EPA Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response (OSWER) Acting Assistant Administrator, Michael Shapiro, has approved a change to EPA guidance on the use of certain shop-built double walled aboveground storage tanks (ASTs).
The new policy should encourage the use of these tanks and, in some cases, provide improved secondary containment protection. The new EPA policy clarifies an existing 1992 policy accepting the use of double wall tanks to meet the requirements for secondary containment.
The new policy states that a shop-fabricated double-walled AST, regardless of size, may satisfy not only the secondary containment requirement of 40 CFR 112.7(c), but also the bulk storage secondary containment requirements. Double wall tanks are still required to have adequate spill and leak prevention options such as overfill alarms, flow shutoff or restrictor devices and constant monitoring of product transfers.
