South Portland residents concerned about toxic chemicals from petroleum tanks
SOUTH PORTLAND (WGME) — There is something in the air in South Portland that’s alarming residents.
“I just have to disassociate that I know this is happening,” South Portland resident Anna O’Sullivan said.
O’Sullivan has lived in South Portland for nine years with her young child. Since moving in, she has been concerned about their neighbor, petroleum tanks, and it’s the smell that’s getting to them.
“You live in Maine, it’s supposed to be so beautiful, and I’m like, ‘Oh man, I can’t even be in my yard in the summer,’” O’Sullivan said.
The smell is coming from the CITGO petroleum tanks located just off the Casco Bay Bridge. Fuel vapors from the tanks are typically released in small amounts when the petroleum fields fill tankers or tanker ships.
The Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has monitored these emissions since 2020, soon after it first became public that two petroleum storage facilities in South Portland, Global Partners and Sprague Energy, were exceeding their emission limits.
A recent report by the agency found that two of these petroleum tank fields, owned by CITGO and South Portland Terminal LLC, were emitting excessive amounts of toxic chemicals.
The agency says they tested 24-hour air samples for fuel vapors near the tanks and compared them to air samples from areas farther away. In these normal background areas, fuel vapor levels measured about 4.5 ppb. Near CITGO, one sample increased sharply to 60 ppb. It was even worse at the South Portland Terminal LLC, where it hit 175 ppb, about 12 times the typical level.
“It’s not easy to just pick up and move,” O’Sullivan said.
O’Sullivan says she has considered moving, but it’s just too expensive right now, and the only way she was able to afford a house in South Portland in the first place was by being next to the petroleum tanks.
Others say they are in a similar boat. For 30 years, Ted Reiner has lived between the CITGO petroleum tanks and where the tanker ships dock in Casco Bay.
“I was alarmed that we have been living here for so long and not aware of the hazards,” Reiner said.
Reiner’s home sits right on the bay, and he says he could never move away from that view, despite the toxic fumes and potential health risks associated with inhaling them.
“It’s a question of whether I have been exposed to the accumulation of the dangerous hazardous air pollution,” Reiner said.
What happens next? Maine CDC says right now, they are taking the new data from the Maine DEP and using past data to create a health risk assessment. A Maine CDC spokesperson told CBS13 on Friday that the assessment could be released in late 2026.
According to the Maine DEP, the state recently began fenceline monitoring to measure pollution levels at the edges of petroleum storage facilities. The Maine CDC plans to run a health risk assessment on this data as well. The agency says the state is also planning direct testing of petroleum storage tanks, but it’s unclear when that could start.
CBS13 has reached out to both CITGO and South Portland Terminal LLC for comment, but we have not heard back.