Tank Talk - Alaska's Bulk Fuel Podcast

Keeping SWPPPs Straight

• Integrity Environmental • Season 3 • Episode 2

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Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plans (SWPPPs) can be confusing - but they don’t have to be. In this episode of Tank Talk, we’re diving into the different types of SWPPPs, how they apply to various industries, and what you need to know to stay compliant. With the 2025 Multi-Sector General Permit (MSGP) expected for Alaska soon, it’s the perfect time to brush up on the basics. 

Join us as we break down the differences between CGP, MSGP, and MS4 permits, the importance of SIC/NAICS codes, and why a "No Exposure Certification" might not be the easy way out you think it is. Whether you're managing compliance for a bulk fuel facility, a construction site, or an airport, this episode will help you navigate the stormwater regulations with confidence. 

🔗 Helpful Resources:
📌 ADEC MSGP
📌 ADEC CGP
📌 ADEC MS4
📌 EPA NPDES
📌 Integrity Training 

Tune in now and keep your SWPPP straight! 

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intro/outro created with GarageBand

Haley Hall:

Welcome to Tank Talk with Integrity Environmental. Join us as we sit down with founder, principal consultant and bulk fuel storage expert, Shannon Oelkers, to explore regulations, safety and essential tips for navigating the bulk fuel storage industry. Join us as we explore the unique joys of work and life in Alaska with industry experts, including our team, vendors we work with and the companies we support.

Shannon Oelkers:

Hello, welcome to Tank Talk. This is Shannon Oelkers, and today I wanted to talk about SWPPPs, and you may be wondering, dear listener, what a SWPPP is. I think most people have heard of it, but just to be super clear, a SWPPP is an acronym for a Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan, and SWPPPs are generally permits to prevent pollution from entering stormwater. However, in our SWPPP's, can be very confusing for people in the bulk fuels industry and industry in general, and there is a good reason as to why Haley Hall is going to join us today. Haley, what do you know about SWPPP's?

Haley Hall:

You know I'm still learning Shannon and I'm excited to dig in today, but what I'm really wanting to know is what is the reason why our clients are so confused about SWPPP'S?

Shannon Oelkers:

The EPA! Podcast over. Just kidding - the EPA really is the reason why our clients are so confused about SWPPP's. Swifts are part of the Clean Water Act, which is an old regulation with lots of what I would call "nested regulations within it. So, it goes all the way back to like the end of World War II. In 1948, there was a federal water pollution control act passed and then over the years that eventually turned into the clean water act in 1972. And that's the modern version of stormwater pollution control and that clean water act. There's a fun fact well, a not so fun fact, if you will. The clean water Act was passed because of the Cuyahoga River Fire in 1968. And if you love history and you want to be incredibly depressed, Google the Cuyahoga River Fire of 1968 and watch the YouTube videos, because it's a very sad, impactful lesson on the dangers of polluting our rivers and letting them catch on fire. But once the Clean Water Act was passed in 1972, there was regulations that were passed to ensure that the mandates of the Clean Water Act were being met, and the one that covers SWPS in general is 40 CFR 122.

Shannon Oelkers:

And then the way the federal program works you can have state primacy, the feds can have primacy, and then some states share, so they have state primacy. The feds can have primacy and then some states share, so they have state primacy for state areas and the federal group has the federal permitting in their area. That gets a little confusing maybe too confusing for this podcast, but for the average person both the state and federal groups, so the EPA and then your state environmental group, they all have agency and can assess violations and they can do inspections and they can assess fines. How do SWPPPs fit into all this? They're the bottom of this nesting. So under the federal program there's something called a national, it's called the NPDs program, but I got to like look up all the letters because it's hard to keep these straight and if you're listening to this, this is about to be alphabet soup, so I apologize.

Shannon Oelkers:

The NPDs program is the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System program, NPDs and then in the state of Alaska, where we have a lot of our clients, it's the Alaska Pollutant Discharge Elimination System or the APDs program. Those two programs have two ways to issue permits for people who are operating in certain industries so that they can control the amount of pollutants that stormwater is exposed to. One of those ways is an individual permit, which we'll talk about in a little bit, and then the other way is in a general permit, and the general permit is like a pre-approved limit for specific kinds of industries. So the EPA and the state sat down and thought about all these different industries and said, for these specific industries, these are the rules about stormwater exposure. So once we get to that, I guess PDs level.

