Gas Spill
The author of this report has been asked to consider the situation of a filling station that is present at a manufacturing operation. Indeed, many manufacturing plants have on-site gas fill-up facilities known as AST's. This prevents the need to get fuel from external fueling stations. One of the downsides is that there can be leaks of varying sizes and due to various causes such as line rupture, faulty connections and so forth. The author is specifically asked to consider that there is a spill of about one hundred gallons. It is asked whether any action needs to be taken regarding the fuel spill, whether it can be ignored, what conditions would trigger an environmental action and what actions should happen overall. While one hundred gallons is not a ton for a manufacturing site, the spill should absolutely be dealt with.
Analysis
First of all, the spill cannot simply be ignored. While one hundred gallons of fuel being spilled is probably not the biggest emergency, it should not be disregarded. One important factor is where that fuel went. If there is direct access to the dirt/earth around the area where the spill occurs,...
It would be a localized spill and one that is not terribly huge but fuel is combustible, toxic and can cause cancer so it is definitely not irrelevant. As the author would commonly point to, there should be contingencies for such a thing. It would seem that spills, both small and large, are known to be issues and thus the filling area could be constructed in a way so as to contain or even capture the spilled fuel in a way that it does not reach the earth and is instead directed to a waste pool of some sort where it can eventually be dealt with in an environmentally friendly way.
However, if it does reach the ground and the 100-gallon threshold and/or what precisely is being spilled matters, then the proper state and federal agencies like the EPA and OSHA should be notified (EPA, 2016; OSHA, 2016). If it were to come to pass that the incident was not reported officially and someone let the proper agencies know independent of that, the blowback against the managers and owners of the facility would be withering. Having a spill that requires reporting is one thing…
