In the Bahamas, a small herd of pigs have a beach mostly to themselves.

Actually, as much swimming as they do, this would be called a SCHOOL of pigs.

Ah, the surf, the breeze, and maybe a side business supplying Urn Sand …

If I ever stop making appearances for New Pig, you’ll know where I’ve gone.

Two years ago, the PIG® logo got two New Piggers admitted to the site of the Kentucky Derby.

This past weekend, two PIG® Snout Hats were at the big race itself. They rode in on the heads of New Pig’s friends Julie and Mike. Julie works for one of our important international brokers. She knew that we’d be happy to see her answer to the famous tradition of noteworthy hats at Churchill Downs (see an example over her left shoulder). She received many comments on her hat … and many requests to know where she got it!

For facilities that ship or receive large shipments of oil or oil products, part of complying with SPCC regulations (40 CFR 112) is the requirement to be prepared for spills during bulk loading and off-loading and to have a Facility Response Plan (FRP).

Drainblocker® Stormwater Drain Covers are a simple tool that can be a form of active containment for Facility Response Plans, and used as an everyday good engineering practice for oil and fuel containment.

Certain facilities with large quantities of oil are required to have a Facility Response Plan as part of their SPCC Plan.    A Facility Response Plan is a document that details how a facility will respond to oil discharges.

If employees are trained to respond to spills as part of this Plan, a Drainblocker® Drain Cover is something that they can used as a fast response tool.   They are a form of active containment can be quickly deployed to cover and seal drains to prevent oil or fuels from entering the drain – which sometimes means the difference between “just a spill” and a reportable spill.

However, let’s step back and remember that SPCC planning is primarily about all of the proactive steps that will be taken to so that you don’t need to put your Facility Response Plan into action.    The EPA calls these steps “good engineering practices.”

Good engineering practices can take many forms.   They can include having spill kits available throughout the facility, teaching employees to keep containers closed when they are not in use, providing fuel containment, requiring oil suppliers to have documented safe transfer procedures… in short, they can be any type of practice, procedure or process that will help prevent oil from leaving the facility.

The EPA leaves it up the facility to determine what good engineering practices make sense for them.  For some people, preparing for spills during transfer might mean portable fuel containment pools.   For others, it might mean opening a valve that will allow a spill to channel to a holding tank.

Many facilities are using Drainblocker® Drain Covers as a good engineering practice, and we think that they are a great choice for a lot of applications – give us a call to see if they’ll be a good tool for your compliance shed.