The cover/transmittal letter collects basic information about the submission from the operator such as the Operator ID (OPID), type of submission, type of change that occurred, primary and technical contacts, and projection information. The specific questions in the cover letter that are required to be addressed by breakout tank operators are identified in the NPMS Operator Standards. Submitting via the OSAVE workflow, which includes the cover letter-related questions, eliminates the need to submit a separate cover letter file.

Refer to Section 2.2 Cover/Transmittal Letter Requirement of the NPMS Operator Standards for additional information.

Metadata is "data about data" and answers the "who, what, when, where" questions about the data. The customized NPMS metadata collects from the operator the general location of the data and the projection in which the data is submitted. Submitting via the OSAVE workflow, which includes the metadata-related questions, eliminates the need to submit metadata information on a separate cover letter file.

Refer to Section 2.2 Cover/Transmittal Letter Requirement of the NPMS Operator Standards for additional information.

NPMS geospatial data captures the physical location of your breakout tank on the earth’s surface. The geospatial data may be submitted in several different formats; the operator should select the format that best fits their capabilities and resources.

In some cases, like the GIS Esri shapefile and CAD formats, the breakout tank is represented as a point feature. For operators who do not have a mapping/GIS environment, the location of the breakout tank may be submitted as a coordinate pair (in Geographic Latitude Longitude Decimal Degrees format). There is only one coordinate pair per tank. NPMS staff will convert the coordinate pair(s) to a GIS point feature on your behalf.

Refer to Section 4 Geospatial Data in the NPMS Operator Standards and Section 4 Submitting Your Geospatial and Attribute Data and Section 9 Tips for CAD Drawing Submissions of the NPMS Operator Submission Supplemental Instructions for additional details.

Attribute data captures descriptive information about your breakout tanks, such as operator name, plant name, and status. The specific attributes that are required for the NPMS breakout tank submission are described in detail in Section 3 Attributes of the NPMS Operator Standards. The attributes may be incorporated with the geospatial data, like in the case of the Esri shapefile. However, not all geospatial formats, like the coordinate format, integrate these two types of data. In this case, the operator must submit the attribute data as a separate component, such as a tab or comma delimited text format or Microsoft Excel format (preferred). When the geospatial and attribute data are submitted as separate items, the OPER_LINK value allows NPMS staff to correctly connect the breakout tank feature to its corresponding attributes.

The specific attributes that are required for the NPMS breakout tank submission are described in detail in Section 3 Attributes of the NPMS Operator Standards. Specifically, Appendix A.2 of the NPMS Operator Standards lists required field names, field types and acceptable values. For users working with a GIS software system, templates of the required attributes in Esri shapefile and geodatabase file formats have been developed for your convenience. These templates contain the NPMS breakout tank attributes with the proper field names, field types, and field length definition. The templates have a defined projection of Geographic Latitude Longitude NAD 83 Decimal Degrees; if your data is not in this projection, you MUST re-project the downloaded template before adding data. For operators who will submit the breakout tank attributes in Microsoft Excel format, a template of the breakout tank attribute fields was developed to ease the process. Various sections of the NPMS Operator Submission Supplemental Instructions provide detailed information about the submission component combinations, how to populate the attributes and example scenarios; refer to the Table of Contents to identify the sections applicable to your situation.

For breakout tank OPIDs, there are two contacts – primary and technical – that are associated with the OPID. During the review and processing of the NPMS data submission, NPMS staff will reach out to the technical contact when clarification or re-submission is needed. If the communication is by email, NPMS staff will often include the primary contact as well. NPMS staff will also email both primary and technical contacts to alert the operator that the submission has passed the initial review and is progressing to the processing workflow stage. The primary and technical contacts are also both included on the email NPMS staff sends alerting the operator that the submission data has been incorporated into the NPMS national layer and is viewable on the PIMMA and Public Viewer map viewers.

Once the data submission has completed the entire NPMS submission workflow, if a question about the breakout tank data or OPID in general arises, NPMS staff will reach out to the primary contact for assistance. If the communication is by email, depending on the topic, the technical contact may also be included in the email. Additionally, the primary contact is the one to receive mass communication emails from NPMS staff to all operators, for instance, when a change in the submission workflow or requirements has occurred (such as enhancements to OSAVE) or when a reminder regarding submission dates is sent. Depending upon the topic, the technical contact may also be included on the mass communication emails.

The primary contact must be directly employed by the operating company. The technical contact may be directly employed by the operating company or may be a consultant/subcontractor that the operator designates to fill that role. In some cases, the same person that is directly employed by the operating company may fill the role of both the primary and technical contact. Within OSAVE the operator has the option to mark that the technical contact is the same person as the primary contact.

The breakout tank primary and technical contacts may be updated, as needed, anytime throughout the year. A submission is not required to update contact information for an OPID. Additionally, operators are prompted to review and update, if applicable, all breakout tank contact information as part of the NPMS submission and notification workflows. Through OSAVE, the operator can view the current contact information and change only the information that needs to be updated. When the operator updates the primary and technical contact information through OSAVE, the NPMS database source tables are edited directly; the operator is not editing a copy/staging table. As a result, changes should be made with extra care. Also note that breakout tank primary and technical contact information is separate from contact information relating to pipelines or LNG plants. Updating the contact information for pipelines or LNG plants does not automatically update information related to breakout tanks.

Unlike pipeline submissions, there is no public contact associated with breakout tanks.