Introduction

Your oil Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasure (SPCC) Plan must be prepared in accordance with good engineering practices, but writing, certifying, and implementing the plan once is not enough. Your SPCC Plan is a living document, so, at a minimum, you must review and amend it at the frequencies specified at 40 CFR 112.5. This Fact File examines the plan review and amendment requirements.

Frequency of plan reviews

Plan reviews and evaluations are required at least once every five years to determine if:

• The plan is current, and
• More effective and field-proven prevention and control technology would significantly reduce the likelihood of a discharge from the facility.

It should be noted that EPA formerly required three-year reviews, but the agency relaxed the frequency to allow facilities to better coordinate the reviews with those of related plans, and EPA felt the longer review period would not lead to increased environmental harm.

If you have an existing facility, you will complete the review within five years of the date that your last review was completed. So if the last plan review was conducted on January 1, 2019, for example, the review after that must be conducted by January 1, 2024. A facility becoming newly operable will begin a five-year cycle starting on the date it becomes subject to Part 112.

Completing/Documenting plan reviews

The facility owner or operator is responsible for performing your SPCC Plan review, and typically it is the owner or operator that performs them. Although not required, a facility may choose to have a PE perform these reviews. However, the owner or operator of the facility, or a person at a management level with sufficient authority to commit the necessary resources, must document completion of plan review.

You may use the words suggested in paragraph 112.5(b) to document completion or make any similar statement to the same effect. The regulation suggests the words, “I have completed review and evaluation of the SPCC Plan for (name of facility) on (date), and will (will not) amend the Plan as a result.”

To be clear, this is not a “certification” but simply “documentation” added to the beginning or end of the SPCC Plan or maintained in a logbook appended to the plan or other plan appendix. The documentation statement shows that the review was done, and it is required whether or not any amendments are necessary. EPA explains that merely dating the plan or an amendment will not show that you performed the required review. Also, a false documentation of completion of review of the plan is a deficiency in the plan and may be cited as a violation.

Making technical plan amendments

Completion of the review and making plan amendments are two different processes. Amendments to your SPCC Plan may be prompted by the five-year review, but they may also result from material changes at the facility or from an onsite review made by an EPA inspector.

According to the regulation, your facility owner or operator must amend the SPCC Plan when there is a change in the facility design, construction, operation, or maintenance that materially affects its potential for a discharge as described in paragraph 112.1(b). These types of facility changes could occur at any time, not just at five-year intervals. These plan amendments are considered technical (not administrative) because they materially affect the facility’s potential to discharge oil and require good engineering practice.

A material change is one that may either increase or decrease the potential for a discharge. Decommissioning a container, for instance, could materially decrease the potential for a discharge and require a plan amendment, unless such decommissioning brings your facility below the regulatory threshold, making the preparation, implementation, and amendment of a plan no longer a requirement.

Let’s say you replace tanks, containers, or equipment at your facility. This may not be a material change if the replacements are identical in quality, capacity, and number. Yet if you replace one tank with more than one identical tank resulting in greater storage capacity, it is, in fact, a material change because the storage capacity of the facility, and its consequent discharge potential, have increased.

Examples of facility changes that call for technical plan amendments are listed at paragraph 112.5(a). They include:

• Container commissioning or decommissioning;
• Container replacement, reconstruction, or movement;
• Piping system reconstruction, replacement, or installation;
• Construction or demolition that might alter secondary containment structures;
• Product or service changes (see the Real World Example provided in this Fact File); and
• Revision of standard operation or maintenance procedures, if they affect the potential for a discharge.

The above list is for illustration only. The examples may not always trigger amendments, and the list is not exclusive.

When to make technical plan amendments

Your facility owner or operator is responsible for preparing any technical amendment in the SPCC Plan within six months of the related facility change, and implementing it as soon as possible, but no later than six months following preparation of the amendment. The EPA Regional Administrator may authorize an extension of time to prepare and implement an amendment under certain circumstances, however.

