Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Why Spill Containment Berms Are A Good Investment

By Daisy Joyner


Perhaps you haven't thought much about spill containment berms. Modern life can be messy on a scale that we didn't imagine a hundred years ago. Besides disaster response where humans and animals are at risk from oil or chemicals, and the environment is threatened with damage that takes years and costs billions to clean up, there are military, industrial and agricultural uses for containment systems to restrict planned and unplanned flows of everything from fuel to biohazards to fertilizers to algae.

Sometimes referred to as 'secondary containment', spill containment berms can function as part of a planned system of portable storage, or they can be a back-up system for occasional high-volume or higher-risk situations, or they can be part of an emergency spill response plan. It's sometimes said that the main difference between an emergency and a disaster comes down to the quality of the advance planning.

Berms are typically placed under equipment or around tanks or other containers that have the potential to leak substances that are hazardous, either to workers or to the environment. They may be as simple and limited in scope as a portable barrier under a holding tank for used motor oil, or as complex as a facility-wide system for managing overflow.

Disasters dictate special requirements. Emergency response equipment must deploy fast, with a minimum of personnel and tools. Often it must be light-weight so it can be delivered to the site under less than optimal conditions. As well as containing spills, berms can be designed to contain after-effects, such as wastewater from decontamination showers for people, birds, or livestock. With each major event, more is learned about the effectiveness of different types of systems.

Containment berms are manufactured from a range of materials and are designed as systems that can be configured according to need. Available fabrics vary in resistance to abrasion, chemicals, temperature extremes, and other factors. Systems that will be driven over by trucks or forklifts can have barrier edges that flatten as they are rolled over, and then restore themselves to their original shape without loss of their contents. Commercial systems must seal reliably to floors and walls where they are installed. Systems have to be scalable according to need.

Businesses today have to think beyond the monetary costs of berm-based controls. Besides regulatory requirements, it's important to be perceived as a good corporate citizen. Worker safety and environmental best-practices are key to their continued welcome in their communities, both local and global.

We can all benefit from spill containment berm systems. They're an important part of controlling our environmental outcomes.

spill containment berms




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