96    LEAK PREVENTION, DETECTION, AND REGULATIONS
FOR UNDERGROUND STORAGE TANKS
Christine G. Caravano, Chemical Engineer
Burgess & Niple, Limited
Columbus, Ohio 43220
INTRODUCTION
I got a call several weeks ago from a friend at the Trimod Corporation. Jim had started working
there about a month before he called me as the plant environmental engineer. During our conversation
he asked if my engineering consulting company could help him figure out a Management Plan for the
Underground Storage Tanks (USTs) at Trimod. I told him that was one of our specialties and asked
him to send me: 1) Copies of the Notification for Underground Storage Tanks forms for the USTs
(EPA Form 7530); and 2) Any drawings he could dig up on their location or installation, especially
any details on the tanks themselves which might show vent valves or dual-wall construction.
After summarizing the information from the Notifications (Table I) I looked over the drawings and
called Jim to schedule a tour of Trimod. The remainder of this paper covers the information gathered
during the tour and the recommendations made in the UST Management Plan developed for Trimod.
Let me digress a moment for those of you not familiar with Trimod. Trimod Corp. is the toy maker
who gave us the Trimodilion (Figure 1). In general terms, the processes used in manufacturing the
Trimodilion are shown in Figure 2. Steel castings, which make up the main body of the Trimodilion,
are ground, bored and polished to shape, then cleaned and painted using a dip-type, electrostatic paint
line. The patterns are spray painted through a variety of masks. The wastewater from cleaning the
Trimodilion bodies and from the spray paint water curtains flows through a series of trench drains,
sumps, and force mains to the wastewater treatment plant. Paint is custom formulated in the paint
kitchen from pigments and solvents. The slides in the units are machined from steel bars and then
chrome plated. Trimod also machines the brass slide seals and knobs here. Trimod maintains its own
fleet of vehicles to ship the Trimodilions nationwide.
UNDERGROUND STORAGE TANKS
Let's start our tour with UST-1 and UST-2 out in the main body machining area. Tank UST-1 is
fresh machining oil used as makeup to the circulating oil system. Makeup to the system is necessary
because a certain amount of the oil remains on the parts after machining. Tank UST-2 is the recirculation tank. The recirculation tank receives the oil from the shaving separator. Fresh machining oil is
added from UST-1 as needed. From the recirculation tank, UST-2, the oil is pumped back into the
plant for use in lubricating and cooling the parts during machining.
The drawings Jim had sent indicated that these two tanks had recently been upgraded and came
close to meeting the requirements of the UST regulations. Although Jim said meeting the regulations,
which were only proposed at the time of the upgrade, wasn't the reason for the work. He indicated
that the upgrade had been completed 18 months ago as part of a program Trimod had to check on
suspected losses from the machining oil system. The losses were eventually traced to a shift foreman
who had been selling the used oil to a small recycling firm down the street.
A quick look around once we got outside confirmed the presence of the four monitoring wells
located around UST-1 and UST-2 (Figure 3). Jim stated that the plant laboratory sampled the
groundwater from the wells once a month and analyzed it for Total Petroleum Hydrocarbons (TPH).
The laboratory also recorded the depth of the groundwater. This record is kept to show that the
groundwater is not more than 20 feet below grade. If the depth to groundwater ever consistently
indicated more than 20 feet below grade, Trimod would have to install one of the other methods of
release detection.
While Trimod had the top of the tanks exposed to position the wells, they also installed catch basins
around the fill pipes and a modular containment system around the pressure piping.
44th Purdue Industrial Waste Conference Proceedings, © 1990 Lewis Publishers, Inc., Chelsea, Michigan 48118.
Printed in U.S.A.
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