Shannon Oelkers:

But for the sake of this conversation, since a lot of our listeners are focused on the state of Alaska, let's focus on the APDs program. Under the APDs program, there are three general permits and then, of course, the individual permit program. Right, those three general permits are the multi-sector general permit, the construction general permit and then there's something called an MS4, which is super fun, An MS4 is a municipal separate storm sewer system.

Shannon Oelkers:

So the four refers to the four S's that we are not saying, which I am thankful for, because I could not say a S, that would be a lot. So there's those three, and then the individual permit and then the three general permits issue SWPPPs underneath them, and I think that's where a lot of the confusion comes from, because we've got three different areas. All those general permits do different things. For example, the MS4, I think people who live in Anchorage or maybe in Fairbanks would be more familiar with it.

Shannon Oelkers:

It's a system of public. It's like a city sewer or a suburban area sewer. It's a system of publicly owned ditches, pipes and other features that collect and manage stormwater in urban and suburban areas. Alaska has relatively few. If you live in the state of Washington or Oregon, every community has an MS4. But in Alaska we only have one. Well, there's a few others, but the big ones are the municipality of Anchorage, the Fairbanks, north Star Borough and the Port of Alaska. Those MS4 permittees. They're required to develop a stormwater management plan for the whole city or the whole suburban or urban area. And then if you have a construction SWPPP or a multi-sector SWPPP within the MS4, you have to meet the MS4 requirements in addition to the more general conditions under MSGP or GP. So that's a lot of GP Haley.

Haley Hall:

So a GP for municipalities seems straightforward, as most larger cities have a stormwater drainage system. But what is the real difference between a CGP and an MSGP?

Shannon Oelkers:

I think this is the heart of the confusion. I mean, a lot of people have driven on roads and they've seen big signs nailed into the ground that says SWPPP permit information here. They've seen that posted and they've seen them posted on lots during construction projects. The easiest way I found to keep the CGPs and MSGPs separate in my mind is that a construction general permit applies to construction projects and there's sort of a short term and duration. They mainly focus on preventing runoff, erosion and sedimentation in addition to pollution prevention during construction activities.

Shannon Oelkers:

And then your control measures and best management practices change frequently, sometimes daily or even hourly. If you have a big storm event or bad weather that affects all the things you have planned and they sort of address immediate needs and require constant monitoring. And when you look at the multi-sector general permit, that's basically an operating permit for industry facilities where stormwater could come into contact with pollutants as they perform their daily tasks. But these tasks rarely change. The control measures rarely change and they often stay the same. Once they're installed they just need maintenance and operations.

Shannon Oelkers:

You're not going to have somebody say oh, I need to pull out this manual operated valve and throw some straw waddles on today because it's raining so hard they would just. The controls are already accounting for that and they just need to maintain them. The MSGP usually doesn't deal with sedimentation and erosion as a major concern. It can happen, especially if you change your outfall location or something for a containment area, but it's nothing like the focus that the construction general permit has, because you're, you know, creating a new roadway or pulling up an existing roadway and putting a new one down. There's a whole lot more erosion and sediment control with construction.

Shannon Oelkers:

I do want to point out, though, that the biggest problem that our firm sees with SWPPPs is that we will sometimes go to facilities and they'll pull out a SWPPP for us to review, and whoever wrote that SWPPP borrowed heavily from the construction general permit, and I understand that because a lot of people in the industry have worked in construction and worked at main facilities and they're both called SWPPPs. No big deal. SWPPP from here, SWPPP to there, nuts to bolts I got soup right. That's not how it works, because the background of the two permits is so different, and so the assumptions that go into a construction permit. You know that there's a set time these will be in place and then there'll be removed and that the project itself will progress and move down the roadway and then at some point no longer be needed and be removed completely, are so different to the multi-sector general permit, which assumes infinite operation.

