News And Events

We still have seats available for the next Oregon Class A/B UST operator training course set for September 16 in Portland. The course is sponsored by the Oregon Fuel Association (formerly Oregon Petroleum Association), whose members get a 20% discount when registering. The course is in Oregon but the training and certification is valid in Washington as well.

Have some new staff? Opened a new UST site? Want a refresher? Register today!

Oregon Class A/B UST Operator Training
George Fox University, 12753 SW 68th Avenue
Portland OR 97223-8305
September 16, 2014, 8 AM – 3 PM
Register now

Any questions just call us at (866) 301-8265 or email us today.

UST Training has received interest in doing some live classes in Spokane and Tri Cities. Do you need training in those parts of the state? If so, let us know and if we can get a minimum headcount we can come there, are anywhere in Washington for that matter. We offer training on-site or in the classroom, and can customize the course to suit your UST systems and company policies. Call us at (866) 301-8265 or email us today!

Ben Thomas recently returned from Saipan, CNMI, where he taught, quizzed and re-certified 40 Class A/B UST operators from the islands of Saipan, Tinian and Rota. CNMI, the Commonwealth of the Northern Marinas Islands, has a rich and interesting history and is a US territory. If you want more information click here.

The typical UST system on the islands (mostly gas stations with a few emergency generator tanks) consist of nearly all double wall fiberglass tanks and piping though there is some flexible plastic as well. Most of the systems have submersible turbine pumps but there’s a fair amount of suction systems as well. Nearly every site has an ATG. Many of the Class A/B operators have 10+ years experience in the industry. There is no ethanol or biodiesel available on the islands. There are two major gas station chains on Saipan- Shell and Mobil. Keeping water out of sumps and spill buckets remains a major challenge since it rains a lot in the “rainy season” of July through December.

If you ever find yourself out there, Ben highly recommends Booya’s Local BBQ.

Have a large number of Class C UST operators?
Frustrated with high turnover rates?
Have your own in-house Learning Management System (LMS)?

Did you know we license our course software?  For some UST owners, leasing our Class C UST operator training courseware is a very smart alternative that can save you time, money and effort.

We periodically check our surveys to see how we’re doing and we are pleased to see some great feedback about our Class A/B courses. Here’s what our customers like about us. These are direct quotes gathered over the last six months.

ASTSWMO recently published a report about State/Territory UST programs and how potential budget cuts might affect their efforts at preventing leaking USTs. Here’s the full report.

Highlights:

Being in the UST world means I subscribe to all sorts of online journals and publications that I sift through every day to see what nuggets I can pass along to our customers. The title of this one caught my eye: Tips and Ideas for Opening a Gas Station, which I found interesting but limited to what the customer sees and not what’s lurking underground. So here’s my short list if you’re thinking about building a new gas station.

You might have caught this on the news this week: a driver with a medical condition crashes into a fueling car at a dispenser island, causing a major fire. An off duty police officer happens to be next to the accident and saves the day.

I recently attended the National Institute for Storage Tank Management ( You may or may not know there’s an office in Washington DC that directs national UST policy and works with states, territories and tribes to help those agencies implement their tanks program at a local level.

Conference Highlights:

EPA has been working since 2011 to add some enhancements to the national UST rules that would, if adopted, trickle down to states/territories/tribes over the next three years or so. Latest Official Word: Rules are supposedly getting their final reviews soon and could be adopted by fall of 2014. Some rule changes may or should include:

• Monthly Inspections. A trained Class A/B operator would be required to do a brief monthly site walk through to make sure nothing was out of compliance and release detection records were being properly stored. States like Colorado and Wisconsin already require this and many of our customers do this anyway plus we suggest it in our training.

• Equipment Testing. What’s still leaking? Sumps and spill buckets. What equipment can malfunction after a few years? Sensors and alarms. The proposed equipment testing rules using PEI RP 1200 should tackle nearly all the parts of the tank system that fail but currently don’t require testing.

• Deferred Tanks. Technically many tanks out there used for emergency power generation that don’t have to do release detection and the new rules would require it moving forward. Nearly all the generator tank operators we know do it anyway.

• Tribal rules. USTs on tribal lands would be updated to include what the rest of the states are mostly doing: operator training, delivery prohibition, and mandatory interstitial monitoring.

As soon as we get more updates about the proposed rule changes we’ll keep you updated.

A typical 3-tank UST system totaling 30,000 gallons of product might seem like a lot of fuel but it’s nothing compared to the 250,000,000 gallon UST system near Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Check out the video describing the construction of this massive and still active site.