This morning we had fuel delivered; 5,000 gallons of off road and 5,000 gallons of on road. The driver put the wrong fuel in the wrong tank. It was not caught till 3 dump trucks a work truck had fueled up. The delivery company has sent out a rep and there sending out a crew on Thursday to pump and clean the tank. I know what it takes to clean the die out of a dump truck or pickup, but I have no idea what it takes to get the die out of a 7,500 gallon tank. I have tried using Google, but I’m not having any luck. What all is entailed in the tank cleaning? How long dose it take? Do I need to inform my hazmat contractor of the days the work will be done? Will they send someone to my site, should I ask for someone to come to my site? I know they dip test tanks, but is there any other test I need to worry about down the road? I know I have a tendency to over think stuff, but am I missing anything? Thanks
I don't really think they will clean the tank just remove the red dye and fill it with road diesel. With that big of tank a small amount of dye isn't going to do anything.
Dozerboy your right. They drained the tank. Pumped in about 350 gallons of road diesel. Removed the dispenser and polishing filters. Ran the polishing pump for a few minutes. Pumped some fuel out of the dispenser. Drained tank. Filled tank. Replaced all the filters.
Did you have them pump the 350 gal of road diesel they used to clean the dye into your off-road tank? Free of charge of course because of your circumstance... DB answered the question already. I will add that even with my little 100 gal slip tank in my pickup, if I pump out the red fuel and add say 20-30 gal of on road, by the time I pump the on road out you can't see any dye left. I am sure the residue is still there but you can't tell it.
Over the years on the Internet the rumor has been promulgated that "they" can test for ever-so-minute quantities of red dye in fuel tanks. I don't know if any of it is true or not, but it might be a wise idea to keep documentation from the fuel supplier on what happened so that it could be proven later on. How often has anyone been tested anyway? Around here I have never had it done nor have I ever heard anyone else say they had it done either.
My off road fuel tank was filled to where the over flow float was pushed to the bottom of the fill tube. During the draining of the tank we filled up our 500 gallon fuel tank trailer a few times and filled up all our off road equipment and some of it might of ended up in the neighbors bulk die tank, but I’m not sure. They did not want to haul off more than one of there tanker trucks of fuel. My road tank was fulled above the level it was on the print out the driver took after it was filled. The supplier gave us “credit” towards our next fill up. This was to cover the cost of flushing out the trucks, replacement filters, someone from our hazmat contractor on site, and pain and troubles. They also paid for a fuel truck and fuel to come to site to fill our truck for 3 mornings. I called the state police and talked to someone that dips tanks. I was told that most of the time when they dip they just check the color. There is a paste they can use that will react to the die to show smaller ppm, but it's mostly used to catch farmers at auctions. He also warned me that the filters can leach the die back out for a long time. About a month ago a few of my trucks were dipped at a temporary weight station. My daughters truck was dipped about 2 weeks ago at a auction.
I don't know about the filters I have never noticed any redness in any filter I have cut open. And it would only leach back to the tanks on equipment that has fuel returns which is most of them these days I would guess.
We get tested yearly here,,, and its always random .
Don't know if they still do it, but I had truck tanks dipped by an IRS agent one time on a job site.
Same for me, They also came to my yard on a tip. I bet that delivery driver got an earfull!