Exxon on Top of It

In the movie Minority Report, police use supernatural methods to solve crimes and arrest criminals before the crime is committed. In Encanto, something similar has happened.

In this case, however, the “criminal” was a defective pipe, and the “crime” would have been the leaking of gasoline into the ground. The methods involved, though far from supernatural, are still complex, as this potential leak was stopped long before it occurred.

On Saturday, February 14, Jonathan Uribe of Montijo Taint Tech used a jackhammer to access a leaking pipe at the Exxon gas station on Imperial Avenue in Encanto. He was willing to stop for a few minutes to explain what was going on.

How did he know that a fuel leak was possible in the future? Because during a test of the underground pipe system, something did leak: air.

Uribe explained that the leak occurred in the "secondary" pipe; fuel travels underground from storage tanks to each pump through a "primary" pipe. This pipe has a secondary pipe surrounding it, so that if fuel ever leaks out of the primary, the secondary will prevent it from reaching the surrounding soil.

As dictated by the State of California, periodically air is pumped into the secondary pipe and pressurized at five psi for an hour. If that pressure does not remain steady until the end of the hour, it's evident that the secondary has a leak...or, more accurately, a potential leak, should the primary pipe ever fail.

How did Jonathan Uribe know where to dig? After a leak is determined with air pressure, helium gas is then pumped into the secondary system. Helium will gradually migrate upward, where it can be detected. Using a detailed diagram of the buried pipes’ location, Uribe knew where to begin jackhammering.

The State of California created these testing regulations in 1987 and gave gas-station owners a ten-year deadline to make the upgrades. Uribe explained that when the requirements were imposed in the late ‘90s, many "mom and pop" gas stations didn't have enough money to make repairs, and thus went out of business.