| Case History |
A little insurance with a big paybackA supermarket owned by a prominent West Coast chain had been under threat of being cited by local authorities to the proximity of one of their storm drains to the store’s garbage compactor. The drain needed to be protected from both the threat of the miscellaneous fluids which emanated from the compactor as well as from the potential for a hydraulic fluid leak. A Safe Drain® was installed as a simple one step solution to this situation. Two days later the store’s manager arrived to discover a large pool of debris and dirty water surrounding his new Safe Drain®. A construction site next door to the store had been conducting an exterior finish operation during which a large amount of stucco and cement material had been washed away and collected around the supermarket’s Safe Drain®. Having had the Safe Drain® installed only two days earlier, the store manager was ecstatic at the performance of the Safe Drain® and proceeded to call Safe Drain, Inc. for their field service to clean up the construction crew’s mess. While the accumulated pool was not his responsibility, the Safe Drain® had proven itself and the store manager had avoided what could have been a lengthy, and costly, dispute with the construction company and, perhaps, even the local authorities. When the construction site manager learned of this incident, he was also greatly relieved at the significant potential liability that he, and his company, had been able to avoid thanks to the supermarket’s Safe Drain®. Furthermore, he realized the value of having Safe Drains® on his future construction sites for incidents such as this and for sediment control. Jet Fuel SpillDuring a routine fueling operation, our facility experienced a fuel spill, which allowed approx 50 gallons of jet fuel to enter into a storm drain. The extremely unpleasant fallout from this event included facing Airport and regulatory officials and yes fines! This event resulted in our decision to install Safe Drains® spill protection devices in each of the 20 storm drains on our ramp areas. These Safe Drain® devices provide our facility with secondary containment throughout our entire facility. When it comes to spill containment, I now feel that I have sufficient protection against potential environmental nightmares. Our facility operates several mobile fuel trucks and since we’ve installed Safe Drains®, we now comply with the rigid EPA secondary containment issues for mobile refuelers. Whether our fuel trucks are parked or fueling aircraft, I know our facility is protected from spills. Safe Drains® provide the necessary level of protection at a reasonable cost. Jim Rutherford Accidental Spill"I am writing to thank-you for a great product. This morning we had a 25 gallon diesel spill near our Vehicle Service Area. The spill was a fluke - from the tank of a truck that was parked on a gradient - left without a gas cap. Diesel poured out of the truck onto the asphalt - directly into a newly installed Spill Safe Drain® that was closed tightly. All of the spilled product was recovered, nothing went into the storm drain and we were all very happy campers. I notified the City of San Jose regarding the incident and was informed I would not need to do anything but write a confirming letter that nothing entered the storm drain and that the spill had been cleaned up promptly. Thanks to your product I did not have to notify Fish and Game, the Regional Board, the San Jose/Santa Clara Water Pollution Control Plant, or anyone else of the incident. I did not have to initiate a full scale Emergency Response effort to trace the diesel to Coyote Creek, block my storm drains, have them vacuumed out - or anything else. In other words, I saved time, energy, lots of money, and lots of grief. I can't praise the product enough." Sincerely, |