See what happens when oil and water mix, and how PIG® Oil Absorbent Mats come the rescue in our latest video

No more extensions.

Unless you’re a farmer, if you have more than 1,320 gallons of oil or oil products stored aboveground; or you have more than 42,000 gallons of oil or oil products stored underground; today’s the deadline for having your SPCC plan created, updated and implemented.

Spill Prevention, Control and Countermeasure (SPCC) Plans help prevent releases of oil and oil products into navigable waters.   The main focus of these plans is preventing spills from occuring, rather than just responding to them after they occur.

Secondary containment plays a major role in SPCC planning.    Containers – such as drums, totes and tanks – must all have “sized containment;” meaning that they need to have something surrounding them that is capable of holding all of the contents of the container, should it fail.     Spill pallets, Collapse-A-Tainers® and tank containment units are three ways to satisfy this requirement.  In some areas, earthen berms are acceptable.    For large outdoor tank farms, concrete walls are a common way to satisfy this need.

Transfer areas need to meet “general secondary containment” requirements, which means that plans must be created for the most likely spill that could occur.   Spill kits, Drainblocker® Drain Covers and Spillblocker® Dikes are excellent resources for these needs.

For facilities with less than 10,000 gallons of oil onsite, and less than 5,000 gallons aboveground, who have not had a spill within the past three years, a Tier I planning template is available on the EPA’s website.    Tier I plans do not need to be certified by a professional engineer (PE).    

For facilities who do not meet Tier I requirements and who need a professional engineer (PE) to sign-off on their plan, the EPA maintains a list of  State Professional Engineer (PE) licensing board contacts (PDF).

Not quite finished writing or implementing your plan?   Waiting for a PE’s signature?   You can write to your regional EPA office about an extension.

Want to know more about SPCC?  Check out our white paper:  SPCC Solutions.     Need proven products to help you comply?   Give us a call at 1-800-HOT-HOGS® (468-4647) or visit our website at www.newpig.com

Helping to keep workplaces cleaner and safer is what we do!  So when we saw workers slipping, sliding and tripping on traditional multi-layer well pad liners at hydraulic fracturing (fracking) sites, we knew we could create a better solution.

The PIG™ Well Pad Liner, recently announced as a Environmental Protection New Product of the Year Award winner,  is a durable, single-layer, nonslip liner that help protects workers from slips and falls;  and the environment from incidental leaks and spills at drilling sites. It is four times stronger than standard HDPE liners used at drilling sites, twice as tear resistant, and is UV resistant for long-term outdoor use.

We’ve been keeping Matt and his crews pretty busy installing them at drilling sites all over Pennsylvania, helping to keep workers and the environment safe at drilling sites.

Farms that are subject to SPCC Planning Regulations have received a grace period from the EPA, according to an October 18 Federal Register Notice.

Instead of the looming November 10, 2011 deadline that everyone else must meet, farms that began operation on or before August 16, 2002 now have until May 10, 2013 to ammend and implement their SPCC Plan.

The deadline extension has been granted, in part, to assist the farmers who were heavily impacted by recent flooding and fires.

The EPA has also issued a fact sheet discussing the ammendment and offering additional resources for information.

Need more information on SPCC planning or SPCC products to help you comply?   Give us a call!

Okay, I admit it. I’m a regulation junkie. Just like my favorite comic strips, I can count on the Federal Register being in my in-box each morning.

  
And twice a year, I’m treated to the Semi-annual Regulatory Agenda. Granted, I don’t find it quite as exciting as the Stanley Cup Finals, but it gives me a heads-up on what EPA, OSHA and the other branches of the federal government are planning to do for the next six months.

  
Here’s a quick peek of some of things that I’ll be keeping my eye on:

  
OSHA:
• Reviewing the Bloodborne Pathogen Standard
• Movement on the Combustible Dust Standard
• Healthcare control measures for infectious diseases
• Updates to the slip, trip and fall standard
• Recordkeeping revisions
• And GHS / revisions to the hazard communication standard. (Wow – that should be out next month!)

