A public service of The Hunterdon Scoop · Hunterdon County, New Jersey
The best tank services companies in Hunterdon County.
Every old oil-heated house in this county is a candidate for a buried tank, and no lender will close on one unresolved. The trade's dirty secret is the sweep-to-remediation conflict of interest, so this page tells you who only scans, who only removes, and whose complaint file says push. Nobody paid to be here, and nobody can.
6 checked
- Stewart Environmental Remediation (Long Valley) — Third generation, 26 years, ~20 minutes from Clinton, license number published, no visible complaints. Notably does NOT sell tank sweeps — which means no incentive to find a problem it can then charge to fix.
- ATS Environmental (Sparta) — Sweep-only, which structurally answers this industry's core conflict of interest: the company scanning your yard makes nothing from finding a tank. One open question we're still chasing: whether its referral list is truly independent of an affiliated remediation firm.
Why trust this page
We pull credentials from the official registries ourselves and print the date next to every status — tank closure and site remediation run under NJDEP certifications (a separate registry from the contractor board), and the industry's defining conflict of interest is that the company that finds your tank usually profits from digging it up — we flag which companies only scan. Picks are editorial judgment on the checkable record: years in the trade, complaint patterns, review consistency, real presence in the county. No company paid to be listed, none can pay to become a pick, and when a pick has a weak spot we print it. Here are the full rules.
Every tank services company we checked
No pure-local operators exist; this is a regional-specialist trade and the credible ones mobilize from twenty to ninety minutes out. The structurally interesting split is sweep-only versus full-stack, and we mark it on every listing because no competitor does.| Company & services | Based in | NJDEP certification | Registry status | BBB | Reviews (as reported) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stewart Environmental Remediation Underground tank removal · Soil remediation · NJDEP closure paperwork | Long Valley | NJDEP #650627 (stated on company site) | … Pending check | Not rated | 4.8 (aggregate) |
| ATS Environmental Tank sweeps and scans ONLY (does not remove or remediate) | Sparta | — | … Pending check | Not rated | 4.8 · 200 reviews (aggregate) |
| Applied Service Corp Tank removal · Tank installation · Remediation · LSRP services (in-house, no subcontractors) · 12,000+ tanks handled | Lafayette | — | … Pending check | A+, accredited | |
| Certified Environmental Contractors Tank sweeps · Removal · Remediation | Freehold | NJDEP #207264 / #US243905 (company-stated, named licensees + LSRP) | … Pending check | Not rated | 4.8 (HomeAdvisor) |
| Core Environmental / NJ Oil Tank Removal Registered as Core Environmental Tank removal · Remediation | Newton | — | … Pending check | Not rated | 5.0 · 153 reviews (Birdeye) |
| ADS Environmental Tank sweeps · Removal · Remediation · Septic work | Phillipsburg | — | … Pending check | Not rated | 2.5 (Angi) |
Registry status comes straight from the state's verification system on the date shown, and you can rerun any number there yourself in about two minutes. Review scores are what the named platforms report and we have not audited them. BBB grades as of July 2026. "Based in" is the registered address city, which sometimes differs from where a company says it operates. An active registration is the floor, not an endorsement; the picks we would actually call are above.
What it costs
Sourced NJ ranges (2025 guides): underground tank removal $1,000 to $3,500 (basement tanks $500 to $1,500). If contamination is found, most residential cleanups run $8,000 to $10,000, with a typical range of $3,000 to $15,000 and severe cases far beyond. Which is exactly why the NJDEP threshold matters: roughly three-quarters of residential leaks test below the level that legally requires soil removal. Never authorize remediation without the lab numbers in hand.
What should YOUR job cost? Answer a few questions, see the planning range for your exact situation, free, before anyone asks your name. Then we can pass the job straight to who we'd hire.
Before you sign anything
- Buying an old house? Order a tank sweep from a company that does not sell removal or remediation. The scan should have no financial interest in finding something.
- If a tank turns up, removal and closure run under NJDEP rules with township permits. Ask for the NJDEP certification number.
- Contamination claimed? Demand the lab results and compare against the NJDEP threshold before authorizing anything. Most residential leaks legally require no soil removal at all.
- Selling on a deadline: the state grant fund for leaking tanks has a multi-year wait and will not save your closing. Price the escrow holdback route with your attorney instead.
- Get the no-further-action paperwork obligation written into the contract. The dig is half the job; the state paperwork is the other half.
Do it in your browser: price your job · check any license · check your quote · the storm-chaser test
Questions neighbors actually ask
The sweep found a tank. Do I have to remove it?
Practically, yes, if the property is changing hands: lenders and insurers won't touch an unresolved buried tank, and buyers' attorneys know it. The removal itself is the cheap part. What you must not do is let the panic of a closing timeline stampede you past the lab-results step if anyone says the word contamination.
How do I know a remediation quote is honest?
Two numbers protect you: the lab result (NJDEP's soil threshold decides whether remediation is even legally required, and roughly 75% of residential leaks fall below it) and a second bid. Our research documented one regional operator quoting $62,000 against competing bids of $35,000 to $40,000 for the same job. Never single-bid a remediation.
What's a tank sweep and do I need one?
A magnetometer scan of the yard for buried steel, an hour or so of work, priced in the low hundreds. If you're buying any house in this county old enough to have heated with oil, yes — and order it from a scan-only company so the answer isn't shaped by what the answer is worth to them.
One license checked every Thursday.
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