No homeowner permit for the removal itself, a registered contractor required under Regulation 87-97, and a municipal excavation permit where the dig is deep or close to a structure. What the rules actually say, without the legalese.
There is no homeowner permit for removing an oil tank in New Brunswick, but the work must be done by a contractor registered to handle petroleum storage under Regulation 87-97, and your municipality may require a building or excavation permit for the dig itself. Those are the two separate layers people most often conflate. The provincial layer governs who may do the work and how. The municipal layer governs the hole in your yard.
The third thing to understand is the reporting duty. Where soil samples show petroleum hydrocarbon above the reportable threshold of roughly 200 milligrams per kilogram, the New Brunswick Department of Environment and Local Government has to be notified, and the file stays open until confirmation samples read below the guideline. That is not a penalty process. It is the documented route to a clean record, and a properly closed file is worth considerably more at a future sale than a leak nobody wrote down.
Self-performed tank removal is not lawful in New Brunswick. Regulation 87-97 under the Clean Environment Act puts the work with registered contractors, and a homeowner removal produces no document an insurer or a lender will accept.
Oil tank work sits under a provincial regulation, a national installation code and a municipal permit regime, and only one of those three changes depending on your address. The provincial layer is Regulation 87-97, the Petroleum Product Storage and Handling Regulation, and you can read the text yourself rather than take a contractor's word for it. Understanding which layer a question belongs to saves a lot of wasted phone calls, because the municipal office cannot answer a Regulation 87-97 question and the province does not issue excavation permits.
The Petroleum Product Storage and Handling Regulation under the New Brunswick Clean Environment Act. It governs installation, maintenance, decommissioning and removal of fuel storage tanks across the province, sets who may perform the work, and creates the reporting duty when a release is discovered.
Identical in Moncton, Dieppe, Riverview, Shediac, Fredericton and Saint John. Distance from a city changes nothing here.
The Canadian installation code for oil-burning equipment. On a removal it governs how the supply and return lines, the fill pipe and the vent are disconnected and terminated so that whatever heating system remains is left safe rather than open.
On a replacement tank it matters much more, covering clearances, tank support, line routing and shutoff arrangements. This is the code an inspector or insurer references on a new installation.
The layer that changes with your address. Moncton, Dieppe and Riverview each run their own permit desk. The usual trigger is excavating deeper than roughly 30 centimetres or digging close to a structure, which means most buried tank jobs and almost no basement tank jobs.
Your contractor pulls this. A crew that works all three desks routinely gets approval faster than one learning a new process on your job.
A reported release is a documented remediation, not a fine, and treating it as something to avoid is the single most expensive mistake a homeowner can make on a tank job. Petroleum hydrocarbon above roughly 200 milligrams per kilogram triggers notification to the Department of Environment and Local Government, the excavation widens, impacted soil goes to an approved receiving facility, and confirmation samples are taken until readings come back below the guideline.
The cost moves from the flat removal range of $2,500 to $5,000 into $5,000 to $15,000 or occasionally beyond, and the timeline moves from one day to two to five. What you get at the end is a closed file and a defensible record, which is exactly what a buyer's lawyer wants to see. A leak that was found, reported, remediated and confirmed is a resolved matter. A leak that was quietly backfilled over is a live liability with no paper trail and no way to prove the extent.
Ask five questions before work begins and you will have covered every compliance point that matters on a New Brunswick tank removal. None of them are adversarial and any competent contractor will answer all five without hesitation. A contractor who gets defensive about the third or fourth is telling you something useful.
Ask for confirmation that the contractor is registered to handle petroleum storage tanks under the provincial framework, and that they carry liability cover for the work.
Check with your municipality, or have the contractor check, whether the excavation depth or proximity to a structure triggers a building or excavation permit.
On a buried tank, confirm in writing that soil samples will be taken from the open excavation and analysed for petroleum hydrocarbon, and that the results will be issued to you.
Confirm what happens if readings exceed the reportable threshold, including notification of the Department of Environment and Local Government and the process for confirmation sampling.
Take the decommissioning letter, the waste transfer records, the laboratory results and any municipal permit, and keep them with the property deed for the next sale.
Everything on this page traces to the sources below. Regulation text, permit thresholds and grant terms all change, so read them directly rather than relying on a contractor summary, including this one. The two that matter most for a Greater Moncton homeowner are the provincial department and your own municipal permit desk.
