Association attends UST Compliance Seminar
Last month, NJGCA sent a notice out to members regarding the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection's (NJ DEP) UST Compliance Seminar in Hamilton. This is an event that typically takes place twice a year, and it is always helpful and informative. Last week our staffers attended that seminar, and we were glad to see a handful of members who took the time to participate.
The seminar was very well attended. There were a number of site owners, compliance companies, distributors, LSRPs, environmental consultants, and tank contractors on hand to hear directly from DEP officials and ask questions.
DEP's Compliance and Enforcement (C&E) staff attended the meeting in person, and offered up a number of “do this, don't do that” example scenarios to underscore how to handle specific situations, as well as reviewing standard practices.
Among the topics discussed were requirements for out of service tanks, permitting/permit extension requests, using (or trucking away) “dirty” dirt at your location, and more. For those members who were not able to attend in person, we thought to recap a few informational highlights, if only to make you peripherally aware of coming changes and mandates.
While we cannot fully dive into each presentation, we did want to stress two very important elements from the seminar:
Out of Service Tanks –
This portion of the presentation was long, with lots of detailed information. However, the biggest takeaway was that many station owners were not complying with the out of service tank requirements – and facing both fines and difficulties reopening their tanks after they decided to resume operating.
As a general overview, it should be noted that any tanks that are “Out of Service” are those UST systems that have not introduced or dispensed petroleum products for seven days; pending a decision to close or begin reuse of the system.
In plain English that means that if you haven't pumped any fuel (or received any product deliveries) in seven days, your tanks are technically “Out of Service” and you are obligated to let DEP know.
As part of that process, you will have to obtain an “Out of Service” certificate, but maintain your electricity at the facility (for monitoring purposes) and insurance at the location. Ultimately, you have approximately one year to decide on putting your tanks back into service. An additional one-year extension may be approved for double-walled tanks with interstitial monitoring (single wall tanks are not granted any extensions beyond a year), but only under specific conditions.
Once the tanks have been out of service for a year, with very few exceptions, the tanks must be pulled. It should be noted that this requirement applies to all tanks – whether they are 25 year old tanks or 5 year old tanks.
As a final thought, if you failed to let DEP know that your tanks are out of service, and a later investigation proves that your location was closed for a protracted period of time, state officials will impose costly fines. These fines are compounded daily, and will be calculated from the earliest date that DEP can prove you failed to report your out of service status.
That's a costly proposition, and one that all station owners should wisely avoid with appropriate planning.
Expansion of Online UST Registration & Elimination of Paper Submissions –
One thing that was repeatedly stressed is that DEP will no longer accept paper copies of the yearly Underground Storage Tank Facility Certification Questionnaire (“UST FCQ”); or what has colloquially been called your “annual UST registration”.
You'll recall that we recently informed members that DEP had launched a new online registration process, that Department officials were seeking user feedback to make meaningful changes. Throughout that process it was clear that DEP would continue to accept physical, paper copies of the application, even as they strongly encouraged owners to shift to the online application system.
Last week, we were told that the online process has been refined further and that DEP would no longer accept paper applications in the mail. Rather, all submissions and payments must be made online, only.
For anyone who has not familiarized themselves with the new online application process, and made their submission “the old-fashioned way” last year, that option has now evaporated. From now on, when you make a submission, it must be online.
If you haven't done so already, please familiarize yourself with the NJDEPonline.com portal so as to prevent any delays when your yearly registration is due.
Getting your application in on time not only helps you avoid additional fees, but also preventatively stops DEP from issuing a delivery ban at your location.
Have any questions on the above, or need help understanding the process for online submission, please feel free to contact Nick at nick@njgca.org or 732-256-9646 for additional details.
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