"Navigating and complying with the EPA’s SPCC regulations can be a difficult task," writes Kelly Lagana in the May/June 2014 edition of Inspectioneering Journal. Lagana, a product manager at BLR, discusses the biggest SPCC compliance challenges you face in the field, including writing SPCC plans, responding to oil spills, training employees, and more. You can read the the full article, How Facilities Can Better Ensure SPCC Compliance, here. To learn more about SPCC compliance solutions, visit http://trac360.com.

1. VOLUME 20, ISSUE 3
MAY | JUNE 2014
ASS E T I N T E G R I T Y I N T E L L I G E N C E
HOW FACILITIES CAN BETTER ENSURE
SPCC COMPLIANCE
Featured Article
By Kelly L agana, BLR

2. 20 Inspectioneering Journal MAY | JUNE 2014
HOW FACILITIES CAN BETTER ENSURE
SPCC COMPLIANCE
BY: KELLY LAGANA Product Manager, BLR
Several catastrophic spills over the past few years have sparked
significant interest in oil spill prevention across the industry.
Not only do facilities with large amounts of oil want to pre-
vent environmental damage, loss of product, and civil lawsuits,
but, assuming their operations are based in the United States,
they must also comply with the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency’s (EPA) Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasure
(SPCC) regulations.
SPCC regulations require certain facilities with large amounts
of oil to perform specific tasks in order to show the EPA that
they are actively working to prevent leakage into U.S. navigable
waters. SPCC is atypical of most environmental compliance rules
because it focuses on prevention. This means that, unlike many
other environmental regulations, a facility can be found in viola-
tion without ever having a pollution mishap (in this case, an oil
spill). It used to be (unofficially) that the EPA would inspect facil-
ities for SPCC only if they had a spill, but the big spills of the past
few years, such as the Deepwater Horizon, have put pressure on
the EPA to audit any regulated facility in addition to those that
have experienced a spill event. This increased chance of facing
a random compliance inspection by the Agency has heightened
industry awareness, and many owner-operators are currently
evaluating the status of their SPCC compliance.
The good news is there are many benefits for companies who
adopt a corporate policy to reduce preventable oil spills and
invest in a well-written SPCC plan, a compliant tank inspection
program, and comprehensive SPCC training for oil-handling per-
sonnel. Not only does a complete program reduce your chances
of an EPA enforcement action, but it significantly decreases your
risk of actually having an oil spill. Keeping your oil contained in
your tanks provides a good public relations opportunity by pro-
moting a safer workplace and community—things customers are
starting to really care about. It also reduces costs involved with
loss of product.
This growing interest in compliance and available technology
has prompted the development of new software tools to take the
pain out of SPCC compliance and help facilities reduce regulatory
risk. These new platforms can offer plan writing tools, inspection
checklists, reference materials, and training from secure, cloud-
based servers.
WHO IS SPCC-REGULATED?
Under the Clean Water Act, approximately 650,000 facilities are
required to comply with SPCC regulations found at 40 CFR 112.
These are non-transportation-related facilities with a total abo-
veground oil storage capacity of greater than 1,320 gallons (gal)
or buried oil storage capacity greater than 42,000 gal. Because of
their locations, many of these facilities are potential risks for dis-
charging oil into navigable waters of the United States or adjoin-
ing shorelines.
According to an EPA estimate in the Revision of Information
Collection Request (ICR) for the Oil Pollution Prevention
Regulation for Certain Facilities to Prepare and Maintain an Oil
Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasure (SPCC) Plan (Final
Rule) (EPA No. 0328.15, OMB No. 2050-0021), the SPCC-regulated
community is mostly made up of oil production facilities (34%),
farms (23%), and electric utilities (10%). The other one-third of
regulated facilities is made up of about 25 different industries,
including chemical and metal manufacturers, mining, and trans-
portation equipment and maintenance facilities.
BIGGEST SPCC COMPLIANCE
CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS
To meet the needs of our customers, we spent well over a year
researching the market and how facilities comply with EPA’s
SPCC regulations. This research included surveys of environmen-
tal professionals, interviews with facility operators and environ-
mental consultants, on-site facility visits, and analyses of SPCC
enforcement actions and expedited settlements. From these and
other efforts, we have identified what we believe are the five most
challenging components of SPCC compliance that facilities often
encounter. They are:
1. Writing the SPCC plan,
2. Inspecting tanks,
3. Training,
4. Staying current with the regulations and enforcement
trends, and
5. Properly reporting oil spills.
The SPCC Plan
The EPA requires a very specific format for SPCC plans. The gen-
eral format they want is spelled out in the SPCC regulations at 40
CFR 112 along with some agency guidance (EPA’s SPCC Guidance
for Regional Inspectors), however many regulated facilities
still struggle with writing a compliant plan. The EPA strongly
Figure 1. Example: TRAC360 flowchart.
Note: Approximately one-third of SPCC regulated facilities are required to
have their plans certified by a licensed professional engineer (PE) who
is familiar with the facility and the plan. As per the regulations at 40
CFR 112, software alone cannot provide PE certification of plans.

