
Be Part of the Ultimate Safety & Compliance Community
Trending news, knowledge-building content, and more – all personalized to you!
One of the primary ways to prevent discharges into navigable waters is by using secondary containment. Secondary containment provides temporary containment of spilled chemical if the primary container (such as a bulk storage container, a mobile or portable container, piping, or plant equipment) fails. It gives a facility time to abate the source of the discharge and remove the accumulated chemical to prevent it from reaching waterbodies.
Simply put, secondary containment is a means of preventing discharges into waterbodies. However, secondary containment may be divided into two types:
Although secondary containment systems are preferred, they may not always be practicable. A professional engineer may determine that containment methods are “impracticable.” If that is the case, alternative modes of protection to prevent and contain discharges are available, such as:
See the secondary containment regulations (listed in the Regulatory Citations section below) for specifics regarding applicability and scope. Secondary containment regulations may:
Secondary containment regulations could also, for example, require: