Installation of new fuel tanks at the Hopkinton Gasoline station on Grove Street is expected to wrap up sometime this week, according to Director of Municipal Inspections Zoning Enforcement Officer Chuck Kadlik. The business will open up again soon thereafter once the new concrete dries.

Hopkinton Town Clerk Conner B. Degan said that the move to replace the old tanks comes as per regulations dictated by the EPA and state standards.

“From what I’ve been able to tell on their project,” Degan said. “they’re essentially replacing the old, outdated storage containers–the underground storage containers–and they’re just replacing them with more up-to-date ones that will be less likely to have environmental risks.”

Chief among those risks is the possibility of gasoline leaking out into the surrounding soil, a problem that the local business has had to tackle in the past.

“Over the years, before the current owner owned it a number of years back, soils there became contaminated with leaks from older tanks, so they’ve been under state monitoring for a number of years,” Land Use and Town Operations Director Elaine Lazarus said. “So along with this project (the tanks), they removed contaminated soil as well and replaced soil.”

Lazarus also confirmed that the process has, “gone smoothly” thus far, though there were reports of some minor traffic problems, including by HHS students.

“I have noticed that occasionally,” junior Matt Fliegauf said; a regular at the station. “When they have the crane that they’re using to do the construction, sometimes they have to close that righthand lane. So that can make things back up a little further, but besides that it hasn’t really affected me.”

Fellow junior Sarah Gallagher also has had to look elsewhere for her gasoline after the station’s closing.

“I don’t get my gas that much there because I don’t have my own car,” Gallagher said. “but it is the main gas station my family uses so we generally have to go down to Milford instead, which is a bit less convenient.”

Other than that, there have been few issues thus far, and drivers who frequented Hopkinton Gasoline before it’s closing will be able to do so again soon.