In 2010, the Lakewood Fire Department inspected one underground storage tank.
The next year, only one more.
However, the city has to pay $1,000 each time a firefighter gets certified for the inspections.
That’s why Lakewood Fire Chief Scott Gilman proposed an ordinance to Lakewood City Council on Monday that would give the responsibility of inspections back to the state.
“We used to have to do more inspections,” said Gilman, who’s the only inspector left in the city. “These are very time-consuming inspections.”
“To me, it makes sense to give this back to the state.”
Law director Kevin Butler agreed, noting that in the early 1990s, there were lots of inspections. Rather than go to the state, the money reaped from the inspections stayed in Lakewood.
But the number of inspections has slowed to a crawl since then.
“There was a big boom for underground storage tank inspections,” Butler said, adding that with only one per year now, “it costs gobs of money to get the license.”
The measure was referred to council’s rules and ordinances committee.
