If you happen to store liquids in your facility other than rainwater, you should consider having a strip of bunding to prevent any spills from reaching nearby waters or just getting out of hand. This is actually required by law, meaning that there’s no other way to handle this than with containment bunds when it comes to keeping the outer parameter of your facility safe. While concrete is the recommended material for almost every containment bund but it has to be provided with a coating that can withstand the stored liquid.
Coating
The construction resin (coating) of the containment bund needs to be approved by WSAA and Sydney Water standards, which we’ll talk about in a bit. This basically means that the spill containment bund coating needs to undergo various tests in all types of water utility infrastructure. The coating of the bund should hold up against all the chemicals present at the facility and it should protect the bund from dissolving, which prevents the spill from escaping. Even if the chemicals present at your facility were to mix – the coating should be able to prevent the mixture from breaking down the bund.
Standards
The environmental protection agencies in South Australia, Victoria, and Western Australia have issued a set of guidelines which may slightly vary from state to state. But despite that, they all have one thing in common and that is to help you pick the best long-term protection whilst staying in compliance with local regulations. The Water Services Association of Australia (WSAA) has published a manual regarding the selection and application of protective coatings which helps you with surface preparation, inspection, selection, supply and even with the repair of protective coating systems.
Construction
A spill containment bund needs to have a construction that will fulfill multiple conditions not only for it to be in compliance with the law but also in order to have the best protection in almost any possible scenario. First of all, the bund area needs to be able to retain 120% of the volume of your largest tank and for flammable liquids, it needs to retain 133% of the total capacity of your largest tank.
You also need to have a blind collection sump and a regular collection sump drains that will lead to the sewer or a slop tank(s) and a high-level detector installed on each tank. Also, you need to undercover the loading and unloading areas and have a system that will make sure spills from a hose coupling won’t fall outside the bund area.