Oil tank removal in Buckingham Township starts with the tank in front of you. An indoor tank comes out through the house. An aboveground tank sits in a yard or garage. A buried tank means digging. Closing one in place is a different decision from taking it out. The township publishes a tank application and a short requirements sheet. Those instructions apply in Buckingham Township.
What the September 2025 application asks
The township’s Tank Installation / Removal Application, revised September 2025, is for either removal or installation. It asks the applicant to mark the tank underground, aboveground, or inside. It also asks whether the tank is regulated by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. If the answer is yes, the form says to attach a state closure notification. The same form has lines for a certified tank-handling company and a certified individual on site. Those lines do not establish that every residential heating-oil tank is DEP-regulated. The application itself has the questions about how a tank is stabilized, cut, or monitored.
Plot plan, notice, and the in-ground inspection
The township’s Requirements for Tank Installation / Removal, revised August 2022, say to complete the application with the applicant’s signature and the property owner’s signature, and to prepare a plot plan showing the tank to be removed. The Township Fire Marshal must be told the date removal is to begin, no later than 48 hours before the start. That 48-hour notice is Buckingham’s. It is not a statewide rule. The sheet also says an inspector must be on site when the tank is removed from the ground, and that inspections are conducted during the removal. That sentence is about a tank coming out of the ground. It does not say the same inspection applies to a basement tank. The sheet requires workers’ compensation paperwork before a permit is issued. Fee amounts belong on the township form.
Which decision this is
A buried tank is the underground removal question. Leaving a tank in place is the abandonment question, and Buckingham’s application is a removal or installation form, not a closure guide. Odor or staining belongs on the leaking-tank page before anyone treats it as a routine pull. Match the municipality on the deed using permits and records before using Buckingham’s forms for a house that may sit in another township.