PHMSA intends to revise Form 7000-1 (Hazardous Liquid Accident Report) to collect more information for smaller spills, require additional fields, and revise the form instructions. PHMSA notes that releases between five gallons and five barrels, and/or involving property damage less than or equal to $50,000 constituted 47% of reported releases in 2011 and 2012. Currently, operators are not required to report as much detail regarding these “low consequence” releases, but the Agency now proposes to collect the same data for all releases. PHMSA also proposes to revise instructions regarding spill and recovery volumes to stipulate that the reported volume spilled should include all product exiting the pipeline system. Likewise, the volume recovered should include all product collected during spill response, as was the general practice prior to a recent 2012 revision. In addition, operators will be able to enter a single NRC number or select one of the following: NRC notification not required; NRC notification required but not made; or NRC report number not known. When there is more than one NRC report for an accident, operators will be instructed to enter the first report in the initial field and remaining NRC report numbers later in the narrative section of the form. The 60 day comment period announced today is scheduled for publication on Tuesday, April 23, and is expected to run through June 22, 2013. Click here for a copy of the Federal Register Notice.