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Corky Koors, owner of Koors Amoco Service, 941 N. Detroit St., in Warsaw, had his faith restored in the bureaucracy of state government.
He'll also be reimbursed the $12,000 he spent in 1998 to remove old gasoline storage tanks from his business property just before the official state assistance program went into effect.
"I think it's great," Koors said of the new law, sponsored by Rep. David Wolkins, (R-Winona Lake). "I haven't gotten an application yet, so I won't really believe it until I see the check."
Koors added the new law is a testament to the effectiveness of taking complaints to the right person.
"The squeaky wheel get the grease, I guess," he said.
Senate Bill 66 closes a loophole in the law designed to help small business operators recover the costs of complying with new regulation from the Environmental Protection Agency.
During the 1998 session of the General Assembly, a law was approved that allowed small operators who made less than $50,000 for the previous five years or who were going out of business, to be reimbursed for the cost of removing their storage tanks.
Koors spent $12,000 in May 1998 to remove the storage tanks on his property. The bill went into effect July 1, 1998, and the Indiana Department of Environmental Management refused to pay Koors and five other Hoosiers around the state who complied with the new federal regulation prior to the state law taking effect July 1, according to Wolkins.
"It didn't make any sense to pay the expenses of those who waited until the last minute to pull their tanks, yet deny the same benefit to those good citizens who took the initiative to remove their tanks in accordance with federal law, albeit one or two months before the effective date of the state's reimbursement bill," Wolkins said.
A second section of the bill also absolves tanker owners of liability from future claims if they, in good faith, removed their tanks prior to the EPA regulation taking effect, Wolkins said.
