UST Water Issues--Fines and Vehicle Damage
Last week brought lots of rain and wind to the Garden State. While storms always have the potential to bring flooding, downed trees, and power outages, this storm brought a different kind of problem to absentminded station owners. And in the case of one retailer, it also created some embarrassing headlines.
Water in your underground storage tank (UST) is a big worry, and the "enemy" to your tank infrastructure. Not only does the ethanol-formulated gasoline you dispense attract moisture, but the rain, water runoff, and snow melt can also make their way into USTs if operators are not careful.
Last week's heavy rainfall was a nightmare for such situations, but it was especially bad for one Camden service station. It was so bad, in fact, it made headlines. That station dispensed contaminated, water-laden fuel into at least 26 motorist vehicles before the problem was discovered. An investigation found that the fuel sold contained 58% water. The station will face hefty fines for dispensing "adulterated fuel" … and it was all preventable.
While this story may seem like an outlier, the ordinary threat of water contaminating the product in your UST system is very real. This phenomenon is amplified when station owners fail to take proper precautions and adhere to regular maintenance routines.
Knowing this, we thought to touch on a few precautionary measures to help you avoid the same fate (not to mention fines and public embarrassment) as the station owner in the cited article above.
First, and even before we touch on what to do if water is detected in your UST system, it should be noted that water generally gets into your tanks through vent lines, faulty inlet fill caps, overflowing spill buckets, weak tank gasket seals and/or piping, rushed/poorly-executed tanker deliveries, broken floats, or even moisture seeping in from vent caps and vent balance pressure seals. That means before a storm is even a potential threat, you should be looking at these safeguards and the larger tank apparatus to make sure everything is sound. This should be part of your ordinary daily routine (especially for something as simple as looking at your spill buckets and making sure fill caps are properly tightened).
Ultimately it is far cheaper to address those issues preventatively, than it would be to possibly face fines, repair a customer's vehicle, or potentially pump out your entire tank due to fuel phase separation and an accompanying station closure (more on that, below).
Second, it is important to make sure your automatic tank gauge (ATG) system (Veeder-Root or otherwise) is working properly, and that your onsite staff is trained on what to recognize when a water alarm is triggered. In the case of the Camden station, we've learned that the attendants not only knew the alarm was going off, but they failed to realize it was due to water in the tanks. Rather than investigate, they just kept on pumping "fuel" into the customers' vehicles.
Though a water alarm will be triggered when excess water is in the tank, it is also imperative that you (or your staff) know what to do next. This means stop pumping and call your compliance professionals to evaluate the situation.
Why is this important? From a consumer perspective, pumping "adulterated fuel" into a consumer's tank will damage your patron's vehicle, require expensive repairs, and lead to costly government fines.
However, from a logistical necessity alone, you need to figure how water is getting into your tanks, and how much water volume there is in the tanks to determine how it will be remediated. For example, in looking at ethanol blended gasoline alone, a high concentration of water could eventually lead to phase separation and larger issues. If phase separation occurs (which can happen if the amount of water in the tank reaches a threshold percentage by volume), the result is a coagulation; and the station will be shut down and the entire contents of your tanks will need to be removed.
Also, it should be noted that if your Veeder-Root or other-branded ATG system is malfunctioning or your on-site staff is not trained to use it, an operator can also manually check the tank using a tank stick (sometimes called a probe stick, petroleum gauge stick, or otherwise). An operator would use the stick along with water testing paste (make sure the paste is made for reformulated/ethanol-blended gasoline) to determine how much water is in their tank. The paste coated stick (and accompanying color change) can help to detect water and/or phase separation.
Assuming you don't follow these procedures and water contaminates your tanks, both the Department of Environmental Protection and Weights & Measures will undoubtedly hand out hefty fines for non-compliance. What's more, your reputation may be damaged, as with the Camden station in the article above.
Learn from this situation! Take regular maintenance precautions, make sure your staff knows what to do in such a situation, and check in regularly with your compliance professionals to know what steps you should take.
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