The Petroleum Product Storage and Handling Regulation itself, made under the Clean Environment Act. This is the instrument that decides who may remove a tank, how it must be emptied and closed, and what has to be reported. Every regulatory claim on this page traces back here.
The provincial authority for petroleum storage tanks, contaminated sites and release reporting. Regulation 87-97 under the Clean Environment Act is administered here, and this is the department notified when soil readings exceed the reportable threshold.
Where a Moncton excavation or building permit for tank removal work is obtained. Dieppe and Riverview operate their own equivalent desks, so the address decides the office rather than the county.
Relevant where a removal is paired with a heat pump conversion rather than a replacement tank. The program funded oil-heated homes up to $10,000 federally, closed to new New Brunswick registrations on 30 June 2026, and is transitioning. Check the page before assuming any amount applies to you.
Federal regulations under CEPA cover storage tank systems for petroleum products on federal and Aboriginal land and certain commercial installations. Most residential New Brunswick tanks fall under the provincial regime instead, but this is the federal layer above it.
Pricing questions are answered on the cost page and the underground-specific process is on the underground removal page.
New Brunswick does not issue a homeowner permit for tank removal itself, but the work is regulated under Regulation 87-97 of the Clean Environment Act and must be carried out by a contractor registered to handle petroleum storage, and your municipality may require a building or excavation permit for the dig. In Moncton, Dieppe or Riverview that municipal permit is usually triggered by excavating deeper than roughly 30 centimetres or by digging close to a structure. Your contractor pulls it. The provincial obligations, including notification and reporting, sit with the contractor too.
No. Removing or decommissioning a petroleum storage tank yourself is not lawful in New Brunswick, and the work has to be performed by a contractor registered under the provincial framework. There are three reasons beyond the legal one. An apparently empty tank holds vapour and a sludge layer, so cutting it is a genuine injury risk. The residual oil and sludge are regulated waste with a required disposal route and transfer record. And the decommissioning letter, which is the whole commercial point, cannot be self-issued.
Regulation 87-97 is the Petroleum Product Storage and Handling Regulation made under the New Brunswick Clean Environment Act, and it is the instrument that governs how fuel storage tanks are installed, maintained, decommissioned and removed in the province. It sets who may do the work, how a tank must be emptied and closed, what has to be reported when a release is found, and what documentation has to exist afterwards. Your contractor works to it whether or not the topic comes up in conversation, and it applies identically in every New Brunswick municipality.
CSA B139 is the Canadian installation code for oil-burning equipment, and it governs the fuel-side work on a removal: how the supply and return lines, the fill pipe and the vent are disconnected and terminated so the heating system is left safe. It matters even more on a replacement, where clearances, tank support, line routing and shutoff arrangements all have to comply. If you are keeping oil heat, CSA B139 compliance on the new installation is what an inspector and an insurer will look at.
The New Brunswick Department of Environment and Local Government has to be notified when petroleum hydrocarbon in soil exceeds the reportable threshold of roughly 200 milligrams per kilogram, and the notification duty sits with the contractor and the property owner rather than being optional. Reporting is not a penalty event, it is the start of a documented remediation process, and a file that is opened and properly closed is worth far more at a future sale than a leak nobody recorded. Concealing a known release is the actually expensive choice.
Yes, all three run their own building and excavation permit desks, so the address determines which office handles the approval even though the provincial rules are identical. Moncton and Dieppe are in Westmorland County, Riverview is in Albert County. The practical effect is administrative rather than technical: a contractor who works all three desks regularly gets the approval faster than one learning a new process on your job, which matters when a closing date is involved.
Filling a tank in place is permitted only where full removal is not physically achievable, for example a tank under a load-bearing footing, and it has to be documented as a decommissioning rather than simply left. The tank is emptied, cleaned, cut open, filled with sand or approved inert fill and recorded. It is a weaker outcome than removal for a property you intend to sell, because the soil beneath the tank is never sampled and a future buyer's lawyer can reopen the question. If a contractor proposes abandonment on an accessible tank, ask why in writing.
You should hold three things: a decommissioning letter naming the tank, the removal date and the method used, waste transfer records for the residual oil and for the scrap steel, and laboratory results for any soil samples taken. Where a municipal permit applied, keep a copy of it too. Where a release was reported, keep the correspondence and the confirmation sampling results that closed the file. This set is what an insurer accepts, what a lender asks for before closing, and what you hand the next owner.
Municipal permits, provincial notification and the final document set are part of the job rather than your homework. Tell us the address and the tank type and you get a written quote with the compliance work already included.