  
EPA:
• Some proposed rule changes for Stormwater and NPDES permitting and regulation
• EPCRA changes to threshold planning quantities for extremely hazardous substances
• Possible revisions to EPCRA’s Tier I and Tier II reporting
• TSCA updates
• The consideration of adding pharmaceutical wastes to the Universal Waste Rules
• Waste management standards for solvent-contaminated wipers

  
For more information on any of these topics, check out the Federal Register from July 7th.

  
For help with products that help you comply, give us a call!

Facilities in certain manufacturing, mining, utilities and other sectors who have more than ten full time employees, and that manufacture greater than 25,000 pounds of a TRI-listed chemical or otherwise use greater than 10,000 pounds of a listed chemical in a given year are required to provide the EPA with an accounting of how those chemicals have been managed by July 1 of each year. [Thresholds are lower for Persistent, Bioaccumulative, Toxic chemicals (PBTs.]

TRI reporting is a requirement under Section 313 of the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act (EPCRA) of 1986, and the Pollution Prevention Act (PPA) of 1990. A goal of TRI reporting is to ensure that citizens and communities have the information that they need about the chemicals being used, stored, managed and treated in their communities so that they can make informed decisions about preparedness and emergency response needs.

The TRI database currently contains information on over 650 chemicals that are used or managed by more than 23,000 industries. In addition to information about the chemicals themselves, information on the recycling, energy recovery or disposal of those chemicals is also available.

For more information on TRI reporting, or for help with filing, visit http://www.epa.gov/tri/index.htm

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.

A new campaign hopes to bring 12,000 rain gardens to the Puget Sound area by 2016. And, as of this morning, 615 have already been established!

Although this effort is primarily aimed at homeowners and residential areas that aren’t traditionally governed under EPA’s Stormwater Regulations in the same way that industry is regulated; the coordinators of this program say that if it is successful, it will help prevent about 160 million gallons of polluted stormwater runoff from entering storm drains each year. (Remember that sediment is a form of pollution, so residential rooftops, driveways and other hard surfaces can all be sources.)

For more information on this program, visit one of the websites shown below.

http://www.12000raingardens.org/

http://www.publicnewsservice.org/index.php?/content/article/19582-1

And, if you’re looking for creative solutions to help improve your facility’s Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan, (SWPPP) visit our website or give us a call at 1-800-HOT-HOGS® (468-4647). We’ve got products to block drains, filter runoff and discharge, capture fluids for treatment and protect materials stored outdoors.

New Pigger Beth Powell will present at the American Institute of Professional Geologists Marcellus Shale Conference April 13 and 14, 2011 in Pittsburgh, PA.

“This is a chance to review regulatory schemes and industry best practices that impact the drilling and hydrofracturing processes,” Beth says. “We have the knowledge, experience and products to help the operators who manage liquids and have to deal with secondary containment problems and state regulations.”

Click here to see the full Conference program (this opens a PDF).

Visit us online to see our wide range of PIG® Products that are of particular interest to shale gas operations.

Click here to see an informative recent Time magazine cover story about shale gas.

Secondary containment is at the heart of many SPCC requirements, and that makes sense, because when spill containment systems are in place, oil spills are less likely to leave a facility, triggering spill reporting requirements.

Providing fuel containment for tanks and drums that don’t really move too often is one thing – but providing secondary containment for things that are always on the go can be a bit more frustrating.

Many facilities have found portable containment pools to be a fast, affordable solution.    They can be set up just about anywhere spill containment is needed; stand up to repeated uses; and can be sized to meet nearly any secondary containment need.

One of the main applications that we see our Collapse-A-Tainer® Systems being used for these days is for providing fuel containment during offloading.   If a hose breaks, a coupling fails, or a tank bursts, everything is contained.    And, for faculties that may only receive bulk oil deliveries once a week or once a month, these secondary containment units can be folded up and stored out of the way until they’re needed again.

For facilities that need something a little more portable, pop-up-pools are another popular spill containment option.   Although they aren’t large enough to contain a catastrophic tank failure, pop-up pools are idea for “likely” failure scenarios, such as coupling failures or hose leaks.     If a receiving area already has secondary containment, these pools can help keep small spills contained so that clean up is faster and easier.

Whether you need a small pool to contain 30 gallons, or one large enough to contain 10,000 gallons, portable pools may be the answer!