| Spill Prevention, Control and Countermeasure, abbreviated as SPCC, is defined by the Code of Federal Regulations in Title 40 (Protection of the Environment), Part 112 (Oil Pollution Prevention). The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is the lead federal agency for SPCC, and the Department of Ecology (Ecology) is the lead state agency on SPCC for the state of Washington. What is the issue for agriculture, and why do farmers need to address SPCC? Under federal law, any farm that is subject to the requirements of SPCC must develop and implement a spill prevention, control and countermeasure plan. If a farm is required to have an SPCC plan but the farm owner/operator fails to develop and implement an SPCC plan, the farm could be fined if inspected by EPA. Any farm that has a significant fuel or oil spill from a bulk storage tank on the farm and does not have a required SPCC plan developed and implemented by the established deadlines will have a much greater chance of being inspected and then being fined by both EPA and Ecology. What factors make a farm subject to the requirements of SPCC? For the following three questions, if the answer for your farm is yes to all three questions, then your farm is subject to SPCC: 1. Does your farm use oil or petroleum products such as gasoline, diesel, motor oil, hydraulic oil, biodiesel, vegetable oils, or animal fats? 2. Is the total capacity of storage drums and aboveground storage tanks on your farm greater than 1,320 US gallons? Include bulk fuel tanks mounted on fuel trucks, trailers or pickups. Do not include any containers less than 55 gallons. 3. If an oil or fuel spill occurred on your farm, could it be reasonably expected that the spill would discharge into any nearby “navigable waters?” Some factors that should be considered include whether or not a facility is adjacent to navigable waters, whether or not a unique geological or geographic feature on or adjacent to the farm would facilitate the transport of a discharge to navigable waters, and whether or not runoff from precipitation, including a worst case heavy rainfall on frozen ground event, could transport the discharge from an oil or fuel spill into navigable waters. What is the deadline for a farm to develop and implement an SPCC plan? 1. For farms that began operations after August 16, 2002, the deadline to develop and implement an SPCC plan has been extended to May 10, 2013. 2. For farms that have been in operation on or before August 16, 2002, they are already expected to have an SPCC plan developed and implemented now. Assuming that the SPCC plan is already in place, these farms must update their existing SPCC plans by the May 10, 2013 deadline. Can a farm owner or operator develop and self certify the SPCC plan for their farm? Yes, if the total storage capacity is less than 10,000 gallons the farm meets certain other requirements, then the farm owner/operator can develop their own SPCC plan using available Tier I or Tier II Qualified Facility plan templates from the Internet. A farm owner/operator can also choose to have a professional engineer develop a Tier I or Tier II SPCC plan for the farm. For storage capacity greater than 10,000 gallons, a professional engineer is required to develop a Tier III SPCC plan for the farm. SPCC flowchart |
| Spill Prevention, Control and Countermeasure |
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