Highland Tank - SPCC Information

Spill Prevention Control and Countermeasures

Highland patented oil/water separators greatly reduce the level of oil, grease, and oily coated solids discharged by petroleum storage facilities and transportation related facilities with vehicle maintenance, fueling, and washing facilities. The separators are equipped with Corella™ inclined parallel plate coalescers that combines the features of both a flat plate coalescer and a corrugated plate coalescer into a new "self-cleaning" design that performs better than traditional plate separators.

Highland’s patented oil/water separators help many petroleum, industrial, commercial, military, and municipal facilities comply with the EPA’s regulations for the proper treatment and discharge of contaminated storm water runoff. They help these facilities comply with their NPDES permit and satisfy SPCC requirements for spill control and secondary containment.

	Visit the US EPA site http://www.epa.gov/oilspill/guidance.htm

	View an article highlighting EPA's four citings. (download document )

	Download Example of EPA's SPCC Plan (download document )

	Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasure (SPCC) Proposed Rule Amendments (download document )

According to the EPA, any facility storing above 1,320 gallons of regulated oil and near enough to a navigable waterway or shoreline that could reasonably expect an impact by a discharge of oil from the facility requires an SPCC plan. Facilities storing above 42,000 gallons of regulated oil in underground storage tanks that are exempt from the 1988 UST regu1ations also require an SPCC Plan.

On November 20, 2008, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued changes to the Spill Prevention, Control and Countermeasure (SPCC) final rule that was issued in December 2006, including an extension of the compliance date for affected entities (those newer facilities built after August 16, 2002) from July 1, 2009, to November 20, 2009.

It is important to note that if a facility was built before August 16, 2002, and does not currently have an SPCC Plan, the operators of that facility should prepare a plan as soon as possible as the facility is out of compliance.

All Spill Prevention Controls & Countermeasures (SPCC) plans must be updated to the 2002 final rules before November 20, 2009. With these, the agency intends to provide clarity, tailor and streamline requirements as appropriate in order to encourage greater compliance with SPCC regulations.

Items included in the new rules include:

New requirements for farms
An exemption for Hot Mix Asphalt facilities
An exemption for certain pesticide application equipment
An exemption for heating oil tanks at single-family residences
Reduced requirements for non-transportation-related tank trucks (this does not change the rule for refueler trucks)
Amendment of rules for animal fats and vegetable oils
An exemption for underground oil tanks at nuclear power generation facilities

New items likely to affect aviation (discussed individually below):
A new definition of "facility"
A new definition of "loading/unloading racks"
A new streamlined approach for smaller facilities
Amendment of the facility diagram requirement
Amendment of the integrity testing requirement

These items have been issues for facilities since the final rule was published in 2002. EPA is now providing the additional information to help explain the requirements.

In addition to the items listed above, EPA is proposing to exempt the following from SPCC regulations:

Hot-mix asphalt and hot-mix asphalt containers;
Pesticide application equipment and related mix containers used at farms;
Heating oil containers at single-family residences;
Completely buried oil storage tanks at nuclear power generation facilities that meet the Nuclear Regulatory Commission design criteria and quality assurance criteria at 10 CFR part 50, Appendices A and B.

Another major change allows the use of an SPCC-like plan for facilities with no single bulk storage oil container with a capacity greater than 5,000 U.S. gallons, and the facility haves no more than 10,000 gallons of aggregate oil storage capacity.

Currently, facilities with aggregate storage no greater than 10,000 gallons can self certify an SPCC plan without a Professional Engineer's seal. With these proposed rules being considered and the fact they most likely won't go final until late 2008, facilities will have a very short time to update their final plans by the November 20, 2009 deadline.

For more information visit: http://www.epa.gov/oilspill/index.htm