The determination of whether your facility has the potential to discharge, or "could" discharge, is based on the location of your facility in relation to streams, ponds and ditches (both perennial or intermittent), storm or sanitary sewers, wetlands, mudflats, sandflats, or other navigable waters.
You should take into account the distance to navigable waters, volume of material stored, worse-case weather conditions, drainage patterns, land contours, soil conditions, etc. In addition, according to the rule, this determination may NOT include consideration of man-made features such as dikes, equipment, or other structures which may serve to restrain, hinder, contain or prevent an oil discharge.
This means you may have the potential to discharge into navigable waters for SPCC purposes, even though, at first glance, there appears to be no relation to navigable waters.
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You’re better off erring on the side of caution when determining whether your facility has the potential to discharge. If you have doubt, you may want to consider developing and implementing a plan to avoid enforcement action.
SPCC Terms You Should Know
Definitions are an important part of compliance with SPCC standards. Here are a few others you’ll see often when reviewing SPCC regs.
Facility. Under the federal SPCC regulations, a "facility" is defined as any mobile or fixed onshore or offshore building, property, parcel, lease, structure, installation, equipment, pipe, or pipeline (other than a vessel or a public vessel). The facility must be used in oil well drilling operations, oil production, oil refining, oil storage, oil gathering, oil processing, oil transfer, oil distribution, and waste treatment, or activities in which oil is used.
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Facility boundaries. The "boundaries of a facility" depend on several site-specific factors, including, but not limited to, the ownership or operation of buildings, structures, and equipment on the same site and the types of activity at the site. Contiguous or noncontiguous buildings, properties, parcels, leases, structures, installations, pipes, or pipelines under the ownership or operation of the same person may be considered separate facilities.
Qualified facility. A "qualified facility" is a facility having an aggregate storage capacity of 10,000 gal or less and having the following discharge history criteria in the last 3-year period:
- No single discharge exceeding 1,000 gal, and
- No two discharges greater than 42 gal each in a 1-year period.
These volumes are calculated by EPA based on the amount of oil that actually reaches the navigable water, not the total amount spilled. In addition, spills related to natural disasters or acts of war or terrorism are not included in this definition.
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