BoatBanter.com - View Single Post - Fuel Oil Spiil

x-no-archive:yes wrote:

Please note, petroleum products are not considered hazardous substances, and are
not eligible for this program (Click "eligibility" on the reimbursement web
page.) All the other web pages refer to "oil spills and hazardous substance
releases." For political/economic reasons petroleum products are not defined as
"hazardous substances."

The reason that they are not coded as hazardous is that if they were
everyone would have to have a hazardous permit to drive their cars.
Also the folks that recycle the oil used in cars would have to have a
hazardous waste permit to collect it and drive it to the disposal
site. If they had to do that, they might not be willing to act as a
collection site. If there are no collection sites, then people will
go back to dumping the used oil in the storm drains.

Classifying something has hazardous or non-hazardous doesn't always
have a lot to do with whether it actually IS hazardous. If you look
at some pesticides they will list the ingredients and then say - 98%
inert. That's because the labeling of pesticides is covered under
FIFRA (Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act) which says
that anything that's not an insecticide or whatever doesn't count. So
you have butane or propane propellant or methylene chloride as a
carrier and they are labeled inert.

Rick wrote:

rock_doctor wrote:

Well this happens. Most emergency response people are very reluctant to get
involved with a clean-up unless they can clearly identify who caused the
problem. It does not cost them anything to look at it but if they start to
clean it up then they are now responsible and if they can't recover the
costs (generally in court) they get the bill.

That is not quite how it works. The federal agency involved in
coordinating the cleanup (it is in navigable waters) is empowered to
call in all the contractors required to deal with the incident. The
cleanup fund covers all the costs and the government deals with the
details of who to sue for recovery after the dust settles.

The Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund was setup to avoid just the scenario
you described.

Take a look at:

http://www.epa.gov/oerrpage/superfun.../lgr/index.htm

and

http://www.epa.gov/oerrpage/superfun...nrs/nrsosc.htm

Rick

grandma Rosalie