EPA Makes Final Amendments to the December 5, 2008 SPCC Amendments
On December 5, 2008 (73 FR 74236) the EPA amended the Spill Prevention Control and Countermeasures rule to clarify certain provisions, to tailor requirements to particular industry sectors, and to streamline certain rule requirements. These requirements were to become effective on February 3, 2009 but were subsequently delayed to January 14, 2010 after ensuring that the rule properly reflected consideration of all relevant facts, and to provide additional time for comments and for response to comments. The November 13, 2009 (74 FR 58784) final rule is the result of that effort.
In general, the EPA took no action or made minor technical corrections to the majority of the December 5, 2008 amendments. Because of uncertainty concerning these final amendments, EPA has stated that the agency will propose to extend the compliance date that facilities must prepare/amend and implement the SPCC Plan. Until that time, the compliance date remains November 10, 2010. A facility owner or operator must maintain its existing SPCC Plan until that date but may modify its SPCC Plan earlier to take advantage of the July 2002 and December 2006 regulatory changes. Once the December 5, 2008 and November 13, 2009 amendments become effective on January 14, 2010, these may also be incorporated into the SPCC Plan. A summary of the provisions promulgated on December 5, 2008, and those that were subsequently modified on November 13, 2009 are listed below.
The following substantive amendments were made:
- Loading/unloading rack requirements at oil production facilities and farms are no longer excluded from the loading/unloading rack requirements.
- The alternative qualified facility eligibility criteria for oil production facilities were removed.
- All rule elements associated with the exemption for produced water containers have been amended or removed.
In addition, the following provisions of the regulations were amended without making substantive changes to the regulatory requirements:
- Clarification was made that affect Tier I qualified facilities and typographical and formatting errors were corrected in the SPCC Plan Template.
- Clarification was made to the provisions that affect the design and quality criteria of underground emergency diesel generator tanks at nuclear power stations.
- The compliance date was changed to November 10, 2010 for SPCC Plan preparation and implementation at new oil production facilities.
- Farms are now subject to the same compliance dates that apply to all other facilities.
|
