Reporting Spills in Multiple Jurisdictions
Truck spills of diesel fuel,
hazmat and other regulated materials require prompt cleanup and a thorough knowledge
of regulatory reporting requirements. That means knowing all the requirements
of the jurisdictions through which your trucks run. It can get confusing when
an incident occurs in a area in which multiple agencies - each with separate
reporting requirements - have jurisdiction. For example, a spill in one
of the five boroughs of New York City requires that reports be made to county,
state and federal authorities, plus the NYC Department of Environmental
Protection. Failure to make the city report can cost $25,000 a day, with each
day being a separate violation, relates Tom Moses, an environmental attorney
and president of Spill Center®, a leading spill support and environmental
management specialist.
"Environmental authorities take
their reporting requirements very seriously," notes Moses. "One private fleet
was fined $75,000 by the N.J. Dept. of Environmental Protection after a routine
diesel fuel spill of 30 gallons. The truck swerved to avoid hitting a car and
scraped a saddle tank against a guard rail, puncturing the tank. The driver,
equipped with a spill kit, stopped the flow from the tank, and the company
filed a full accident report with the N.J. State Police," he recounts. "But the
fine came from the failure to comply with the state's environmental reporting
requirement. The police had not mentioned the requirement; and the company
thought it had done everything required of it," notes Moses. "In this case,
ignorance was anything but bliss."
Moses founded Spill Center nearly
20 years ago to level the playing field for spill generators who must deal with
the maze of regulatory requirements. Spill Center maintains a database of
reporting requirements and contacts in more than 30,000 federal, state and
local jurisdictions throughout the US and much of Canada. On staff are legal,
environmental and technical specialists who are available to expedite
regulatory reporting, help find and dispatch cleanup contractors, and provide
other support functions for spill generators. To find out more about Spill
Center services, go online to www.spillcenter.com
or call Tom Moses at 978-68-1922, x222, or email him at tmoses@spillcenter.com.
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