News And Events

PEI, the Petroleum Equipment Institute has some super helpful videos for UST technicians (and UST operators who’ve been properly trained) to change filters. Check it out!

Every Friday 10 AM Pacific Time through 2021

Attention UST Operators: Our friends at Franklin Fueling Systems did a great video summary of their latest products innovations that they unveiled in Chicago at the PEI Show. Check it out!

(Courtesy of NACS)

There are many companies that will still insure a 30+ year-old tank.

ALEXANDRIA, Va.—The U.S. Environment Protection Agency (EPA) is encouraging owners of underground storage tanks (USTs) that are 30 years or older to obtain insurance in order to satisfy the EPA’s financial responsibility requirements.

The EPA’s financial responsibility requirement states that UST owners and operators must pay the costs of cleaning up leaks from USTs and compensate third parties for bodily injury or property damage resulting from leaks, and the UST financial responsibility regulation allows UST owners and operators to choose from a variety of financial mechanisms to comply with the regulation. One of the financial mechanisms is the use of insurance.

Read more

Please advertise widely to your colleagues in the tanks and inspector communities. Region 10 is hiring an Underground Storage Tank inspector, among other positions. The announcement just came out. (https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/617811200).  The full performance level of this position is GS12, current salaries at the GS 11 and 12 levels can be found here. We would love to have a broad pool of experienced applicants – consider applying!

Lisa McArthur
Manager, RCRA & Tanks Branch
Land, Chemical and Redevelopment Division
Region 10, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
1200 Sixth Avenue, Suite 155, MS 15-H04
Seattle, WA  98101-3123
(206) 553-1814

Our team attended the PEI Show at NACS last week in Chicago and what a great show it was! Ben Thomas and Tammy Gathright spent 3 busy days setting up the booth, attending meetings, finding old friends and making new ones.

(In case you didn’t know, the Petroleum Equipment Institute (PEI) teams up with the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) and hosts the largest petroleum/c-store convention in the US every year. It’s so big that only three cities can host it: Atlanta, Las Vegas, and this year Chicago.)

Here are some highlights:

Ben on the Board: This was UST Training’s President Ben Thomas’s first convention as a PEI Board Member (Affiliate Division). Ben got updates via various committee reports (Young Executives, PEI Women, Latin America Initiative, Strategic Long Range Planning) plus got to meet and share ideas with other Board members and meet the newly elected Executive Vice President Jason Blake.

New PEI Board Members: Ben got to see the swearing in of a number of new PEI Board members, including the new President Ron Sledd.

Find Red. Ben Thomas again volunteered to be a “Find Red” ambassador for the PEI safety talk called Safety Trio, a great panel discussion on the Fire Triangle, trench safety and confined space.

Recently I spoke with a very nice UST operator who took and passed our online Class A/B course. In Colorado UST Operators must contact us, the training vendor, to review their site-specific equipment so they can basically explain what type of tank system, they have (double-walled versus single, pressure piping versus suction, etc.). It’s always an enlightening conversation and I can tell pretty quickly how much that person really knows.

While we spoke, I asked her walk into the back room of the c-store and look at the Veeder Root TLS 350 …and …it was in alarm. L12 Fuel Alarm to be exact.

Three things I realized:

UST Training is pleased to announce that our Iowa Class A/B UST Operator Training course has been re-approved by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. In 2021 the IA DNR adopted new UST rules to match those of Federal EPA rules and we’ve updated our slides accordingly.

And did we mention our Class A/B course is free for qualifying UST operators?

With a generous reimbursement from the Iowa UST Fund, this course is provided for free to the following Iowa UST operators:

• You must be within 4 hours travel time to the UST site for which you are responsible,
• You must be within a 2 hour drive if the UST site is unstaffed,
• You must fill out all your contact information (including the IA DNR UST Registration #) before you start, and
• You cannot already have been trained as an Iowa UST operator.
• You must complete course, including the final exam, within 30 days of signing up.

Sign up today!

If you are lucky enough to operate a regulated UST system in Arizona or Iowa, you probably qualify for free UST operator training, courtesy of each state’s UST agency’s financial assistance. Class A/B training normally retails for $150.00 and Class C for $12.95.

Arizona A/B and C
Our Arizona Class A/B and C UST Operator Training course is now free to all qualifying UST operators. Thanks to the generous support from the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ), you can enjoy the convenience of training that is 100% online and self-paced. UST Training has the statewide contract and hopes to train every UST operator in the state in the next two years.

UST Training has submitted and gotten tentative approval for our Delaware Class A/B UST Operator Training by the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC).

Unfortunately the agency has decided to wait for other third party training vendors to submit and get approved before we are allowed to offer this course.

Currently there are no training options available in Delaware. The moment our approval is finalized and our course is available we’ll let you know.

If you have questions about our course in Delaware please contact us at [email protected]