3. MAY | JUNE 2014 Inspectioneering Journal 21
emphasizes the importance of documenting everything in your
plan. For example, even if something in the regulations does not
apply to your facility, it is not acceptable to just leave it out of the
plan. It must clearly be stated in the plan that that section does
not apply.
In an effort to reduce the burden on the lowest-risk regulated
facilities, the EPA’s 2008 amendments to the SPCC regulations
introduced a tiered approach to SPCC plans. No doubt the major-
ity of regulated facilities benefited from less burdensome plan
requirements, but the new choice of being able to write one of
three different plan types (e.g., PE-certified, Tier I, or Tier II) cre-
ated some confusion in the market. Facilities are now tasked with
figuring out which plan type applies to them, which is a major
pain point. Many facilities, particularly those from the manu-
facturing industry, have opted to draft the most comprehensive
version, the PE-certified plan. This way they do not run the risk
of non-compliance and are guaranteed to have covered all of the
required information for the EPA. For some, this negates EPA’s
good intentions of reducing the burden on certain facilities.
In addition to plan type specificity, SPCC plans should be facili-
ty-type specific as well. SPCC regulations spell out requirements
for up to four types of facilities: offshore oil production, drilling,
and workover facilities (PE-certified plans only); onshore oil drill-
ing and workover facilities; onshore oil production facilities; and
onshore oil storage facilities.
Buried even further in the regulations is the requirement for
some SPCC-regulated facilities to have an additional Oil Spill
Contingency Plan and Written Commitment of Manpower.
These extra plan requirements apply only to those facilities that
are not required to have a Facility Response Plan and that have
determined that secondary containment is impracticable at their
facility. Our analysis of recent SPCC enforcement data found
missing Oil Spill Contingency Plans and Written Commitments
of Manpower to be among the most common SPCC plan viola-
tions, right behind not having an SPCC plan at all.
So, taking into account the possibility of three plan types, three to
four facility types, and the Oil Spill Contingency Plan and Written
Commitment of Manpower, a regulated facility may be required
to write and maintain 1 of 24 “flavors” of SPCC plans! This break-
down makes it easy to understand the challenge of properly pre-
paring a SPCC plan.
Once the work process is automated into a comprehensive soft-
ware platform, users can be certain that their time is optimized
when writing their SPCC plan. The first step in plan writing is to
answerafewshortquestionsaboutthefacility,asshowninFigure
2. After the interview, the application immediately presents the
user with the appropriate SPCC plan for their facility. A user can
then build a fully compliant SPCC plan by answering a series of
straightforward questions about the facility’s layout, tanks, and
planned response in the event of a spill. This information can
be saved in “the cloud” and can be updated and retrieved at any
time from any location. When the plan is complete, the software
application should provide a paginated document with a table of
contents—a highly-recommended EPA best practice—and create
the required table of cross references to regulatory requirements.
Figure 2. Sample plan writer.
INSPECTING TANKS
Another significant component of SPCC compliance involves
tank inspections. The EPA requires facilities to implement a via-
ble tank inspection program and keep records of inspections for
3 years. The EPA does not spell out inspection requirements in
their regulations; they simply require facilities to make sure their
tanks are not leaking. The EPA defaults to industry standards,
such as American Petroleum Institute’s (API) 653 and the Steel
Tank Institute’s (STI) SP001, for guidance. The challenge for the
SPCC-regulated facilities was finding inspection checklists that
could be used for their tanks. Due to the variety of tanks used by
facilities and the lack of guidance provided by the EPA, facilities
often have a hard time compiling the correct information for their
inspection checklists.
In addition, facilities can often struggle with conducting these
inspections. In fact, an analysis of SPCC enforcement data found
that the two most common violations of tank inspection records
for onshore production facilities included:
• Aboveground valves and pipelines are not examined on a
periodic basis for general condition (includes items such as
flange joints, valve glands and bodies, drip pans, pipeline
supports, bleeder and gauge valves, polish rods/stuffing box);
and
• Visual inspections of containers, foundations, and supports
are not conducted periodically for deterioration and mainte-
nance needs.
We received numerous requests from regulated facilities that
clearly stated, “I want to tell you what type of tank I have and I
want you to tell me what my checklist should look like.” They also
wanted to customize those documents to their facility specifica-
tions. That is why our system includes a checklist builder appli-
cation that offers PE-written and reviewed inspection checklists
by tank type. No matter the industry or facility type, the appli-
cation should provide a checklist that any facility can use. Tank
types include:
• 55-gal drums
• Field-erected aboveground storage tanks (ASTs)
• Loading and unloading areas
• Portable ASTs
• Shop-fabricated ASTs
• Underground storage tank areas
TRAINING
SPCC regulations require that all oil-handling personnel at a facil-
ity be trained at least annually or any time the plan changes. A key
component of this requirement is that the training must be facil-
ity-specific. During the course of our research, we encountered

