When fuel containment is needed at your facility, concrete spill containment berms are probably one of the first things that come to mind – along with the time and expense to have them installed.

Often, containment berms are made of concrete or earthen materials, and are part of an engineered containment design for the fuel containment area.   While there’s nothing wrong with these systems, in fact, they are a nice solution; concrete spill berms don’t always allow full access to tanks or storage areas, they are usually expensive, and they are hard to remove if the facility design or containment needs change.

If your facility needs fuel containment solutions to satisfy the active secondary containment requirements of SPCC planning, flexible spill containment berms like our Build-A-Berm® Barrier are a solution worth considering.   They are more affordable than concrete berms, they allow easier access to fuel containment areas, and they can be easily moved if your needs change.

Our Build-A-Berm® spill berms are easy to install, and are available in 1.5”, 2”, 4” and 6” heights.  Just seal them to the ground with sealant, and connect the top sections and corners with vinyl cement and you can create a spill containment berm just about anywhere – and in far less time than it will take an engineering firm to give you the first draft of their design.

Because Build-A-Berm® containment berms have a foam core, they remain flexible, allowing carts, forklifts and delivery trucks to pass over them easily without the need for ramps, and without the big bump.

A heavy-duty version of the 2” Build-A-Berm® Barrier is also available for heavy traffic areas. We even offer a draining plug to facilitate draining of the fuel containment area (after you’ve sampled the collected rainwater or snowmelt, of course.)

For facilities that only need passive secondary containment, consider our polyurethane spill berms.    Our Spillblocker® Dikes can be put down proactively before routine fuel deliveries, or deployed quickly in the event of a spill.    These spill containment berms are super-flexible to channel and contain liquids just about anywhere.   They create an instantaneous firm seal on smooth surfaces to keep spills contained and out of sensitive areas like storm drains.

So whether you need active or passive containment berms, give us a call.  Chances are we have an affordable alternative to concrete.

I have to share this article titled “Innovative Leak Controls Minimize Downtime.” The innovative leak controls came from New Piggers collaborating with customers.

The article describes use of our PIG® Oil-Only Absorbent Valve Wraps at utility substations, where oily leaks and drips from transformers are common. The Valve Wraps capture liquids right at the leak point, which helps make maintenance much more efficient.

You’ll read how user suggestions helped lead to valuable features such as the drawstrings on this model of the PIG® Oil-Only Absorbent Valve Wrap.

And the author says this about another product tested in the field, our PIG® Drive-Over LEAKBLOCKER™ Dike: so easy to use, [we] didn’t need to offer any formal training on the use of the products and their applications.

Now THAT is what we mean when we say New Pig is Inventing For You.

P.S. Here’s the post where we first announced the PIG® Oil-Only Absorbent Valve Wraps.

New Pig has a small part in some creative recycling by General Motors .

GM has found a way to convert 100 miles of oil-soaked boom used in the Gulf Spill response—including PIG® Oil-Only Absorbent Booms. This will yield enough plastic for particular under-hood parts to supply the first year production of the Chevrolet Volt. It means 100,000 pounds that won’t be incinerated or landfilled.

You go, GM. Below is a good quick video overview:

Check out this new way to absorb drips and leaks at spots like valves and flanges! This is one case where we’ll gladly point out that there are strings attached, and we’ll even urge you to tie one on!

See full press release below.

New Pig Corporation has recently introduced the PIG® Oil-Only Absorbent Valve Wrap to soak up nuisance drips and leaks in valves, flanges and other oddly shaped pipe components—indoors or out.

Quick and easy to install, the PIG® Oil-Only Valve Wrap features polyethylene drawstrings on each end that hold the Wrap in place. Two sheets of highly absorbent PIG® Mat absorb and retain oils and oil-based liquids while the Wrap’s clear poly backing helps prevent absorbed liquids from leaking through. In addition, the PIG® Oil-Only Valve Wrap is UV-resistant up to one year.

Ideal for avoiding incidental, unscheduled downtime until a leak can be properly fixed, the PIG® Oil-Only Valve Wrap is available in two sizes: 20” x 32” and 8” x 24”. The Wrap’s white color makes absorbed oil easier to see; allowing inspection from a distance.

This morning, there was a nice company-wide email from New Pigger Justin Stroup (pictured below) thanking the volunteers that he had gathered to come out on Saturday morning and help clean up New Pig’s adopted section of nearby Route 220.

