Tanks

I have been doing cathodic protection tank testing since 1997 and before that working on a major pipeline for 16 years prior to that as a CP2. During the time I have spent testing tanks I have come across several errors made by testers and some by large cathodic protection companies doing testing, designs and installations. For this discussion I will stick with just one topic however. The most common problem I see with testers is not following up with determining the failing readings they find on tanks. One problem it appears that STI does not require or fail to teach testers is looking for the problem with railed evaluations which are often caused by electrical shorts on underground and above ground tanks and / or pipes. I have been called to verify previous tests performed by others only to find that tanks and pipes have been electrical shorted by metallic conduits, failed or missing dielectric unions, metal skirting on dispenser islands, braces for piping inside dispensers that are not isolated form the pipes or even small copper vent piping in the dispensers. In many cases testers just fail the site due to poor CP readings and go on their way without determining the cause. This is only one problem and I will follow up in a later discussion with others I have found. It appears from these problems that AMPP needs to have discussions with STI about what they teach testers to look for, how to test for these problems and being ethical in how the test before failing and leaving a site. For now this is only one of several problems I have come across.

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