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FINDING NEW WAYS OF DOING BUSINESS
\j
This document was prepared by the staff at
the Environmental Council of the States,
Robert E. Roberts, Executive Director^
pursuant to a cooperative agreement with
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Agreement CX-824461-01.
In addition to the State and EPA officials who drafted the contents
of this document, principal contributors to this report include
R. Steven Brown, editor, and Nathan Bruinooge, co-editor, from ECOS,
and staff from the U.S. EPA. Artwork is by Lawrence Wells and
R. Steven Brown. Design by Craig R. Smith.
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FINDING NEW WAYS OF DOING BUSINESS
fHflw the Sta
r
(_j (_j)
mer to i
The Environmental Council of the
States (EGOS) and the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) are pleased to present this
special report on new approaches for
protecting the environment. Working in
partnership, we are promoting
innovation — which involves change, fresh
ideas, experimentation, and some risk of
failure — as a means to more cost-effective
solutions, better working relationships,
and most importantly, stronger
environmental results.
Under the nation's environmental laws,
the States and EPA share important
duties. In the most general sense, EPA is
charged with developing standards that
serve as a national baseline of public
health and environmental protection. The
States are the primary, frontline delivery
agents, working with other government
agencies, businesses and communities to
ensure that those standards are met. A
desire to achieve better results and save
taxpayer dollars has led the States and
Robert C. Shinn
President, Environmental Council of the States
Commissioner, New Jersey Department of
Environmental Protection
EPA to come together in search of better
solutions to today's increasingly complex
problems.
Recently, a number of new ideas have
been tested that are challenging traditional
ways of doing business and helping to
break down the barriers that have limited
progress in the past. This report describes
those efforts, highlighting reforms affecting
all aspects of environmental management,
including permitting, monitoring,
reporting, and compliance assistance.
While some projects have yet to be fully
evaluated, by presenting them here, the
States and EPA hope to stimulate interest
so that the public health, environmental,
and economic benefits being achieved can
be realized more broadly. This collection of
projects also serves to underscore the
motivation that has led the States and EPA
to work together on an agreement to guide
environmental regulatory innovations in
the future. For the past year, we have been
working to define the principles that
should guide regulatory innovation and a
process that clarifies how we will put good
ideas to the test. Once completed, this
agreement should strengthen our
partnership and help clear the way for
exploring additional opportunities for
innovation in environmental programs.
Fred Hansen
Deputy Administrator, U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency
Prepared in Support of the
State EPA Agreement on Environmental Regulatory Innovations
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Finding New Ways of Doing Business 3
COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT / PREPAREDNESS
Community Environmental Excellence Program (GA) 7
Multi-media Teams Outreach to Small Communities (NE) 9
Providing Safe Drinking Water for 9 Million People—The New York
City Watershed (NY) 11
Community-Based Environmental Protection: Cooperation Works
in Henryetta (OK) 12
A Collaborative Approach to Restoring Coho Salmon Habitat (OR) 14
Planning for 2002 Winter Olympics (UT) 15
GRANTS / FUNDING
Improving Rural Sanitation (AK) 16
Meeting Small Business Funding Needs Through Revolving Loan Funds (AR) 18
Funding for State Environmental Priorities from the Performance
Partnership Grant (MO) 19
Partnership 2000 Reinvents the State / EPA Grants Process (MA,
NY, DE, TX, and AZ) 20
Performance Partnership Grants (All Interested States and Tribes) 22
Expanding Use of State Revolving Loan Funds for Clean Water Projects
(Multiple States) 23
PERMITTING
Georgia Facility Reduces Environmental "Footprint," Gains Regulatory
Flexibility through Negotiated Project XL Agreement (GA) 24
North Carolina Leads Transition to Watershed-based Monitoring (NC) 26
One Stop Permitting (MS) 27
Improved Public Participation in Siting Landfills (MO) 29
State and Federal Agencies Revise Procedures to Expedite Environmental
Review Process (PA) 30
The Electronic Permit Submittal System (AZ, CA, HI, NV) 31
The Ozone Transport Commission's NOx Budget Program (Northeast
Region: ME to VA) , 33
Pilot Program for Pollution Prevention Projects (P4) (CT, GA, NM, OR, WA) 34
REPORTING
Reducing RCRA Reporting Requirements Achieved Through Performance
Partnership Agreement (FL) 36
4
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"One-Stop" Demonstration Project Improves Environmental Information (NJ) 38
Performance Based Reduction in Monitoring and Reporting for Water
Permits (OK) 40
INCENTIVES
Bay Area Green Business Program (CA) 41
Tax Law Reforms Help Improve Air Quality (CA) 43
STREAMLINING REQUIREMENTS
Streamlining RCRA Corrective Action Procedure (IL) 45
Setting Superfund Priorities (KS) 47
Expedited Corrective Action Program Facilitates Hazardous Waste Treatment,
Storage, and Disposal (MO) 49
Streamlining State Sewage Sludge Management Regulations (UT, OK) 51
Delisting Wastes (AR, NM, andTX) 52
The One-Plan Project: Government and Industry Working Together to Simplify
Facility Emergency Response Planning (All States) 53
INFORMATION