Specifically, besides Justin, his wife & daughters and yours truly, there were Bob Lamborn & his daughter, Lynette Whetstine, Charlie Gibbons and Roger Podelco.

We filled roughly 45 garbage bags and collected several tires, signs, and other larger scraps. The road has never looked better.

It really is a “crazy ’bout clean” thing to volunteer to do, the camaraderie is great, and it’s an overall fun little work-out.

The next trash pick-up will be in the spring, probably April or early May. If you’re swinging by One Pork Avenue and coming from the direction of Bellwood, notice the new Adopt-A-Highway signs along the road that say NEW PIG CORPORATION!

P.S. Here are some New Pig products that come in handy for highway litter control:

Traffic Vest

Canvas Single Palm Work Gloves

Seamless String Knit Gloves

Providing drum spill containment to meet SPCC’s secondary containment requirements can sometimes be frustrating because traditional spill pallets aren’t always the best solution when drums are stored outdoors.

Fortunately, your drum containment choices aren’t limited to the same old, super-tall spill pallets covered by a big, blue tarp that someone purchased a decade ago to meet another regulatory requirement.

Now, there are a lot of different options for storing drums outdoors that are more user-friendly  – and they still help you comply with a host of regulations, including SPCC (40 CFR 112)!

It’s all about controlling oil

The goal behind SPCC’s secondary containment requirement is the same as the overall goal of SPCC planning: to prevent oil from leaving your facility (or preventing a “discharge to navigable waters” as the regulation states it.)

Secondary containment for large tanks gets a lot of attention – but let’s not forget that 55 gallon drums are subject to this requirement as well; and considering that it only takes a single drop of oil hitting navigable waters for a spill to be reportable, drum spill containment isn’t something that can’t be put aside to deal with another day.

Spill pallets are an affordable, versatile way to provide drum containment and capture everything from an incidental leak to a catastrophic failure.

How to beat the freeboard

Keeping leaks and spills from drums in check when the containers are stored indoors is challenging enough, but when those same containers are stored outdoors, new challenges to drum containment issues are introduced.  Secondary containment must be sufficient to hold the spilled drum contents, plus freeboard (rain or melted snow).

If you put regular, uncovered spill pallets outdoors, they can quickly become useless in the event of a spill if rainwater has accumulated in the sump.

Roll-top pallets are the easy solution! We’ve got roll-top units available for one drum containment to a hundred.

Okay, in all fairness, I do have to admit that although it can be done, I’ve never actually seen 25 of our four-drum roll-top pallets linked together to hold a hundred drums. That would be neat!  If anyone has done that, shoot me the picture, I’d love to see it!   The most I’ve seen is five linked into a row, which still rocks, in my opinion.

Flammables or combustibles outdoors? Yep

We also have a wide selection of steel outdoor storage units for anyone who needs to store flammable or combustible petroleum products outdoors.  The units can be grounded and designed to meet a variety of fire codes and other regulations, in addition to meeting SPCC secondary containment requirements.

A leading benefit of roll-top pallets and steel outdoor storage units is that the sump is completely covered, which helps prevent water from accumulating in the sump.   Keeping drums in a covered spill pallet also keeps the container clean and helps prevent rust if the container is steel, or UV degradation if the container is poly.

These options can be a bit of an investment if you store a lot of drums outdoors, but they are a huge time saver if you’re the one who has to go test the accumulated rainwater and discharge it from each sump. They also provide more versatility than creating a permanent outdoor storage area with traditional moat-style concrete containment walls around the drum spill containment area.

Need help narrowing your choices?  Give us a call at 1-800-HOT-HOGS®. We’d be glad to help you find the perfect match!

Even if your facility already has an SPCC plan in place, it doesn’t hurt to take it of the shelf and sneak a peek at it a little more often than the required 5-year interval spelled out in 40 CFR 112 to see if those good engineering practices that were listed so long ago are still relevant and viable.

When you think about all of the different technologies that have been developed over the past five or six years, it makes sense that EPA requires periodic plan reviews. It is very likely that there’s a new tool, form of spill containment, new types of spill berms, or some other gadget that wasn’t available ten years ago, and that might end up being a really good fit in your facility response plans.

What’s new in Countermeasures?

