Tank is clean. I took it to work and one of our wonderful contractors took care of it. It has been cleaned on the inside and sandblasted and primed on the outside. It will get a couple of coats of gray industrial enamel tomorrow and it will be ready to go. Sometimes it is good to work for big oil. I knew the tank was dirty when I picked it up but I wasn't sure how I was going to do it. Since I got all the warnings, I cashed in some favors and got it done for free.
I think y'all are not used to living in rural Alabama (excluding Wreckerman of course, a fellow possum connoisseur), this guy could have taken this to a scrap yard with no questions asked. I could have filled it with mineral spirits and drove into one of the old cold mines to drain it. I know there are 5 million rules surrounding DOT, EPA, ADEM and anybody else you can think of. I work at a petrochemical plant and deal with them everyday but their are two different sets of standards. They go after the big guys like us not some small business with a little oil on the ground. My dad owned tire stores for years and the county used to get his oil to spray on the roads and I am not talking about 1950; I'm talking about 2005 when he retired. I didn't and don't want to pollute our environment; but you can go overboard with some of these regulations. The water we take out of the Tennessee River is dirtier than the water we put back in, that is messed up. The environmental rules make it difficult for us to compete globally.
Sorry, got on a soapbox. I just get really tired of hearing about environmental rules all day when we are talking millions of gallons and I only have a 600 gallon tank. The guys used a 10k psi pressure washer with steam and a 180 degree spinning nozzle. All material washed to the API seperator which recovers hydrocarbons. Final wash with some type of stuff that smelled like oranges and then a final water rinse. Inert gas to dry it out. Nozzles and opens plugged before sandblasting. Next time I saw it, it was covered in primer.
Thanks for the suggestions guys and keeping me straight.