Insurance companies do not pay fines and penalties arising from failure to report spills or for late reporting. That often comes as a surprise to carriers and other types of companies at risk from accidental spills of hazmat, diesel fuel and other regulated materials. But that's the very reason insurance companies do not train people to understand reporting documentation or controlling costs and limiting liability related to spills. 

Reportable quantities of spilled materials vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and spills often involve multiple jurisdictions, confusing the issue. When in doubt about whether a spill involves a reportable quantity, report it. Failure to file required reports can bring stiff fines and penalties, making it unwise to try to cover up a spill ... or to delay reporting because many jurisdictions have extremely small windows of time in which reports must be made.

In Massachusetts, the DEP must be notified within two hours of the incident to avoid a late reporting citation. The reportable quantity of any petroleum product is 10 gallons. One truckload carrier, a long-time Spill Center client, received a late-notification citation after one of its trucks leaked 20-30 gallons of diesel fuel on the roadway after a saddle tank was punctured by a piece of metal in the road. A police officer followed the trail of oil until he came upon the truck, whose driver was unaware of the leak, and pulled him over.

The driver informed the carrier's maintenance facility and Operations to say he would be late on his delivery. But nobody notified the fleet safety manager, who would have called Spill Center immediately to make the required reports. Because of the breakdown in communications, the safety manager didn't find out about the spill until the next day, missing the two-hour reporting window. He did call Spill Center, and the reports were made. The damage was done, however. The Mass DEP late-notification infraction carries a penalty of $11,500.

I accompanied our client to the DEP enforcement hearing and was able to have the penalty reduced through a Supplemental Environmental Project agreement. The settlement required the carrier to install on its trucks an on-board electronic spill reporting system developed by Spill Center. The system features a spill macro, which is loaded into each vehicle's QUALCOMM terminal. After a spill, the driver keys information into the macro and transmits it both to the carrier's headquarters and to Spill Center. We make the required reports.

Any fleet can become a spill generator. The time to prepare for an environmental release is before it happens. Being prepared for environmental incidents - on the highway or at your facility - is the best way to contain costs and limit liability associated with spills. Fuel spills and other accidental releases of hazardous or regulated materials, even in small quantities, can turn into expensive incidents for the spill generator who is not adequately prepared to deal with them.

By aligning yourself with experts who are equipped to provide assistance when you need it most, you broaden your state of preparedness and help minimize your fleet's spill-related costs and liability. Spill Center, for example, assists clients with custom spill contingency planning, makes cleanup contractor referrals, and handles all required regulatory reporting, incident screening, invoice auditing, and documentation of incidents. No fleet should ever have enough spills to get good at handling them.  

We have developed a highly sophisticated nationwide spill reporting and documentation program, which is applied to the management of every incident that we handle for clients. We maintain a database of current regulations for nearly 30,000 federal, state, provincial and local jurisdictions throughout North America. We are experts at NRC, EPA, DOT, state, and local reports, and we can ensure that your reports are completed accurately and filed on time. Even if you're comfortable filing your own reports, our online report generation tools can cut down on your paperwork. 

Spill Center's expertise in spill management and environmental claims handling has helped hundreds of clients in the transportation, chemical and insurance industries. You can count on us to help you get past spill incidents and avoid fines and penalties for non-compliance with reporting regulations. We know who to report the spill to.

Spill Center compliance associates include legal, technical and environmental specialists. They coordinate spill response and complete telephone and written reports for clients. They fill out as many as 300 US DOT Hazardous Materials Incident Report Forms each month as part of Spill Center's program of spill-related services for clients - more incident reports for clients than any other organization in the country.

For more information on our services and how to become a subscriber, call me directly at 978-568-1922, X222 or email me at tmoses@spillcenter.com. Also, complete information is on our website, where you can also register online. It's at www.spillcenter.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Tom Moses
President
Spill Center
 

22 Kane Industrial Drive
Hudson, Massachusetts 01749