Let’s reflect for a moment on the last “C” in SPCC. It stands for “Countermeasures.” The elements in facility response plans document those countermeasures, listing what workers at the facility will use to contain, clean up and mitigate any oil spill that actually does reach navigable waters. Even if your facility doesn’t meet the criteria to be required to have a facility response plan, there still are some other spill containment and planning elements that need to be considered and documented with your SPCC plan.

Being able to provide spill containment is an essential plan element, and it goes a long way toward minimizing the effects of a discharge.  Even if some oil does reach a drain and enter navigable waters, having portable spill berms, dikes or other devices to minimize the overall volume entering the water is still going to be a benefit to the overall clean-up effort.

In a guidance document on 40 CFR 112 issued to EPA Regional Inspectors, one of the elements that an inspector is tasked with looking for in a facility’s plan is whether or not they feel that the planning elements and control devices are adequate to control or mitigate an oil discharge.

Specifically, what’s new in Spill Berms?

Spill berms are a control device that gives facilities a lot of liberty for containment and diverting liquids. Years ago, spill berms were most often highly engineered products—most often made of concrete—that required several months and hundreds of drawings before installation. Now, there are other options—both active and passive—that can alleviate a lot of the headaches associated with stopping spills, without being an obstacle.

One example is our PIG® Build-A-Berm® Barrier. It comes in two, four and six-inch heights and is simple to install indoors or outdoors to provide active secondary spill containment around tanks, processing areas, storage bays or anything else that could leak.  I actually had a call from a customer last week who has had one in place in a tank farm in Texas since 2004—and it’s still going strong; he just needed some new sealant because it was starting to crack in a few places and he wanted to renew the seal.

One of the neatest features of this product is that unlike hard, concrete berms, the foam core allows the product to be walked on or driven over, so you never lose or limit access to the area being contained.

If low-clearance vehicles are in use—here’s what else is new!

If traditional spill berms just won’t work—which is sometimes the case if tow motors or other vehicles with low clearance are common at your facility, our PIG® SPILLBLOCKER® Dikes are a great form of passive spill containment.  The flexible polyurethane hugs flat surfaces, creating a seal that keeps liquids in check and out of sensitive areas.  Like the PIG® Build-A-Berm® Barrier, it is also available in multiple heights to meet a variety of containment needs.  It can be deployed proactively prior to fluid transfers, or reactively in response to a release that has just happened, making a versatile spill response tool.

Depending on the type of secondary containment needed, 40 CFR 112 does offer a lot of flexibility when choosing products or designs to fit your facility’s needs.  With innovative products, you may no longer have to settle for concrete moats that don’t allow access.  If you facility is expanding or changing processes, it might be time to consider new ways of containing them, too.

It’s encouraging that the Gulf Spill seems to have been stopped … and that there may be less environmental harm than earlier feared … but it’s sobering to remember the lives lost in the original explosion and the tremendous economic and psychological damage suffered in the region. I ache for the people, the families, the communities.

New Pig played a role in the cleanup as a supplier of absorbent booms, and in behind-the-scenes ways cooperating with other suppliers. It’s nice to have helped even in a small way, but it’s hard to process the enormity of the events.

Can there be a moment of silence in a blog post? I’m trying to create that with the white space below.

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As awful as the Gulf Spill is, I just read an article that’s a good reminder of everyday ways that oil and gas reach the oceans in even greater amounts than the current disaster involves. The figures are stunning:

• Estimates of the Gulf Spill: 83 – 156 million gallons
• Estimated annual amount spilled worldwide from routine causes: 400 million gallons
• Estimated annual amount entering the ocean from natural seepage: 180 million gallons

The article mentions that routine discharges behind these estimates include oil drips from vehicles, gasoline spills at gas stations, recreational boating, commercial ships and tankers, and oil production.

For decades, we at New Pig have been helping workplaces control oil and other liquids that leak, drip, spill or spray — not only to keep floors safer but to keep liquids from reaching drains that may eventually flow to the seas.

Catch those pump drips …

Capture that overspray …

Block that drain …

… and the oceans will be cleaner for it.

As the Gulf spill crisis continues and response supplies are tight, I’m proud that New Pig is able to say WE HAVE OIL BOOMS. Please click here or on the image to get more info OR call us at toll-free 1-800-HOT-HOGS® (468-4647).