Washington State Class A/B Training this summer/fall

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.

Took a few days off and camped at Fort Stevens on the Oregon Coast. Even there, on the furthest reaches on the continental western US, I can’t get away from UST reminders. 🙂

June 23 marks the 11th Anniversary since Ben Thomas provided the nation’s very first state approved Class A/B UST operator training class in Portland Oregon. That’s right: the very first one.

To celebrate our 11 nonstop years of preventing leaking USTs, we are offering a 50% discount to our faithful customers between June 20-23, 2014. Stop by for the discount code a few days beforehand or wait for it in our newsletter.

(Did you know the tradition for giving on the 11th anniversary is steel?)

Kentucky provides free online training for their Designated Compliance Managers (DCM’s) which is the state term for combined Class A and B UST operators. UST Training helped develop this very cool, customized training that only gives you the training lessons you need. If you’re a Kentucky UST owner or operator, and haven’t taken the training, register now!

The Association of State and Territorial Sold Waste Management Officials or ASTSWMO recently published a report summarizing the most common UST violations in the US, which can be seen as a big help for those UST operators that want to avoid problems in the first place. The report combed though a staggering 32,000+ violations nationwide between 2010 and 2012. The report found the top three violation areas:

Here’s a few of our favorites. As a Class A/B operator we hope you know where yours is located and what these pictures are humorous. Have any originals you’d like to share? Email us at [email protected] and get a free training coupon voucher.

Second Class in Saipan. The graduates!

UST Training recently won the contract to return to the register today!

By Ben Thomas

Not everyone can say they started their career by climbing into an excavation pit containing a leaking underground storage tank but I guess I wasn’t destined to follow convention. The year was 1986, and, armed with a hard hat, a Buck knife, a Chevy Chevette and a gas explosion meter, I found myself overseeing UST removals in Vermont, one of the first states with UST rules. From 1989 to 1995 I oversaw cleanup of leaking USTs for the State of Alaska but found my real passion in 1996: preventing leaking USTs by coming up with creative ways to inspire the common UST operator. Creativity and bureaucracy don’t always see eye to eye so I left my government job to try my luck starting my own consulting business in 2002.

We now offer Class A/B UST Operator Training for the US Virgin Islands (USVI). All UST operators on St. Thomas, St. Croix and St. John can take our national Class A/B UST operator course to meet the requirements of USVI’s DPNR UST Program. Click here to learn more.

Our USVI Class C course is also available.

You may not know it but the Steel Tank Institute or STI has been around since 1916 acting as the nation’s trade association leader for the fabricators of steel construction products and their suppliers. In the UST world, if you see a tank with the STI logo on it you know it has been manufactured to today’s STI standards, including the 3 “P’s” of Protection: electrical isolation, special coating and cathodic protection via sacrificial anode. By now all our Class A and Class B UST operators should be familiar with these terms.

How well do you know your training company? Did you know these ten things? Read on!

You may or may not know it but we offer a national version of our Class A/B operator training for states that do not have official UST training regulations yet. We suggest using our national course in the following states and territories:

• American Samoa
• Arizona*
• Nebraska
• Missouri
• New Jersey
• New York
• US Virgin Islands