDEM calculates penalties based on severity and duration, then adjusts for special circumstances and any economic benefit you gained by not complying. There is one narrow safe harbor: if you acquired property with an existing UST violation you didn’t cause, never dispensed regulated substances from the tank, and brought it into compliance within one year of acquisition, the general penalty doesn’t apply.¹³

Criminal Penalties

Indiana’s environmental crimes statute, IC 13-30-10, reaches knowing or intentional violations that go beyond ordinary noncompliance. Falsifying records, tampering with monitoring equipment, and material misrepresentations in required reports are criminal offenses.¹⁴

Fines run considerably higher than civil penalties. Knowing violations draw misdemeanor fines of $5,000 to $25,000 per day per violation. Felony-level offenses carry $5,000 to $50,000 per day, and repeat offenders face up to $100,000 per day per violation.¹⁴ Prosecutors typically reserve these charges for deliberate concealment of leaks, fabricated monitoring data, or sustained refusal to address known contamination.

Defenses to Release Liability

Owners facing liability for a UST release have some recognized defenses. Under federal CERCLA law, you can eliminate liability if the release was caused solely by an act of God, an act of war, or the act of an unrelated third party.¹⁵

The third-party defense is the one that comes up most often. You have to prove someone with no contractual relationship to you caused the release, that you exercised due care with the stored substances, and that you took reasonable precautions against foreseeable third-party acts. Vandalism and unauthorized access are typical fact patterns, but the defense fails if security was lax or you knew about the risk and did nothing. The act-of-God defense covers events like floods or earthquakes, but only when the tank was properly maintained beforehand; a tank already leaking before the flood doesn’t qualify. The owner carries the burden of proof by a preponderance of the evidence, and courts read these defenses narrowly.

1
Indiana Department of Environmental Management. Laws and Rules
2
Indiana Department of Environmental Management. What IDEM Regulates
3
Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code Title 13 Article 23 Chapter 12 Section 13-23-12-1 – Annual Registration Fee
4
United States Environmental Protection Agency. Notification Forms for Underground Storage Tanks
5
Indiana Department of Environmental Management. Indiana Underground Storage Tank State Program Application
6
Indiana Department of Environmental Management. Training Licensing and Certifications
7
National Park Service. Underground Storage Tank Operator Training Rules by State
8
GovInfo. 40 CFR 280.93 – Amount of Required Financial Responsibility
9
Indiana Department of Environmental Management. Excess Liability Trust Fund
10
Legal Information Institute. Indiana Code 329 IAC 9-8-11 – Excess Liability Trust Fund
11
Indiana General Assembly. Indiana Code Title 13 Article 23 Chapter 13 Section 13-23-13-2 – Action by Commissioner
12
Indiana Department of Environmental Management. Underground Storage Tank System Closure
13
Justia Law. Indiana Code Title 13 Article 23 Chapter 14 – Enforcement and Penalties
14
Justia Law. Indiana Code 13-30-10 – Crimes
15
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 9607 – Liability