By Jacob Gunter

Spring Cleaning at fueling centers may commonly involve cleaning and wiping down customer-facing equipment, replacing h-vac filters, removing gum from the customer areas, and many more mundane tasks. But these routine tasks aren’t the only aspects of your facility that require upkeep. You should also be maintaining your fueling equipment by doing tasks such as cleaning dispenser cabinets and replacing filters, restocking cleanup materials, and repainting worn drop lids the correct colors to avoid accidents. These tasks are an important part of maintaining your facility and preparing for compliance inspections.

We have dug through thousands of walkthrough inspections and spoken with inspectors across the country to find the most common equipment that can cause issues with your system if not properly maintained. Today we are going to be discussing release prevention, specifically spill buckets and sumps.

The purpose of the spill bucket is to conceal the points of resupply to the Underground Storage Tanks (UST’s) and be able to provide the fuel delivery personnel an area to connect/disconnect the hose to the drop tube and not spill or release any potential fuel still in the line onto the concrete pad or into the surrounding environment.

Spill Buckets are the point of contact for your delivery personnel, these drivers typically get paid by the mile for deliveries and will try to be expedient when dropping fuel, this is where we could have accidental spills happen. Drivers should set up a perimeter around the spill bucket and semi-tractor when arriving on site and follow a checklist safety chart when dropping fuels. Drivers should be able to communicate with staff and pull real-time inventory results to determine they are dropping the right amount. Class A/B/C operators should monitor the drop visually but not interfere with the delivery personnel or their job, you are looking out for their safety and ready to respond to any possible emergency scenario. Please keep your delivery drivers happy and clean debris and liquid out of spill and vapor buckets periodically with a manual hand extractor and oil absorbent pads, and dispose of them in a proper container with a lid and vapor seal. Maintaining your buckets periodically such as daily inspections will ensure any fluid or debris gets cleaned out and prevent unwanted contaminates from reaching the fuel tanks. Delivery drivers who empty the hoses into the buckets per their job should not release that fuel into the tank while the spill bucket is full of debris or water.

Contaminated cleanup materials can’t be thrown away in the regular trash, they must be disposed of correctly according to state laws. Ask your local service provider for pricing on picking up contaminated materials and disposing of them properly. Some states require you to keep a log of all disposed of materials called Gray water or Gray material.

Signs of problematic spill buckets and some causes.

An example of a spill bucket full of liquid and a drop tube cap that failed the spin test.

Spill buckets filling up with water may be damaged and need replacement, or may have a bad outer lid seal, these seals often get torn, misplaced, or simply go flat after time rendering them unable to form a seal to keep water from entering the spill bucket. The spill bucket should be inspected periodically for damage and tested every three years as part of compliance.
Water regularly in the bucket at the same height as the fill tube cap means you have a bad seal on the drop tube cap. You can confirm this by grabbing the handle of the drop tube cap and trying to spin it, if the cap easily spins this is most likely also letting water ingress into the tank. An indicator of this is gradually increasing water each month in the tank or during the rainy season. Replace drop tube caps as a possible solution to this problem.

A spill bucket is filling up with water after it rains, but the water vanishes over time, you may also have a bad poppet valve in the bottom of the spill bucket, poppet valves are only to be used if the bucket is clean, allowing the driver to release fuel into the tank when disconnecting fuel lines after dropping fuel into the UST.
Systems that have water reporting on the Monitoring Equipment will need to be polished, water in fuel is not good in any amount, please consult your local service provider for guidance as well as the tri-annual compliance testing for the spill buckets.

Sumps can be thought of as protectors of underground equipment. The equipment residing in sumps are protected from the weather and hidden to keep them safe, but more importantly the sumps are there to protect the environment from releases if a failure occurs with the equipment. Sump material may be different according to the manufacturer you have, most newer sumps are either fiberglass or composite. These sumps should be kept clear of debris and or liquid, in areas of high water tables this can be a challenge, consult a service provider to see how they can handle your specific case.

An example of a what your sump should NOT look like. All of this equipment should be dry, and you can clearly see the signs of leaking fuel on the water’s surface.

Sumps can house Submersible Turbine Pumps (STP), which is what pressurizes the tank and sends fuel through lines. A system that is in trouble or has a possible leak will experience “slow flow” at the dispensers. This is a safety measure that lowers the pressure of the tank resulting in the fuel being sent through the pipes slower, which causes the dispenser pump to be slower than normal. When a system is in “slow flow” a service provider should be notified immediately to investigate this possible problem or potential leak.

Sumps can also be found under dispensers. These sumps are in place to catch any potential leaks and contain them. The dispenser sumps may have lines connecting them back to the STP sumps, any fluid intruding in this sump would also make it to the STP sump. As a part of compliance, most systems have sensors in the bottom of the sumps to detect any liquid. Some of these sensors are able to detect and tell the difference between fuel vs water, but most are just float type switch detectors that indicate there is a problem that needs attention. Any sensor connected to the system will trigger the alarm on the monitoring system. The monitoring system and sensors are to be certified by a licensed service provider annually.

As part of monthly walkthrough inspections, sumps are visually checked. This should only be conducted by trained inspectors using an acceptable standard such as PEI RP 900, owner/operators should NOT OPEN these sumps unless trained by their local service providers. Most local service providers will take the time to explain your equipment if you ask them as well as keep you compliant with testing needs. They are trained to notice cracks in the sump, dry-rotted line boots, proper sensor placement, and so much more.

A good service provider should be delivering results expediently, and accurately via a cloud portal. However, not all buckets of compliance are able to be managed by most service providers. Some can only be accomplished by the A/B operator, such as financial responsibility or permitting. In most cases equipment testing is done by more than one service provider and managing that paperwork can be time-consuming. Having a compliance management TOOL makes compliance so much easier, contact PASS today to find out how you can make compliance stress a thing of the past.

Sump and Spill Bucket Tips