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Wendy Cohen -2- 17 March 1992 <br />section of the lower containment area to the next section. Each drain has a valve <br />to regulate flow of water from one section to another. The berms surrounding the <br />western and southern sides of the upper containment area appear to have some erosion <br />damage. <br />I noted several puddles in both containment areas. The puddles may have been from <br />recent rainfall or the high water table (the water table varies from about two feet <br />to ten feet below ground surface). There was no evidence of an oil sheen or <br />discoloration in any of the puddles. <br />In October 1981 Chevron submitted an application for an NPDES permit to discharge <br />tankyard and truck wash oil/water separator effluent and stormwater runoff to the <br />San Joaquin River. The application was incomplete because Chevron did not perform <br />sufficient sampling and analysis of the proposed discharge. <br />A 6 February 1984 letter from Chevron asked Board staff if additional information <br />was required to issue the NPDES permit. A 4 December 1987 letter from Board staff <br />required Chevron to submit a Report of Waste Discharge (RWD) by 10 January 1988, <br />including a full waste stream characterization with chemical analyses of oil/water <br />separator effluent to the on-site evaporation pond (i.e., the lower containment <br />area). No complete RWD was submitted. A complete RWD and NPDES permit application <br />still are needed to permit these discharges. <br />I reviewed the SPCC Plan kept on site and made some recommendations for the revised <br />plan which is being written and should be completed within the next month. The <br />attached SPCC Plan checklist (Table 2) summarizes my review of the plan. My <br />recommendations include: 1) adding emergency phone numbers to the plan (Ms. Cargill <br />did this at the time of the inspection); 2) adding a brief discussion of the ground <br />water monitoring system, such as the number of monitoring wells, a map of their <br />locations, and the frequency of monitoring; 3) having the maintenance inspection <br />reports initialled or signed by the inspector and included in the plan; and 4) <br />adding a record of employee training and a discussion of applicable state laws to <br />the plan. <br />Some changes at the facility which will be noted in the revised SPCC Plan are the <br />addition of two new storage tanks, the discontinued use of one of the three <br />oil/water separators, the addition of a carbon treatment system for effluent from <br />the two remaining oil/water separators, and the conversion of one storage tank from <br />leaded to unleaded plus gasoline. <br />To protect surface waters the APSA requires that the secondary containment be large <br />enough to contain the contents of the largest tank plus stormwater runoff. Chevron <br />meets this requirement including both the upper and lower containment areas. To <br />protect ground water, Chapter 15 of Title 23 of the California Code of Regulations <br />requires that no waste management unit be within five of the highest anticipated <br />water table. Although the containment areas are not typical waste management <br />units, their purpose is to temporarily store hazardous wastes in emergency situa- <br />tions. Presumably any releases of petroleum -contaminated water to the containment <br />area would be cleaned up as soon as possible. However, no matter how quickly a <br />release is cleaned up, it is very probable that any petroleum -contaminated water <br />discharged to either the upper or lower containment area would reach the shallow <br />ground water. The containment area, therefore, should be considered a waste <br />