Does Your Facility Need an SPCC Plan? A Guide to Compliance
Summary: The EPA takes commercial and industrial oil spills seriously. Under the SPCC rule, it requires companies that meet a legal threshold to develop and maintain a site-specific plan for dealing with potential spills. Does your company need an SPCC plan?
Regulatory requirements are an unavoidable aspect of managing industrial and commercial facilities. Among the most critical regulatory mandates is the EPA’s Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasure (SPCC) rule. If your business maintains a site that stores oil or petroleum products, it is critical that you understand whether a formal SPCC plan is required.
Failing to implement an SPCC plan when necessary almost always means big problems. Your organization could be subject to steep fines and costly cleanups. Your brand could be damaged severely enough that you would need years to recover. Working with experienced safety compliance consultants is the best way to navigate SPCC regulations.
The SPCC Plan Explained
Two pieces of legislation gave birth to the SPCC rule: the Federal Water Pollution Control Act and the Clean Water Act. The rule’s primary purpose is to prevent oil from making its way into navigable U.S. waters and adjoining shorelines. The significant difference is that the SPCC plan focuses on prevention and containment rather than cleaning up after contamination occurs.
A proper plan is built on three principles:
- Operating Procedures – Daily practices and procedures that prevent accidental spills as oil is being transferred, loaded, or otherwise handled during routine operations.
- Control Measures – Control measures include things like secondary containment systems designed to capture oil if a primary tank fails.
- Countermeasures – These are active steps and equipment designed to contain and mitigate the affects of an accidental spill before oil reaches a waterway.
By properly planning for accidents, companies are expected to be able to prevent oil spills from contaminating waterways. As such, each of the three principles creates a layer of protection. Multiple layers ensure the system is as effective as possible.
When a Company Must Have a Plan
Storing oil on your property does not automatically dictate having an SPCC plan in place. So how would you know if your organization is legally required to have one? The EPA determines plan requirements by way of a three-part test. If your facility meets all three aspects of this test, you are required by law to develop an SPCC plan:
1. A Non-Transport Facility
The first test point revolves around your facility and its purpose. This point applies if your facility is a non-transport facility. It would apply if you store, process, refine, use, or distribute oil without principally being engaged in its transport. Examples would include electrical substations and manufacturing plants.
2. Reasonable Expectation
The second test point is the reasonable expectation of a spill reaching navigable waters. Note that ‘navigable’ is an important term here. The EPA defines navigable waters as any waterway that ultimately leads to another. The definition includes rivers, lakes, streams, wetlands, dry creek beds, and even storm drains. If there is a reasonable expectation that an oil spill on your property could leak into a navigable waterway, this point applies.
3. Oil Storage Thresholds
The third and final test point relates to oil storage. The SPCC rule pertains to total storage capacity, not the amount of oil currently on-site. The total capacity is based on a combination of aboveground and buried storage capacity. If your aboveground capacity exceeds 1,320 gallons, you are required to have an SPCC plan. Likewise if your total underground capacity is over 42,000 gallons.
‘Oil’ Is Broadly Defined
As expert safety compliance consultants, clients often ask us to define ‘oil’ for the purposes of the SPCC plan. It is worth noting that the EPA’s definition is rather broad. It is not limited only to crude oil and petroleum-based fuels. Under the rule, oil includes:
- Petroleum products.
- Mineral oil.
- Vegetable, nut, and seed oils.
- Animal fats and greases.
- Synthetic oils and lubricants.
- Sludge and oil refuse.
A large manufacturing plant with significant hydraulic reservoirs probably needs an SPCC plan. The same goes for a food processing facility storing 55-gallon drums of cooking oil. If oil storage exceeds the EPA threshold, an SPCC plan is mandated.
Plans Must Be Site-Specific
Facility operators should be aware that generic, template-based plans are rarely adequate. Generic plans do not protect your facility against structural failures or regulatory penalties. Moreover, the EPA explicitly requires that every SPCC plan be highly site specific.
The requirement is because of the reality that no two facilities are identical. They do not have the same layouts, soil drainage patterns, and tank configurations. Their operational risks are also quite different. A site-specific plan ensures that each facility’s vulnerabilities are addressed directly.
A site-specific SPCC plan must include the following four components:
- Facility Diagrams – Diagrams must map out the exact location of every oil storage container, regardless of size and purpose. They must also show transfer areas, piping runs, and the predicted path a spill would take in the event of an accident.
- Secondary Containment – The plan must detail engineering controls used for all secondary containment systems. It must mathematically prove that these containment systems can handle the full amount of oil that could potentially flow into them.
- Inspection and Testing – An exact schedule of when equipment is inspected and tested must be included. Formal integrity testing must be conducted by certified third-party inspectors as well.
- Discharge Procedures – The plan must demonstrate the step-by-step procedures to be implemented for containment, initial reporting, and external notification. The plan should include contact numbers for various agencies, including the National Response Center (NRC).
Remember, site plans are specific for a reason. Cutting corners only exposes a company to unnecessary risks. Your in-house team might be able to write the plan if your facility qualifies for self-certification. Otherwise, bringing in safety compliance consultants will be necessary.
Get Started Today With a Free Safety Inspection
Are you unsure if your facility meets the SPCC threshold? If so, you can get started on the path to compliance with a free safety inspection from Compliance Consultants, Inc. Our dedicated team will help you assess, design, and manage a highly effective, customized compliance program tailored explicitly to your job site.
FAQs
Does the oil for our vehicles and backup generators count under the SPCC rule?
It all depends on storage. The total capacity does not count the fuel and oil inside your vehicles’ operational tanks. But any fuel or oil stored in bulk does.
How do we measure the volume of oil in tanks that are not full?
Volume is always based on total shell capacity regardless of how much oil you actually have on-site.
Should we count empty 55-gallon drums?
Yes. The drums represent storage capacity, whether or not they are full. The only exception is a permanently decommissioned drum being used for other purposes or waiting to be removed.
How often do bulk oil storage tanks need to be inspected?
Visual inspections should be conducted weekly or monthly, as dictated by your site plan. Formal integrity testing frequency is determined by tank size, design, and other factors.
Does an SPCC plan have to be adapted when facilities change?
Absolutely. Whenever changes are made to storage systems, containment systems, etc., the plan must be updated to accommodate them.
