United States
Australia
MalaysiaRecreational Marina
The Company
The client is a marina on the west coast of the United States with 800 slips for dockage, able to accommodate vessels up to 300 feet in length and which primarily services private, non-commercial, recreational vessels. The marina stores petroleum products on site to supply their commercial fuel dock, they also have a travel lift, hydraulic trailer and forklift as well as a small fleet of 10 vessels to provide support services for the marina and their customers. The marina has a total of 23,725 gallons of oil storage capacity on site with four above ground storage tanks, two with capacity of 10,000 gallons, one of 500 gallons (used oil), and one of 3,000 gallons (oil / water separator); the marina also has three 55 gallon drums for spent oil filter storage and 10 cases of lube and motor oils (60 gallons).
The Problem
Over the past year, the marina experienced one major oil spill when one of their 10,000 gallon above ground storage tanks was overfilled during regular refilling after the visual level gauge failed. This failure resulted in approximately 300 gallons of diesel fuel being spilled onto the land around the tank. The spill was confined within secondary containment and was cleaned up according to state requirements using granular absorbents. The potential magnitude of this spill and impact on the surrounding environment prompted a full scale review of their emergency response capabilities, policies and containment solutions, with the marina concluding that the granular absorbents were not the most effective control technology for spill remediation. The marina realised that while adequate for land based spills, the clay based granular absorbents stored on site were not effective for universal application for both land and water based spills. While they met the particular state's requirements, the marina felt it needed to look for a more universal absorbent solution.
The Sokerol Solution
The marina typically keeps a stock of oil spill response equipment such as weirs, booms and other barriers including two 300ft sections of containment boom, 600 pounds of granular clay absorbent and seven boxes of 2ft x 3ft absorbent pads. These inventories are checked monthly to replenish used materials. Sokerol replaced the granular absorbent with 5kg and 10kg Bags of loose Sokerol absorbent and replaced the absorbent pads with Sokerol Pillows. The rest of the inventory was supplemented with Sokerol Booms, which are ideal for creating a functional absorbent barrier between land and water in the event of a spill. The marina also took on a supply of Bilge SOKs for use in their support service vessels as well as to sell to marina customers.
Since that time, Sokerol products have been used regularly on an all manner of land and water-based spills, which most often occur during the refueling process. The marina has reported a high level of satisfaction with the Sokerol products over and above that of the clay based alternatives, both from an efficacy and cost perspective. They also have the peace of mind of having a single product based solution available for effective treatment of both land and water based spillages. This is coupled with a comprehensive arsenal of equally effective Sokerol Booms, Bags and Bilge SOKs immediately on hand to deal with any larger scale disasters, no matter where the contamination occurs.
