Residential Oil Tanks and environmental Safety

When you have an oil fuel tank there are certain considerations you want to think about in order to be faced with an oil spill or be responsible for some very expensive environmental problems. When you have a situation where an oil tank spills you are going to be dealing with a variety of issues including; contaminated drinking water well, contaminated soil and ground water, as well as foul septic systems which means you will need to replace those, health problems inside a home and contaminated drainage pipes, storm drains, ditches and more. Needless to say, this could be a pretty serious situation if the oil tank ever has ANY issues. Not only is this a costly situation in terms of time, but it can get pretty expensive too. If you have an oil tank and you want to know more information about keeping the tank in check, as well as what you should do if there ever is a spill, continue to read below.

Prevention Is Everything

When an accident happens, there are always those "should have, could have" moments where you think back and realize you should have fixed the leak or you could have done something more. These are afterthoughts, of course, but if you want to keep accidents from happening or try to minimize the situation, you

Need to try and prevent them. Here are a few ways you can prevent an accident from happening with your oil tank:

- Check the condition of the tank and the lines. The tank itself is going to depend on quite a few variables including the climate in which you live, soil and water conditions, the tank installation and if it was done correctly, and of course how little or much you maintain the tank.

- check for any corrosion, if a tank has corrosion or the lines are corroded you can almost guarantee this is an accident waiting to happen.

- Make sure the cap on the tank and the vent cap are both on the tank and they are both secured.

- Check the foundation of the tank - this includes the support braces if any, the ground above the tank, and the ground below it (if it’s an above ground Tank). Through the time, you have your tank, it’s probably going to tip or buckle, make sure you check these things and fix them accordingly.

- Keep your tank clean, but also keep the lines, and pipe connections clean too.

Signs of Spillage and How to Prevent It

It’s actually pretty easy to spot a spill, sometimes. You want to look at the soil, rocks, and vegetation around the tank to see if you see any type of stains or dead plants, grass, etc. If this happens you may have had a spill. Corrosion is not only something that can happen on the outside of the tank, but inside as well because water can pool at the bottom and cause corrosion. Trapped

water seems like something that would be unavoidable, but you can actually control it by removing the leftover water from a drainage plug by adding additives.

What To Do If You Have a Spill

in any situation, even one that has been tried to be prevented, accidents can happen. If you do have a spill you should first make sure you try to stop the spill and stop it from contaminating anything else. next, you will need to remove and disposal of any oils or hire a company that is skilled at oil tank removal and environmental remediation to do it for you and make sure that you either repair or replace the tank itself.

Vandalism

If you want to reduce vandalism you will also have to take certain preventions to do so. One of the ways to go about this is by breaking off the butterfly ears on the filter. You can also get metal canisters to fit over the filter rather than the more common glass ones which are easier to break into.

Who To Call For A Spill

Each state has its own regulations and contact information such as:

"If some type of heating oil discharge has occurred at your home, regardless of the quantity, you must report it to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection by calling its environmental action line at 1-877-WARN DEP (1-877-927-6337) as soon as a discharge is detected. You will be sent an information package that describes in detail your responsibilities, what must be done to clean up the spill and DEP's oversight role."

Your state spillage regulations and numbers can be found by searching for Your State, oil tank spill and the likes. Alternatively you can search for “energy and environmental affairs” and then your state to find information and different departments for your specific state.