Bare steel, and why it is the number to know
27,496 tanks — 55.1% of the register — are recorded as bare or asphalt-coated steel.
The one physical fact these files carry
Most of what the state publishes about a tank is administrative: who owns it, when it was inspected, whether a letter went out. The construction is different. It is the physical property of the tank itself, and it is the thing that decides how a tank fails.
Unprotected steel buried in wet ground corrodes. Corrosion makes holes. That is the whole mechanism, and it is why the federal upgrade rules of the late 1980s and 1990s required tanks to be protected — cathodic protection, a fibreglass shell, or fibreglass throughout.
| Construction recorded | Tanks | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Asphalt Coated Or Bare Steel | 27,496 | 55.1% |
| Fiberglass Reinforced Plastic | 11,164 | 22.4% |
| Coated & Cathodically Protected Steel (sti-p3) | 7,821 | 15.7% |
| Composite - Steel With Fiberglass (act 100) | 698 | 1.4% |
| Other (specify) | 691 | 1.4% |
| Composite - Steel With Urethane (act 100-u) | 87 | 0.2% |
| Composite - Steel With Plastic Jacket | 44 | 0.1% |
| Falsefalsefalsefalsefalsefalsefalse | 6 | 0.0% |
⚠️ What this number is not
It is not a leak, and it is not a breach. Many of these tanks are long closed — the register keeps them. The file records what a tank is made of, not what condition it is in, and a bare-steel tank properly maintained and monitored is not the same as one forgotten under a car park.
What it is: the one honest risk signal in a set of files that otherwise records paperwork. Read alongside the year the tank went in — which the record also carries — it is the closest a public file gets to telling you whether to worry.
Where they are
| Town | Facilities | Share |
|---|---|---|
| New Haven | 522 | 4.1% |
| Hartford | 505 | 4.0% |
| Waterbury | 470 | 3.7% |
| Bridgeport | 419 | 3.3% |
| Stamford | 328 | 2.6% |
| Danbury | 257 | 2.0% |
| Norwalk | 243 | 1.9% |
| Meriden | 238 | 1.9% |
| Bristol | 227 | 1.8% |
| New Britain | 216 | 1.7% |
| Wallingford | 208 | 1.6% |
| Manchester | 204 | 1.6% |
| Milford | 202 | 1.6% |
| East Hartford | 198 | 1.6% |
| West Hartford | 198 | 1.6% |
| Stratford | 176 | 1.4% |
| Torrington | 173 | 1.4% |
| Middletown | 170 | 1.3% |
| West Haven | 161 | 1.3% |
| Hamden | 157 | 1.2% |
| Greenwich | 151 | 1.2% |
| Enfield | 147 | 1.2% |
| Fairfield | 142 | 1.1% |
| Norwich | 133 | 1.0% |
| North Haven | 130 | 1.0% |
| Groton | 127 | 1.0% |
| New London | 124 | 1.0% |
| Newington | 121 | 0.9% |
| Cheshire | 120 | 0.9% |
| Shelton | 120 | 0.9% |
Town pages break out how many of their facilities carry bare steel. The count for a single facility is on its own record, one search away.
An old steel tank on a property you own or are buying?
The register says what a tank is made of and when it went in. It does not say what condition it is in — that takes someone on site. Tell us the address and we pass the request to consultants and tank contractors working in Connecticut.
We take no commission and we recommend no firm. We have no arrangement with any contractor today — we are collecting these requests in order to go and find them. What we do with this.