Comment submitted by Brad Rodgers, FMSM Engineers

General Secondary Containment. There has been much disagreement within the regulated community regarding the requirement for general secondary containment related to buried piping. The regulated community understands that general secondary containment is a requirement for above ground piping and generally has addressed this requirement by referring to active forms of containment (e.g., the positioning and deployment of absorbents to respond to a release.) With the exception of aboveground piping being damaged by direct contact (e.g., struck by a truck), this approach is probably satisfactory since early signs of a potential problem may manifest as weeps/seeps/leaks, signaling the need for corrective measures, before catastrophic failure. This satisfies one of the requirements of early detection for the use of active containment verse passive containment. With the exception of buried piping equipped with leak monitoring equipment, buried piping does not offer the same kind of early detection. Generally, by the time there is a detectable release (e.g., observable, odor, record reconciliation, etc.), a significant release, including a release to navigable water, may have occurred. All before deployment of an active measure has taken place. While in Section 4.4.1 of the SPCC Guidance for Regional Inspectors indicates that buried piping must comply with the general containment provisions, the regulations only discuss requirements associated with testing and cathodic protection. Because general secondary containment for buried piping has not specifically been identified in the regulations, there is much argument of the applicability in the regulated community. The EPA inspectors that I have worked with have fairly consistently said that buried piping requires passive or active general secondary containment. For active containment to work, you must be able to show that you can detect a release before it reaches navigable water. For buried piping, unless the piping is equipped with a continuous leak detection monitor, this objective is difficult to achieve. EPA has said that if you can not achieve this, then you should claim impracticability for the buried piping and prepare a 109 Contingency Plan. Our clients argue that the EPA inspectors are regulating from their desk and not through the legislation. They contend that, by the regulations specifically identifying testing and cathodic protection requirements for buried piping, general containment does not apply or that the cathodic protection provides a form of general containment. We do not agree, nevertheless, EPA could do the regulatory community a favor by specifically indicating whether general secondary containment is required for buried piping in the regulations, not just the guidance document.