News And Events

Aloha Hawaii Class C UST Operators. This is a friendly reminder that the Hawaii Department of Health (DOH) requires all Class C UST operators to be retrained annually. Retraining helps keep you sharp in the event an unforeseen incident like a tank overfill, leak alarm, fire or other UST hazard.

We’ve created this post because many Hawaii operators first got trained at the end of 2013 so we expect a number of Class C operators will need to re-certify right about now.

For a list of refresher requirements in other states click here.

Mahalo!

Having trained 1000’s of UST operators over the last 12 years, I’ve noticed a pattern how an entire state deals with meeting a UST operator training deadline. This first happened when I led the nation’s first Class A/B course in Oregon in 2003. And Nebraska is another classic example of this start-to-end cycle today in 2015. Here’s what happens.

NY DEC to Hold Public Webinar for Revised Chemical and Petroleum Bulk Storage Regulations on Monday, November 23, 2015

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) issued new bulk storage regulations that became effective October 11, 2015.

DEC will host a webinar to help guide the public through the new regulatory structure and requirements. This includes the new rules on Class A, B and C UST Operator Training. The webinar will be held on November 23, 2015 from 1:00 PM to 3:30 PM. Details and login information are available on DEC’s website at http://www.dec.ny.gov/chemical/287.html.

Note: When we published this article last week we incorrectly stated that the corrosion was found in the study was found in steel tanks. The study was actually conducted in fiberglass tanks; and the corrosion was found in the equipment and tank tops. Our apologies for this mistake. Here is the corrected article.

October 13, 2015: Last week the new EPA rules took effect nationwide but only certain rules and only in certain states.

These states include: (see map)

Arizona, California,  Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Wisconsin, Wyoming, plus American Samoa, CNMI, and Guam. And all USTs in Indian Country.

New rules include:

Many of the customers we talk to seems puzzled, even surprised, that the UST training they took was much better than they expected. Online training, if not expressly designed for the end user in mind, can be tedious, irrelevant and largely considered a waste of precious time.The majority of our customers surveyed find our courses convenient, useful and at least as good or better than live training.

Ben Thomas recently returned from the PEI Trade Show, the world’s largest event for those in the UST equipment and service industry. The three+ day event, held at the Las Vegas Convention Center, included many educational sessions

Here are some of the highlights:

Diesel corrosion: The Steel Tank Institute reported some preliminary results of a national study on the impact of corrosion in diesel tanks. It turns out that the diesel tanks in the study contained noticable amounts of ethanl.

EPA’s New Rules: A number of senior staff from EPA’s Office of Underground Storage Tanks (OUST) provided a helpful review of what’s in store for us in the next few years. OUST officials also hosted a meet-and-greet at the tradeshow

October 13, 2015: The convention coincided with the first deadline of the new EPA rules: 10/13/15.

Industry Compliment: Jeff Leiter, longtime player in the national UST rules, said that EPA’s OUST was the best run program in EPA.

Tighter Sumps:  There seemed to be more emphasis on sumps on the trade show floor this year. A few companies have developed sump test probes that are much more accurate than the “fill it with water and watch for a 1/4″ drop” test.

More Testing? A number of UST testing companies were quizzed about the likely market for more testing, based on the new rules. None of the testers we spoke with seemed to think

The Oregon DEQ UST Program recently announced the agency would start the process of updating its UST rules to be consistent with the new Federal EPA UST rules. As you may know updating rules can be a lengthy process but the OR DEQ is starting this fall. Because we train in Oregon and have lots of Oregon clients. we’ll be sure to keep you updated. Actually implementation dates will be announced down the road but we forecast it’ll take at least 2-3 years to get there. Go Oregon!

Nebraska UST operators have until the end of the year to complete training for Class A/B and C UST operators. Have you completed the training and printed your certificate?

We at UST Training have been training UST operators since 2003 so we know what’s important, relevant, valuable and engaging to our audience. Which is why Nebraska UST operators really like our online training solution. Here are the results our Nebraska survey for those who took our training.  (click on an image to enlarge). We’re happy to report that Nebraska operators not only really liked the course, not only really liked the online experience but actually found the information helpful.

Ben Thomas of UST Training recently attended the 25th Annual National Tanks Conference in Phoenix, AZ, an event he’s proudly attended, help organize or presented at since 1996. Here are some of the highlights:

Largest Attendance to Date: We tipped the scales at over 800 attendees this year, the highest attended UST conference ever. Attendees included nearly every state UST program, many Indian tribes, many EPA officials, major UST owners, testers, contractors and more.