The oil companies say they do not want to move. The proposed settlement will not deter a campaign by local homeowners and officials to try to close the Fairfax City tank farm where Star and three other oil companies dispense 40 percent of the region's petroleum products. Other homeowners are considering a lawsuit. Star settled a lawsuit with dozens of homeowners last fall, agreeing to buy their houses and compensate some for medical costs, pain and suffering.

Star expects to spend $100 million on the cleanup effort, supervised by the U.S. The company estimates that 172,000 gallons leaked underground, polluting storm sewers and back yards and forcing four families from their homes. It comes nearly 2 1/2 years after contamination traced to Star's Fairfax City storage facility turned up in a creek. The settlement proposal, negotiated by six sets of lawyers during the last two months, would not require the companies to admit any wrongdoing, state officials said. The companies also agreed to pay the costs, now unknown, for long-term state and local studies of the leak's potential effects on the health of residents, another neighborhood concern. The wells are not contaminated, but residents fear they might become so. The proposal also calls for Star Enterprise and its two owners, Texaco and Saudi Refining Inc., to pay $800,000 to hook up public water lines to 100 Mantua neighborhood houses that now depend on well water.

If the board rejects the settlement, which won cautious praise from local officials yesterday, it could file suit against the oil company. The penalty would be the largest ever levied on a company by the state Water Control Board, which is scheduled to vote on the proposed settlement March 15 after receiving public comment. A Texaco affiliate agreed yesterday to pay a $2.75 million fine to the State of Virginia to settle charges that tens of thousands of gallons of oil from its storage facility polluted a Fairfax County neighborhood.

Starmade enterprise