The Fertilizer Institute’s ALERT on Nurse Tanks


This is to advise you that the Department of Transportation (DOT) has asked The Fertilizer Institute (TFI) to remind nurse tank owners and operators that under the provisions of 49 CFR 173.315(m), nurse tanks are exempt from certain DOT specification requirements ONLY when operating exclusively for agricultural purposes. This would include any nurse tank operating under the Nurse Tank Inspection Program (NTIP) special permit 13554. At this time, DOT interprets agricultural purposes to mean from the agricultural retail facility to the farm and does not consider ammonia nurse tank deliveries to ethanol plants as use for agricultural purposes.

With the DOT safety alert issued Tuesday, December 22, 2008 and in our efforts to ensure compliance with DOT regulations, we wanted to bring this latest issue to your attention.

If you have any questions, please contact Pam Guffain by telephone at (202) 515-2704 or via e-mail at [email protected]g.