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SPCC for Agriculture

Introduction

Due the risk oil spills pose to health and the environment strong efforts must be made to prevent and clean up oil spills right away. Spill Prevention, Control, and Countermeasure (SPCC) regulations impact many facilities, and farms are no exception. This Fact File gives a detailed look at SPCC regulations related to agricultural facilities. Presented here is related information on what farms are covered, what must be included on SPCC Plans for farms, and the applicable milk exemption to the rule. 

Background

The SPCC Rule was first published in 1973 under section 311 of the Clean Water Act. The purpose of the SPCC program is to prevent oil spills from going into waters of the United States and adjoining shorelines. After an oil spill occurred in 1988 in Floreffe, Pennsylvania the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) created the SPCC Task Force to inspect federal regulations governing oil spills from aboveground storage tanks. Following Task Force recommendations, EPA proposed revisions to the Oil Pollution Prevention Regulation in the 1990s and finalized the amendments in 2002.

EPA has since corrected the SPCC requirements of the Oil Pollution Prevention Regulation to extend compliance dates and further explain some regulatory requirements. The Water Resources Reform and Development Act of 2014 made certain changes that affected the applicability provisions of the SPCC Rule. It Increased the oil storage capacity threshold under the SPCC Rule for farms requiring a certification from a professional engineer and farms that self-certify their SPCC plans. It exempts from SPCC regulation farms with a specified aggregate aboveground storage capacity and no reportable discharge history.

What farms are covered by SPCC?

SPCC applies to a farm which:

  • Stores, transfers, uses, or consumes oil or oil products, such as diesel fuel, gasoline, lube oil, hydraulic oil, adjuvant oil, crop oil, vegetable oil, or animal fat; and
  • Stores over 2,500 U.S. gallons in aboveground containers or more than 42,000 US gallons in fully buried containers; and
  • Could likely be expected to discharge oil to waters of the U.S. or adjoining shorelines, such as interstate waters, intrastate lakes, rivers, and streams.

Determine if your farm could likely discharge oil into navigable waters or adjoining shoreline by considering the geography and location of your farm relative to nearby navigable or adjoining shorelines. Ask yourself:

  • Where is the nearest lake, river, stream, creek, or other waterway? Think about if ditches, gullies, storm sewers or other drainage systems may transport an oil spill to nearby navigable waters or adjoining shorelines. Estimate the volume of oil that could be spilled in an incident and how that oil might drain or flow from your farm. Consider the soil conditions or geographic features that might affect the flow toward navigable waters or adjoining shorelines.
  • Can precipitation runoff transport oil into navigable waters or adjoining shorelines? Include artificial features, like dikes, equipment, or other structures that might prevent, contain, hinder, or restrain the flow of oil. Assume these features are not present when making your determination.

If you consider the appropriate factors described identify that a spill can reasonably flow to a waterway, navigable water, or adjoining shorelines, then you must comply with the SPCC rule.

SPCC Plan for Farm

The SPCC program requires you to prepare and implement an SPCC Plan. The owner or operator of the facility (e.g. a farm) is in charge of preparing and implementing the Plan. The Plan must be maintained at the location of the farm that is generally attended four hours or more per day.

If you already have a Plan, maintain it. If you do not have a Plan, you should prepare and implement one. Many farmers will need to have their Plan certified by a Professional Engineer (PE). Note that you may be eligible to self-certify your amended Plan if your farm has:

  • An overall oil storage capacity between 6,000 and 20,000 gallons in aboveground containers;
  • No individual tank with a capacity greater than 10,000 gallons; and
  • No reportable discharge history.

The following information is needed to prepare an SPCC Plan for your farm:

  • List of the oil containers at the farm by parcel (including the contents and location of each container);
  • Short description of the procedures that you will use to prevent oil spills;
  • Short description of the measures you installed to prevent oil from reaching water;
  • Concise description of the measures you will use to contain and cleanup an oil spill to water; and
  • List of emergency contacts and first responders.

Milk Exemption under the SPCC Rule

On April 18, 2011, EPA published a final rule altering SPCC regulations to exempt milk and milk product containers, related piping, and accessories. The belief is that certain construction and sanitation standards already address the prevention of oil discharges in amounts that could do harm. It was regulated in the first place because milk is considered an oil. Just because there is a milk exemption, it does not mean that ALL milk farms and milk producers are exempt from SPCC regulations. It does not exempt containers that store other oils, such as petroleum oil at dairies, milk producers, and milk product manufacturing facilities.

Applicable Laws & Regulations

40 CFR 110 – Discharge of Oil

40 CFR 112 – Oil Pollution Prevention

Related Definitions

“Discharge” means any spilling, leaking, pumping, pouring, emitting, emptying, or dumping of oil.

“Farm” means a facility on a tract of land devoted to the production of crops or raising of animals, including fish, which produced and sold, or normally would have produced and sold, $1,000 or more of agricultural products during a year.

“Oil” means oil of any type or in any form, including, but not limited to: fats, oils, or greases of animal, fish, or marine mammal origin; vegetable oils, including oils from seeds, nuts, fruits, or kernels; and, other oils and greases, including petroleum, fuel oil, sludge, synthetic oils, mineral oils, oil refuse, or oil mixed with wastes other than dredged spoil.

Key to Remember

If your farm does NOT have fuel storage that will flow into navigable waters you do NOT need to prepare an SPCC Plan, however you still must clean up any spilled oil and a containment system makes this easier. It is highly recommended that you document the reasons why you believe an oil spill would not reach water to show regional inspectors, if needed, that your facility is not subject to the SPCC plan. 

Real World Example

There may be an SPCC milk exemption, but like other oil spills that go into a waterway or on a shoreline, you must quickly report the spill to the National Response Center (NRC) at (800) 424-8802 or (202) 426-2675. The NRC is staffed 24 hours per day by U.S. Coast Guard personnel.

In 2017, a tanker hauling milk in Iowa overturned and likely caused as much as 7,500 gallons of milk to spill into the Middle Nodaway River. It caused a visible plume for roughly 50 yards downstream. Similarly, in 2021, a tanker in Massachusetts carrying about 10,000 gallons of diesel fuel overturned. It released about 7,500 gallons of diesel into a creek area that flows into the Saugus River. Regardless of the milk exemption in the first situation, both tankers needed to report the spill to the NRC.