4. Figure 4. Example: State-Specific Spill Reporting InformationFigure 3. Example: Regional Enforcement Database
22 Inspectioneering Journal MAY | JUNE 2014
many facilities that had been cited for not meeting the facili-
ty-specific requirements.
Eighty percent of regulated facilities surveyed conduct their
SPCC training in-house, either by the HSE department or a train-
ing department. Respondents were pretty evenly split between
classroom and online training. To fulfill the facility-specific
requirement with a truly effective and compliant online training
course, facility walkthroughs with oil-handling personnel using
the SPCC plan as a guide is needed.
Surprisingly, our research uncovered significant interest in best
practice training for SPCC. For example, facility operators sug-
gested that training in-house tank inspectors on how to properly
inspect a tank, although not required by the regulations, was
worth the investment. As one facility operator stated, “Inspecting
a tank is not just filling out a form, it’s about looking at the tank!”
Facility operators also recognize the potential return on invest-
ment for employee training when the EPA comes knocking to
inspect their facility for SPCC compliance. During EPA inspec-
tions, facilities have rights. Preparing employees properly for
an EPA inspection increases the odds of a smooth inspection. In
addition to the required SPCC training course, we recommend
considering additional courses for best practice training covering
topics such as: How to Properly Inspect Oil Tanks for SPCC and What
to Expect from an EPA Inspection.
EPA IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD
In 2012, the EPA conducted approximately 800 SPCC inspec-
tions—shifting its SPCC program from outreach-based to
inspection-based with an active enforcement presence primar-
ily in EPA Regions 1, 6, and 8. Inspectors are typically based
out of one of the 10 EPA regional offices. SPCC is a federal pro-
gram and although the intent of the program is to enforce reg-
ulations consistently among all regions, the enforcement data
shows some regional trends. This is because geography and
industry sectors specific to a particular region may require facil-
ities to manage compliance differently. For example, Region
6 (Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas)
has a high concentration of oil production facilities and inspectors
in that region have been finding that many plans do not address
appropriate containment/diversionary structures/equipment.
As shown in Figure 3, it is very helpful that the software tool
tracks EPA inspections and provides details on the enforcement
actions and expedited settlements. This makes it easy for facilities
to study the enforcement trends in their area and prepare accord-
ingly in the event they are on the receiving end of an inspection.
REPORTING SPILLS
The EPA requires owner/operators of facilities that are responsible
for oil discharges to immediately report the spill to the National
Response Center (NRC) when there is a spill of a harmful quan-
tity of oil. The EPA defines a “harmful quantity” as any one of
the following:
• The amount of oil that violates applicable water
quality standards;
• Any amount of oil that causes discoloration of, or a film
or “sheen” on, the surface of the water or adjoining shore-
lines; and
• Any amount of oil that causes a sludge or emulsion to
be deposited beneath the surface of the water or on
adjoining shorelines.
It may be difficult to determine if a spill has caused any of the
circumstances described above. However, because the spills are
often easily traced back to their source, if there are any doubts,
facilities are strongly encouraged to report the spill according to
appropriate local, state, and federal procedures.
Furthermore, the NRC may not be the only agency a facility has
to notify in the event of a spill. In some instances, spills need to
be reported to the state environmental agency. Every state has a
different contact, reporting threshold, and timetable, and penal-
ties for failure to report spills to the state can be quite high. For
example, in California, failure to report an oil spill occurring in
state waters (other than marine waters) can result in a criminal
fine up to $50,000.

5. MAY | JUNE 2014 Inspectioneering Journal 23
CONCLUSION
Navigating and complying with the EPA’s SPCC regulations can be a difficult task for “any owner or operator of a non-transporta-
tion-related onshore or offshore facility engaged in drilling, producing, gathering, storing, processing, refining, transferring, distribut-
ing, using, or consuming oil and oil products, which due to its location, could reasonably be expected to discharge oil in quantities that
may be harmful, … into or upon the navigable waters of the United States or adjoining shorelines...” A well thought out and designed
software tool for SPCC can help regulated facilities overcome the most common compliance challenges by:
1. Providing the materials necessary to conduct SPCC mandated training;
2. Providing guidance on meeting state-specific reporting rules and avoiding the stiff penalties associated with delayed spill
reports;
3. Providing tank inspection checklists for any kind of storage tank in every kind of facility;
4. Asking key questions and applying the answers to an EPA-compliant, PE-approved SPCC plan template; and
5. Scanning the Federal Register daily to alert facilities of any significant changes, when they become effective, and how to update
their SPCC plan to remain in compliance. n
To view this article on
the Inspectioneering
website,
click here.