Do you need an oil spill plan?
If a site stores more than 1,320 gallons of oil above ground and a spill could reach water, even through a storm drain, federal rules require a written spill plan (an SPCC plan). Four questions tell you where you stand.
Free. No account, no email.
What they hold when full, not what is in them today — the rule counts capacity. Leave out anything under 55 gallons; the rule does not count those.
Is any single above-ground tank bigger than 5,000 gallons?
Could a spill here reach a stream, ditch, storm drain or shoreline?
Only you can answer this — it depends on your ground and your drains, which we cannot see. A storm drain counts. If you are not sure, say so and we will not pretend.
In the last three years, has oil from this site reached water?
More than 1,000 gallons at once, or more than 42 gallons twice within a year.
I also have buried tanks
Are they registered underground storage tanks?
Most fuel tanks under a filling station are. If so, a different rule covers them and this one leaves them out.
What counts as oil, and what does not
- Oil is broader than fuel. Petroleum and its products, but also vegetable and animal oils, and synthetic oils.40 CFR 112.2
- Containers under 55 gallons do not count. A shelf of five-gallon pails does not put you over the line, however many there are.
- Buried fuel tanks usually do not count. If they are registered underground storage tanks, a different rule covers them and this one leaves them out.
- Propane is not oil. It is a compressed gas. It may still matter for a Tier II report — that is a different question.
What we do, and what we do not
This page answers whether the rule reaches you and whether you may sign the plan yourself. We do not write the plan. A plan describes your containment, your drainage, your inspections and your training — we do not ask you about any of that, and a plan with invented answers is worse than no plan, because your name is on it.
What we do build is the Tier II chemical inventory filing — the one due 1 March each year. Same site, different law.