Certification of technical amendments

Except as provided for “qualified facilities” described at paragraph 112.3(g), a PE must certify all technical amendments to an existing SPCC Plan. The PE need only inspect and certify that portion of the plan that has been technically amended, rather than the entire plan. Since the certifying PE may not have been involved in certifying the plan originally, the PE’s certification and attestation only applies to that particular technical amendment.

On the flip side, if you have a qualified facility that self-certified your entire plan without any deviations, you do not need a PE to certify the technical amendments. However, if you have PE-certified portions of your plan, any technical amendments to those portions will need PE certification. EPA argues that the value of such PE certification justifies the cost, in that good engineering practice is essential to help prevent discharges.

No matter who certifies the technical amendment, EPA approval of that amendment is not required. Although, if the agency is not convinced that your amendment satisfies the requirements of Part 112, EPA may require further amendment of your SPCC Plan.

Making non-technical plan amendments

Non-technical amendments can be added at any time but should be added within six months of a five-year review. Non-technical amendments are administrative changes to the plan and do not materially affect the facility’s potential to discharge oil. Some examples of facility changes that may lead to non-technical plan amendments include:

• Changes to emergency contacts, phone numbers, or names;
• Ownership changes;
• Product changes if the new product is compatible with conditions in the existing tank and its secondary containment;
• Replacing containers or equipment with those that are identical in quality, capacity, and number; and
• Other changes not requiring engineering judgement.

Your facility owner or operator may certify any non-technical amendments to a SPCC Plan, but Part 112 does not require non-technical amendments to be certified. Any non-technical amendment must be implemented as soon as possible, but no later than six months following preparation of the amendment.

Not sure if an amendment is technical

If it is not clear whether an SPCC Plan change is technical or non-technical, EPA says it is best to consider it to be technical and have it certified.

Applicable regulations

40 CFR 112 – Oil pollution prevention

40 CFR 112.5 – Amendment of the spill prevention, control, and countermeasure plan by regional administrator

Related definitions

“Owner or operator” means any person owning or operating an onshore facility or an offshore facility, and in the case of any abandoned offshore facility, the person who owned or operated or maintained the facility immediately prior to such abandonment.

“Professional engineer” or “PE” means a certified engineer that has an active license to practice in a state.

“Qualified facility” means a facility that meets the criteria listed at paragraph 112.3(g).

“Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasure Plan,” “SPCC Plan,” or “Plan” means the document required by section 112.3 that details the equipment, workforce, procedures, and steps to prevent, control, and provide adequate countermeasures to a discharge.

Keys to remember

Completion of the review and making plan amendments are two different processes:

• Plan reviews and evaluations are required at least once every five years to determine if: (a) the plan is current, and (b) more effective and field-proven prevention and control technology would significantly reduce the likelihood of a discharge from the facility. The facility owner or operator is responsible for completing reviews and providing a documentation statement of completion of each review.
• Your facility owner or operator must amend the SPCC Plan within six months of a change in the facility design, construction, operation, or maintenance that materially affects its potential for a discharge as described in paragraph 112.1(b). Except as provided for “qualified facilities,” a PE must certify all technical amendments to an existing plan. Non-technical amendments may be added to the plan within six months of a five-year review.

Real world example

A change in product or service may be a material change prompting a technical amendment to an SPCC Plan. For example:

• Changes of product may materially affect facility operations and, therefore, be a material change. A change from storage of asphalt to storage of gasoline is an example of a change of product that is a material change. In this case, storage of gasoline instead of asphalt presents an increased fire and explosion hazard. Alternatively, a switch from storage of gasoline to storage of asphalt might result in increased stress on the container leading to its failure. Yet, changes of product involving different grades of gasoline might not be a material change and thus not require amendment of the plan if the differing grades of gasoline do not substantially change the conditions of storage and potential for discharge.
• Changes in service may also be material changes if they affect the potential for a discharge. A change in service is a change from previous operating conditions involving different properties of the stored product such as specific gravity or corrosivity and/or different service conditions of temperature and/or pressure.