Shannon Oelkers:

And then there's ongoing monthly you know, ongoing maintenance and operation and record keeping. And so when you borrow parts from the construction permit, the general permit, and stuff it into an MSGP, it doesn't meet the MSGP at all. They're two different things and so firms like ours, we write both no big deal. We understand the regulations underneath, but I want our listeners to be aware and understand the difference between the two. So when you're hiring a consultant or you're trying to do it yourself, you're getting the permit coverage that you need. You need to go to the MSGP site and read that permit for how your permit coverage is going to be written under in the SWPPP, which is the chapter underneath MSGP. You can't just borrow from the construction permit, unfortunately.

Haley Hall:

I think that makes sense. But, Shannon, are operational SWPPPs under the MSGP the same across every industry?

Shannon Oelkers:

Yes and no.

Shannon Oelkers:

Don't you love that answer. The multi-sector general permit has 10 sections that are general and apply to all facilities, and then they have sector specific requirements that have different conditions based on the kind of industrial activity you're doing. So it's a yes and no. I'm sorry, wait, but what's a sector? Ooh, a sector is another term you have to know if you're going to do stormwater. So write that one down, because we need some more words in this alphabet soup.

Shannon Oelkers:

Sectors are 29 identified industrial areas included in the MSGP. It's Appendix D. Each sector describes the type of facilities included in that sector, the typical pollutants included in that sector, the typical pollutants associated with the sector and types of stormwater control measures that you should be using to minimize the discharge of pollution specific to the industry type. Each one of these sectors has different things and it's related to the types of activities that they're doing. So a really good example of this Sector S. It applies to aircraft maintenance at airports and operations. They have quite a few requirements related to de-icing fluid, which you aren't going to see de-icing fluid in any of the other sectors. It's just specific to aircraft and that sector.

Haley Hall:

So how do you know if you're one of the 29 sectors and you need an operational SWPPP?

Shannon Oelkers:

You are going to get an owl down your chimney with a special invitation at midnight. Just kidding, Harry Potter and SWPPP's don't mix. It's based on your SIC or NAICS code. Weirdly, that SIC or NAICS code comes from your insurance documents. Sector P, for example, includes codes for land transportation and warehousing. It also includes codes for railway operations, the post office and most bulk fuel storage. For example, bulk petroleum facilities are SIC code 5171.

Shannon Oelkers:

You can go to Appendix D of the MSGP and you can see a list of each applicable SIC code for each sector and it's fun. You can look up and see if your facility's in there. I also want to give people a heads up just to make. Some facilities can have multiple SIC codes going at once. So you could have a bulk fuel facility like a bulk fuel farm, but it's connected to a serve yourself aviation fueling station at an airport, in which case you would have to meet both sector P and sector S requirements at that facility. So there's nothing like only one can apply. It's not like the Highlander, like, oh, if you've got sector P, then you don't have to meet sector S, there can be only one. No, no, no, you have to meet all of them. You can designate certain areas as your industrial areas for sector S and your industrial areas for sector P, but they still both have to be addressed. Wow, there's a reason. It's confusing. See, it's the EPA. We'll just blame it on the EPA today. Are you managing a bulk fuel site?

Shannon Oelkers:

Stormwater compliance on a bulk fuel site isn't just a box to check. It's critical. Integrity's CGP SWPPP services make it simple. They deliver fast, professional plans designed for real-world use so you can stay compliant without any headaches. Our team has decades of experience, works directly on job sites and knows exactly what it takes to keep your project running smoothly. Plus, every bid includes a free hour of consulting, because when issues come up, you're going to need those answers and fast. Stay ahead of compliance. Get a bid today. Send us an email at info at integrity-env. com. Integrity stormwater solutions you can trust.

Haley Hall:

I've also heard people talk about NPDs and APDs individual permits under the Clean Water Act. How are SWPPPs different from APDs and NPDs individual permits?

Shannon Oelkers:

Yeah, you picked up on that. So remember way back when I said APDs had four sections and one was individual. And then there was those three general permits. Think of SWPPPs as the pre-approved off-the-shelf permit available under a general permit. Those individual permits under the APDs or NPDs program, those are individually developed permits for specific conditions or industries. They're typically pretty expensive to develop because you're creating it from scratch and getting it reviewed by someone at the state or the EPA. They are also more expensive to maintain. They often require analytical water samples instead of more qualitative measures like visual surveillance, and your facility usually has some really tricky components that make you ineligible for the off-the-shelf permit and that's why you're pursuing an individual permit. Individual permits are expensive. The only reason someone would pursue it is either because they have something that makes them ineligible for SWPPP or they were part of a previous compliance effort where they had some bad problems in the history of the facility and one of the resolutions to that compliance issue was that they obtain an individual permit and monitor Outside of like being naughty at some point in the history.

