How to Buy a Fuel/HazMat Tank in 2009
By D. Paul McWhorter/CEO of Spill Prevention Compliance Corporation

In 2008 when fuel prices literally doubled and then were reduced by half and many of my clients decided to maintain fuel onsite to control these costs, I was presented with their dilemma---Do the owner/operators  get permission from the local Fire Marshal, the water contamination authorities, the air-pollution experts, the US EPA?  And if they get permission from one authority does he/she notify the others?  NO is the easy answer to an increasingly-confusing question.  A conflict of both law (environmental vs fire) as well as philosophy existed for my clients when they began the process of purchasing onsite fuel/hazmat storage.

Since the Civil War, the purchase and use of storage tanks for oil, petroleum-based products and hazardous materials has changed drastically.  When oil began coming from the ground into containers for consumer use, the recognition of petroleum as a Flammable/Combustible liquid has had a roller-coaster journey.  In the Civil War, if you stored liquid-fuels carelessly, your enemy could turn your resource into a liability by insuring it blew you and your troops off the battleground with a well-placed shot. 

Following the Civil War and during Reconstruction, numerous industrial applications began appearing as steam-driven technology (fed by fossil fuels/hazardous materials) turned the workplace into an assembly-line or factory layout for increased productivity.  The US of A became a front-runner in displaying American ingenuity could out-work any competitor globally.

With the expansion westward and the development of uniform safety standards, the combination of fuels and fire upped the need for jurisdictional authorities to become involved to insure communities built up overnight were not burnt-down overnight by careless storage of oil-products and/or hazmats.  Although the great Chicago fire was not started by unsafe fuel storage, once the fire found petroleum-sources it escalated into the historical disaster we now recall.

The advent of global factors such as World Wars I and II further emphasized the increased need for fuel as well as the increased liability for unsafe storage.  Key theaters such as the Nazi acquisition of Baltic-Sea refineries and the Allies’ subsequent destruction of these resources under-scored both the value and the volatility of petroleum-based products.  As internal combustion engines increasingly became a key component of virtually every armed force in the world (motor vehicles such as trucks and tanks, airplanes, ships, rockets, etc.), the production and storage of Oil became an ongoing goal of every nation.

During the middle of the 20th century, some key accidents in Middle America brought these issues to our domestic attention.  Accidents ranging from maritime off-loading fires to petro-chemical refinery fires and numerous smaller distributor disasters such as the 1956 Kansas City fire which killed 6 firefighters at a service station as well as 3 station-attendants forged a united front for all four of the national fire Codes (NFPA, SBCCI, BOCA, and UFC) in designating onsite fuel storage to be limited to either massive (Million-gallon, field-erected fuel reservoirs) or underground containers which would be out of the path of a passing exposure fire.

Unfortunately, these logical decisions collided with a massive environmental spill of 1 Million gallons in 1968 which polluted the Monongahela River and led to the inception of the US EPA by Congressional action.  While the regulations suggest that environmental and fire-authorities share the same concerns, historical evidence confirms this is difficult to coordinate.  When fuel was forced into underground storage tanks (commonly called USTs), they became a problem “out-of-sight and out-of-mind” until we learned in the early 1980’s that our groundwater was becoming seriously polluted.  Incidents such as Three Mile Island heightened the public’s awareness that the oil-based genie which had left the bottle had plenty of Pandora’s problems along with its benefits.  An alternative solution in the form of aboveground storage tanks (commonly called ASTs) began to be researched and permitted on a very-limited basis until UL and ULC third-party testing could confirm the fire-safety issues had not been compromised by bringing fuel aboveground.  Moreover, in 1998 US EPA required all USTs to be repaired, retrofitted to 1998 codes or be immediately replaced.

So where are we in 2009?  Well, referring the onsite storage of fuel which can save the end-user anywhere from $.14 to $.63 per gallon depending upon the daily price of fuel remains a key-ingredient to competitive performance in today’s economy.  Selection of qualified onsite fuel/hazmat engineering principles and resources is a key factor in the decision-making tree.  Simply listening to a tank salesperson who can vouchsafe his/her features and benefits without addressing either the inherent design flaws or non-compliance with current or pending regulations is a pit into which owner/operators still fall.  Spill Prevention Compliance Corporation has performed consulting activities for thousands of satisfied clients since 1992 without a single system-failure setback because of our due-diligence team which economically determines the client’s current and future storage needs and coordinates the matter with the regulatory community in a reasonable and responsible manner.  Remember, anyone can sell either the cheapest or most-expensive technology; this type of practice takes very little skill because it represents simply telling the client what he/she wants to hear.  Spill Prevention Compliance Corporation has been successful because we simply take the time to understand each site and the responsibility to prepare it safely for a realistic capital investment.

Please feel free to contact us us to share your existing fuel/hazmat concerns or prior to installing an onsite fuel/hazmat dispensing system.  We will patiently collect your information and either refer you to resources to satisfy your onsite needs or represent you in obtaining the optimal-cost of  installing this equipment.  And, as previously stated, our attention will always be to insure the site is designed for both today and tomorrow’s compliance requirements for the regulatory community as well as your safe and secure operation.