In mid-September, approximately 800 underground storage tank (UST) professionals gathered in Phoenix, Arizona, for the 25th National Tanks Conference and Expo, which was cosponsored by the New England Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission (NEIWPCC). The event summoned state and federal regulators, tribal representatives, the regulated community, environmental consultants, and tank industry experts under a single roof.
 |
The popularity of this year’s conference was a direct result of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) recently issued revisions to the federal UST regulations. Given the myriad of new UST regulations, state program approval (SPA) is proving problematic for many states. States that have received EPA program approval must revise their state regulations over the next 3 years to be at least as stringent as the federal regulations.
Heather Peters, an environmental specialist with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, highlighted the problem. EPA’s new regulations and updated codes of practice are inconsistent with current state regulations and industrial standards of practice.
Read more here.