ADEM holds hearing on proposed underground storage-tank rule revisions; no oral public comments

The Alabama Department of Environmental Management opened a public hearing in Montgomery to receive comment on proposed revisions to ADEM Administrative Code Division 335-6 governing technical standards, corrective action and financial responsibility for owners and operators of underground storage tanks. Department staff summarized the proposed changes and said the agency will consider written and oral comments before finalizing the rules.

Mary Frank Brown, designated hearing officer for the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, opened the proceeding by describing the subject of the hearing and the administrative record, including published notice and exhibits submitted for the hearing file. Brown said the hearing is not a question-and-answer session and that lengthy or technical statements should be submitted in writing for the record.

Chip Crockett, chief of the Groundwater Branch of the Land Division, summarized the revisions under consideration. He said the department is proposing clarifications to technical standards, corrective-action plans, preliminary investigations, free-product removal, handling of investigation-derived waste, operation and maintenance (including spill prevention equipment and release detection), and updates to analytical methods, and that the proposals include corrections to regulatory citations and grammatical clarifications. "The department welcomes your input to this process and will consider all technical comments prior to making a final decision concerning the revisions to these regulations," Crockett told attendees.

Brown and Crockett described the public-noticing steps taken before the hearing: the notice was published in the Birmingham News, the Huntsville Times, the Mobile Register and the Montgomery Advertiser on Nov. 21, 2021; the notice appeared in the Alabama Administrative Monthly (vol. 40, no. 2) on Nov. 30, 2021; copies of the proposed rules were filed with the Administrative Procedures Division of the Legislative Services Agency and furnished to the Joint Committee on Administrative Regulations on Nov. 18, 2021; and ADEM sent the same notice to 2,646 registered individuals and organizations. Affidavit evidence from Othney Lantham of the Legislative Services Agency was submitted for the hearing record as an exhibit.

No public officials or members of the public filed registration cards to give oral testimony, and no oral comments were presented at the hearing. Brown stated that the final hearing record will include the transcript of the hearing, all written submissions and exhibits, and the department’s responses to relevant comments received by the hearing officer before 5 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 6, 2022, at the ADEM offices in Montgomery.

After considering all oral and written comments, ADEM will prepare a response to relevant comments and forward the final draft of any revised rules, the hearing record and, where conflicting views are submitted, a concise statement of principal reasons for and against adoption to the Environmental Management Commission for its consideration and possible adoption. The hearing was then adjourned.