Shannon Oelkers:

Most facilities have an individual permit if the groundwater or the surrounding waters that they discharge to are impacted by pollution. So if you've got groundwater that's got petroleum hydrocarbon pollution in it or the surrounding waters that they discharge to are impacted by pollution. So if you've got groundwater that's got petroleum hydrocarbon pollution in it and it's intermingling with your stormwater in the ditches, you might have an APD's permit for that, because you know the water is becoming contaminated as it mingles, or you're discharging clean water to dirty water, so to speak. So those types of situations are where you would see an individual permit come in. And that's what people are talking about when they speak about an individual permit. The SWPPP is saying I have the right kind of industry, I've got the right kind of water, I've got the right kind of operations and I can do the control measures that are needed to meet all of these things. I meet all the pre-approved stuff. Therefore, I'm eligible for this SWPPP and I can just go get this off the shelf and make sure I meet all the conditions.

Haley Hall:

Wow, I can't lie. Shannon In my head, I keep thinking plans and permits and sectors -Oh my!

Shannon Oelkers:

We'll follow the yellow brick road to the water outfall.

Haley Hall:

Here's another big question what is the workload like for an MSGP SWPPP?

Shannon Oelkers:

Yeah, it's less than an individual permit, I can tell you that, but it's still a good chunk of work for your on the ground staff. I can kind of just run through it if you want. There's some typical sectors. If you have a SWPPP and you're listening to this, you should grab it, because these are all sections in your SWPPP. All SWPPPs require routine inspections. Those usually are monthly or quarterly. Your SWPPP may have something different written in it though, because they can vary. I would make sure and check.

Shannon Oelkers:

There's also quarterly sampling of stormwater outfalls. Some sectors require what we call qualitative sampling, so there's no numbers like a visual, a photo, looking for evidence of certain things. Others have quantitative measures, which would be numbers, so you have to take a sample and you have to show that the sample numbers are below a certain bit. On top of routine inspections and quarterly sampling, there's also annualdepth inspection and reporting actions to verify that all the pieces of your stormwater plan are still working and in good order and you're attesting that to the state of Alaska.

Shannon Oelkers:

You also need to provide and document and I'm going to repeat, and document regular maintenance of your control measures and BMPs, because a lot of those go undocumented. They fix the valve, but they don't write it down anywhere. That needs to be included in your quarterly reviews. And then, lastly, if something goes wrong, you can fix it, but you have to log it in a corrective action log and then that corrective action tracking needs to be reported at the end of the year. Corrective action is a fancy way of saying we logged that, we fixed it.

Haley Hall:

You know I've actually seen this question from clients a lot. What are corrective actions?

Shannon Oelkers:

There's a very long and hard to read section in MSGP about conditions requiring a review and revision to eliminate problems. The plain English version I think I'm just going to go to that. You can read section eight of the MSGP if you want to get deep in the weeds. But the plain English version is if something happens at the facility that exposes stormwater to pollutants or could have exposed stormwater to pollutants, you need to log it in the corrective action. So examples of this would be a spill or a leak or a discharge occurs at the facility to containment, to the parking lot, at the truck rack, even if it doesn't get discharged to the waters of the US, you still need to log that your control measure failed, something happened and fuel was released where stormwater was and how you corrected it.

Shannon Oelkers:

The other thing about the stormwater plan that I think is often misunderstood is it applies to all sorts of things that are part of your sector. It's not just fuel. It's not like the SPCC where it only applies to all sorts of things that are part of your sector. It's not just fuel. It's not like the SPCC where it only applies to fuel. You'll see in like sector P, for example. They talk about battery storage, waste solvent management, used oil management. They have all these other things they want you looking at as part of your stormwater process, because that stuff can't be left outside to be filled up when it rains right or to be leached off of as it rains.

