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Hazardous Materials
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Objectives:
- Provide and maintain appropriate storage, transfer, containment, and disposal facilities for liquid material, such as harmful solvents, antifreeze, and paints.
- Encourage recycling of hazardous material, such as harmful solvents, antifreeze, and paints. See Fact Sheets available on-line.
- For boats that are in the water, perform cleaning operations to minimize, to the extent practicable, the release to surface waters of harmful cleaners and solvents.
- Institute public education/outreach/training programs for boaters to prevent improper disposal of polluting materials.
Purpose:
Provide boating facilities with options for storing, containing, and disposing of hazardous material and liquid waste. This section also discusses methods for reducing levels and responding to spills of hazardous material that could potentially enter surface waters. In this section hazardous material and liquid waste include harmful cleaners, solvents, detergents (i.e. ammonia, sodium hypochlorite, chlorinate solvents, petroleum distillates or lye), antifreeze, and paints.
Discussion:
Materials that are dangerous in the environment are routinely used in marina facilities because they are often a necessary part of marina activities. If they are handled properly, the dangers may never become apparent. When handled improperly or carelessly, hazardous materials can be introduced into nearby coastal waters causing acute or chronic toxicity to marine plants and animals. This threat not only applies to aquatic creatures, but to terrestrial ones as well. Some cleaners, solvents, and paints can pose health hazards to your tenants and staff if not used properly and with caution. Animals, such as your tenants' pets, can also be susceptible to materials such as spilled antifreeze, often with deadly effects. A nonpoint pollution prevention program can address these threats because they occur during a range of activities and exist throughout the marina property instead of emanating from one single source. As with most nonpoint sources of pollution, integrating appropriate practices into the operation of the facility will minimize the threats from hazardous material.
An inventory of the activities at your facility will identify where hazardous materials exist or are used and how to manage them. Consider the materials and processes used in activities such as boat scraping, painting or cleaning. Do you or your customers use solvents and cleaners during these processes? If so, how are they applied, stored and disposed of when their useful life is over? If engine repairs and maintenance are completed on site, assess what types of materials are used. During the boat winterization and commissioning, are materials such as antifreeze and acid part of the procedures? These are some of the activities that require the use of materials that may be hazardous. For minimizing the potential impact of these materials, appropriate practices, such as a reducing the amount of materials that are used on site or keeping the material from entering the open environment, should be considered.
This chapter provides recommended practices for reducing or eliminating the threat of hazardous material and liquid waste as a nonpoint source of pollution to coastal waters. Generally, best management practices attempt to reduce the source or provide mechanisms that prevent the material from entering surface waters. In addition to the practices documented here, other regulatory agencies have suggested, and in some cases required, measures that also mitigate hazardous material threats. The level of attention this issue requires and the extent you will need to go beyond this guidance will depend on the type and extent of activities at your facility. If activities on site use the materials discussed in this chapter more intensively than would be expected at a traditional recreational boating facility, it is advisable that you check with the department within the state that regulates hazardous waste. In Rhode Island, that is the Division of Hazardous Waste in the Department of Environmental Management. This chapter will provide the marina operator with a starting point and, in most cases, enough information to minimize the threats of hazardous material and liquid waste as a source of nonpoint pollution.
