The Association of State and Territorial Solid Waste Management Officials (ASTSWMO) along with assistance from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of Underground Storage Tanks (OUST) recently released a report titled UST Common Compliance Violations. This effort was done to help the regulated community better understand common areas for underground storage tank (UST) compliance violations. By using this information, the regulated community can focus their efforts to allocate resources to improve compliance, and the data gathered by these groups could also impact how states conduct onsite UST inspections.
We can assume that because these occur with the greatest frequency, they are the most challenging to prevent, address and/or correct. Below are the top five UST compliance violations:
- The number one most common violation is operator training; over 40% of all violations reported are associated with Class A, B or C Operator training.
- The second most common violation is release detection for piping, where 98% of these violations were a failure to perform annual line testing or line leak detector testing.
- Number three on the list was spill prevention where 94% of the violations were related to the spill devices not being cleaned or maintained.
- The fourth most common violation was within the release detection – tank The main violation, at 97%, related to a failure to conduct monthly monitoring.
- Finally, at number five, the compliance violation was financial responsibility. The two main failures were a failure to meet the financial responsibility requirements at 69% and a failure to provide financial responsibility at 31%.
Please visit ASTSWMO’s website for additional information from the original report.