Shannon Oelkers:

So discharges for the stormwater plan include more than fuel and I do think that that gets overlooked by a lot of our clients. A discharge violates the allowable contamination limits under the permit. So, like I said, some have numbers, some have visuals. So if it's very cloudy or a very strange color, that would be a corrective action. Even if you don't have a number for it. You can say it's not supposed to be orange and it's orange today. I need to log that and figure out why it's orange. True story in the summer, if you have a high algae bloom, your stormwater outfalls can be orange.

Haley Hall:

Wow.

Shannon Oelkers:

Bright, virulently, looks like neon dye orange, but it's algae. And then the last piece of corrective action is that control measures are not effective anymore and that they need repair or replacement or something like that. And a really good example of this is drainage valves on secondary containment areas. They are closed over time due to rust or sediment and then, instead of replacing that valve because it's expensive, you end up buying a sump pump and you run the sump pump over the edge of the containment and you're pumping out to the same place, but it's not the valve that you've got described in your stormwater plan, it's this new sump pump. And so you need to update your SWPPP log the corrective action, and then explain what you're doing and make sure that it matches. Otherwise that's going to be a violation, and that's a very common violation.

Shannon Oelkers:

I'm probably one of our top five. So that's corrective actions. It's something that throws people off, but it's a log tracking things that you fixed at the facility and then you turn it at the end of the year. You made it sound so much more clear than the actual jargon that we see in the plan, so I appreciate that. Conditions requiring review and revision to eliminate problems I love the EPA.

Shannon Oelkers:

They can use 10 words. They'll use 10.

Haley Hall:

So incoming buzzword. My last client-based question - what is a no exposure certification?

Shannon Oelkers:

Everybody's favorite Hail Mary. I'm going to get me a no exposure certification. I don't need this SWPPP. The multi-sector general permit applies to every industrial facility included in the 29 sectors. However, if you meet certain criteria, you can file for this no exposure certification and you're exempt from the reporting and monitoring requirements of the MSGP SWPPP because you have attested that no pollution can interact with stormwater at your facility.

Haley Hall:

That seems pretty straightforward, but why did you say it was a Hail Mary then, Shannon?

Shannon Oelkers:

Well, so you remember that word I said attested, that's a legal word. That means that you are verifying that these statements are true at all times, and so the conditions for no exposure in reality are very difficult to meet and a single event, such as a spill to a secondary containment that can disqualify you from no exposure certification. We see a lot of companies apply for that no exposure certification but when they get audited by the state or the EPA it turns out they do not meet the no exposure requirements. They're forced to immediately get a SWPPP and then they face violations and penalties for saying they attested that the no exposure conditions were true, but they were in fact not true.

Shannon Oelkers:

For our clients that do file for no exposure certification, we set them up with an annual reporting system, record keeping forms and like a housekeeping checklist, and so it sort of documents that they are continuously meeting the no exposure conditions. So it's not really a true exemption. For most facilities you still have to document that you're meeting the requirements of the no exposure to meet that attestation piece of it. So it's still work Maybe not as much work as a SWPPP with the quarterly visuals and the corrective action log and all that stuff, but it's still like 75% of the work of a SWPPP. Actually, Haley, we should probably do a whole podcast on no exposure in the future. Because it looks so simple on the surface, lots of people sign up for it and they have no idea how tricky that can be on the back end.

Haley Hall:

Absolutely Well, we've talked about so much. Could you provide us a good summary of what we just talked about to just wrap up this episode?

Shannon Oelkers:

okay, hold on, let me crack my knuckles in my neck. It's going to take me a minute because I did cover a lot. So SWPPPs are tricky, but I think if you understand that there can be multiple things called a SWPPP and they're different depending on what permit they're under, that's part of untangling this. So under the Federal Clean Water Act, stormwater is protected from pollution and that protection comes in the form of permits and there are generally two kinds an individual permit or a general permit. And then under the general permit, there are three kinds of general permits the construction general permit, the MS4, and the multi-sector general permit. Those individual permits that I mentioned are individually negotiated with the state or the EPA and they're typically referred to as NPDs or the state-specific acronym, which for Alaska would be APDs. General permits are pre-approved permits for specific industrial sectors and they fall under that multi-sector construction or MS4, so under one of those columns.

