E.P.A. Settlement Ensures that Ludlow, Massachusetts Water is Better Protected from Oil Spills

BOSTON - Buckeye Pipe Line Co., the owner of a in excess of four million gallon oil storage facility in Ludlow, Mass., has agreed to pay a penalty of $78,780 to resolve claims by the E.P.A. that it violated federal oil spill prevention regulations.

Based on an inspection of the Ludlow facility, E.P.A. alleged that the company's federally required oil spill prevention project was deficient in a number of respects, and that the company had failed to have adequately sized containment for one of its oil tanks as required by the Clean Water Act. The company took steps to update the project following the E.P.A. inspection and completed the necessary containment work in July of this year.

Failing to have a fully prepared and implemented Spill Prevention Control & Countermeasure ("SPCC") plan, can leave a facility unprepared to deal with an oil spill or to prevent the spill in the 1st place, resulting in potentially serious environmental consequences.

The federal Clean Water Act requires that facilities that have the potential for oil spills take steps to prevent oil discharges to the nation's rivers, lakes and oceans through, among other things, implementation of SPCC plans. Any facility with in excess of 1,320 gallons of aboveground oil storage capacity, and meeting certain other criteria, must develop and implement SPCC projects to prevent and contain spills, such as by installing impervious secondary containment around storage tanks.

More information on SPCC project requirements can be found at: http://www2.epa.gov/oil-spills-prevention-and-preparedness-regulations

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