SPCC-Spill Prevention Control and Countermeasure Plans

2011 © by Roy Blizzard III

I don’t know how many times in the last ten years I’ve had to answer the question, “What is the purpose of a SPCC ?” Most people I’ve spoken to just think of it as a waste of time and money, a worthless exercise foisted upon them by a big brother government agency. This couldn’t be further from the truth and in fact demonstrates just how oil and gas operators, farmers, marinas and others fail to properly understand the real purpose behind the Spill Prevention Control and Countermeasure Plan.

A SPCC Plan is a tool, and in this case, a comprehensive business tool for the purpose of preventing loss and raising value. A person has to have an understanding of the tools which are available to use when building a business or the business will not be a success. For example; if you have an oil stock tank and someone comes by and steals a tank truck full of oil, you have experienced “a loss”. You would need to find some way to mitigate or prevent this type of loss or you will quickly become penniless. In this case a simple armored padlock can stop the “loss”.

The SPCC Plan should be written in such a way as to assist the user in the day to day operations of their business to prevent losses. These losses can be many and varied, such as oil spills, tank truck accidents, well blowouts, pipe leaks, fuel spills on a lake, lightning fires at a tank battery site, or maybe a simple thing such as time lost due to operation shutdown due to a failure to comply with State and Federal Regulations.

When a SPCC is written it must be site specific in order to comply with Federal regulations and it should address many of the ways losses are experienced on site. In this way, the SPCC is actually a loss mitigation plan as well as an integral part of the overall Health and Safety Plan of the company or individual owner. It assists in preventing the loss of life -both animals & humans, loss of habitat, and losses of finances, overall value and even time, and in business, time is money.

However, one must be careful when having an SPCC or other plans prepared. There are many cut rate companies out there who would love to take your money and give you substandard plans and services that are not able to be used in such a way to prevent loss.

T.I.H. Environmental, LLC works closely with its clients to educate and provide top of the line services and plans that are designed to be read and understood easily and prevent loss through compliance and implementation, all the while being affordable and assisting in lowering operating costs and raising overall value of the operations.

For more information go to www.tihenvironmental.com and read the training article "Are You Prepared for an SPCC Plan Inspection?" at http://tihenvironmental.com/Training.html