Shannon Oelkers:

And then for bulk fuel facilities, shipyards and airports which in utilities kind of covers a lot of our listeners the MSGP will apply to your facility operations. If your industry is subject to the MSGP, you have to have either a SWPPP or a no exposure certification in place, and I want everyone listening to hear me say you have to have one or the other, you cannot have none. So if your SIC code is listed in Appendix D, you have to have one of the two of these in place and perform the required record keeping and monitoring. I think that's a nice summary. I get everything With a little bow on top. I even referenced Appendix D and our SIC codes again.

Haley Hall:

Well, shannon, thank you so much for sorting out SWPPPs for me and our listeners. I'm sure there is so much more to learn, as always, but do you have any recommendations for those looking to learn more now?

Shannon Oelkers:

Thank you, Haley. Yes, there are some good resources. If you need to learn more about stormwater plans, I'm going to list references that cost money and are free, because a lot of people are doing this for their jobs, right. So theoretically there's some money for training If you are responsible for a construction general permit, SWPPP. The Alaska Association of General Contractors has a stellar training program. It's called the Alaska Certified Erosion and Sediment Control Lead, aka CECL certification. It's great, all of our staff take it that perform work in the field and we write those SWPPPs from that training.

Shannon Oelkers:

But keep in mind this training is only good for construction SWPPPs and they do have some brief mentions of MSGP as it applies to construction facilities. So you might have, like, an asphalt batch plant that needs a sector something I think it's J or G while it's operating. Or you might have a gravel pull that's going to require a sector J while it's in effect, but it only touches on those very small things. It's not covering MSGP facilities in like long term. It's all related back to that CGP short term. So if you do have a facility, integrity Environmental does have a training program. We have both an in-person one if that's your jam, but we also have an online training. You can sign up for an initial for the MSGP and you can pick the sectors that apply to you. We have modules for those. And then, after that initial, we also have an annual refresher that meets the requirements of MSGP section 4.2.9, which requires an annual review of your SWPPP. We created that for our clients, to help them document that these annual trainers and initial trainings for your stormwater pollution prevention team were all occurring. So those are two great resources. They do cost money, though, but I do have some free resources because I know people love that free stuff.

Shannon Oelkers:

There's two general sources of free information the state of Alaska, since a lot of our clients operate there, and then also the EPA stormwater sites. So let's start off. The state of Alaska, funnily enough, has a page for every single one of the options under the APDs program. So there's a page for the MSGP, there's a page for the CGP, there's a page for the MS4, and there is a page for the individual permit, which ties nicely into our categories. We will include links to each one of those pages if you want to check them out, based on where you think your facility falls or what your interest falls under SWPS, the EPA. They have two websites. One is the NPDs just regular NPDs, and it sort of sorts out general permits and individuals there. But we also included the MSGP under the NPDs EPA website because that one talks specifically about state and federal facilities that are subject to the EPA MSGP, which is different than the state specific ones.

Shannon Oelkers:

And then, lastly, I included a fun little free resource. It's the EPA National Stormwater Calculator and you can put in all sorts of places facilities, roadways, your own house and you can kind of see your stormwater exposure or the anticipated stormwater exposure. It also will give you ideas on how to lessen stormwater runoff, like by planting rain gardens or doing fun things like that. So you know, I use this with my kids when we're homeschooling during COVID. It's a super fun little site. I would recommend playing around with it. It's fun.

Haley Hall:

Awesome.

Shannon Oelkers:

All right. Well, thank you, Haley, for helping me straighten out SWPPPS. It's something that really confuses people and I thought if we put this podcast out there, if you are sitting in a seat and you're trying to figure out SWPPPS for the first time, hopefully this will at least give you a place to start. And, as always, if you have further questions or podcast ideas, go ahead and give us an email at the link in our show notes and we're happy to take that into consideration.

Haley Hall:

Thanks, Shannon.

Shannon Oelkers:

Yeah, thank you.

Shannon Oelkers:

Hi there, this is Shannon Oelkers and, as the owner of Integrity Environmental, I wanted to take a minute here at the end of the podcast to make sure that you knew the following this podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal or regulatory advice. We are not responsible for any losses, damages or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast. This podcast is not intended to replace professional regulatory or legal advice, and the views expressed in this podcast may not be those of the regulatory or legal advice, and the views expressed in this podcast may not be those of the host that would be me or Integrity Environmental. Thank you very much for listening and if you do need professional regulatory advice, we'd be happy to help you as part of our consulting services.

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