Enabling States to Better Manage Chemical Risks (GA, IL, NY, WI) 54
Environmental/Recycling Hotline (All States) 56
The Facility Identification Initiative—A First Step Towards Integrating
Environmental Information (Multiple States) 58
ENFORCEMENT AND COMPLIANCE ASSISTANCE
Environmental Circuit Rider Program (IN) 59
Environmental Leader Program (ME) 61
Community Based Enforcement Action Yields Greater Environmental Benefits (MT) 62
Evaluation of Enforcement Programs (NH) 63
Providing Compliance Assistance to Small Communities (NE, OR) 64
Mentoring Program Developed to Boost Small Business Compliance
(DC, MD, VA) 65
The CLEAN Project: Compliance and Leadership through Environmental
Assessment and Negotiation (ME, NH, andRI) 67
Promoting New Environmental Technologies (CT, NH, MA, VT, RI, and ME) 69
Testing Environmental Management Systems (AZ, CA, IN, NC, NH,
OR, VT, WI) 71
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COMMUNITY ENVIRONMENTAL
EXCELLENCE PROGRAM (GA)
The environmental issues and
solutions facing Georgia today are
very different from those of the
previous decades. The past sources of
pollution to the air, water and land that
dominated the impact on Georgia's
environment were specific and well
defined: open dumps, uncontrolled
smokestacks, and untreated municipal
and industrial sewage. For the most part,
these sources have been cleaned-up and
are highly controlled.
The sources of pollution that now
dominate Georgia's environment are not as
specific, defined or controlled through
facility-specific environmental regulatory
programs. These sources include:
(1) nonpoint source water pollution
(stormwater runoff from various land use
activities such as urban, construction,
industrial, agriculture and forestry),
(2) mobile and area wide air emissions
(cars, lawn mowers, paints, solvents
usage), (3) excessive quantities of solid
wastes, and (4) litter.
These problems are not as amenable to
traditional regulatory approaches.
Effective solutions will require working
with local governments and their citizens
to develop tailored environmental
management strategies that take into
account the unique conditions and
problems at the community level.
To encourage more community-based
action, the Georgia Department of Natural
Resources established the Community
Environmental Excellence Program. This
program provides a comprehensive
approach to environmental management in
which the community works with its
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neighbors and state and federal agencies,
the private sector, and environmental
interests to ensure a quality environment
for its residents. It is designed to assist
and encourage local governments to
accomplish the following:
4 achieve and maintain compliance
with all environmental permits
(wastewater, drinking water,
landfills, etc.),
* excel in running delegated
environmental programs
(pretreatment, erosion and
sedimentation, etc.),
t comply with all
environmental planning
requirements, including
implementation (Georgia
Planning Act, watershed
protection, well head
protection, etc.), and
+ proceed beyond
compliance through
innovative programs that
address priority environmental
issues (e.g., nonpoint source runoff,
litter control, waste reduction,
pollution prevention, etc.).
The Environmental Protection Division
(EPD) administers the program with input
from other State agencies. Participation by
local governments is a voluntary, three-
step process. First, the community
commits to pursue environmental
excellence status, and then, in
consultation with EPD and others,
develops a strategy to reach that goal. The
strategy, which requires approval by EPA,
identifies and ranks priority actions. It
may show that, in order to comply with all
environmental regulatory requirements,
some components may not be completed
expeditiously, or the strategy may include
innovative ways to achieve compliance
outside traditional regulatory
requirements. By approving alternative
timeframes or approaches, EPD can offer
an incentive for participation. Other
incentives include: formal public
recognition from the State, reduced
environmental reporting requirements,
technical assistance, solid waste reduction
grant program priority, interest rate
reductions for water and sewer projects,
and future fee reductions (paid to EPD) for
successful environmental initiatives.
Once a strategy is in place,
the community then focuses on
achieving environmental
compliance and other goals
reaching beyond compliance.
Formal recognition as a Georgia
Environmental Excellence
Community is awarded when
these achievements are made.
The final step is maintaining
compliance. The State recognition
is reviewed annually and renewed as long
as all goals are met and compliance with
all applicable environmental laws and
regulations is achieved.
The program, in its first year of
operation, has attracted modest interest.
Eight local governments are currently
preparing their environmental strategies,
with submissions expected in late 1998.
Contact:
Dave Word
Georgia Department of Natural Resources
205 Butler Street SE, 1152 East Tower
Atlanta, GA 30334
Telephone: (404) 656-4713
Fax: (404) 651-5778
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MULTI-MEDIA TEAMS OUTREACH TO SMALL
COMMUNITIES (NE)
In Nebraska, as in other states, local
governments often face financial and
technical obstacles on the path of
compliance with regulatory mandates that
exist to protect the nation's health and
environment. Small and rural governments
tend to have small amounts of fiscal and
human resources, especially when
compared to large metropolises, and many
have aging infrastructures (e.g., for
drinking water supplies and sewage
systems) vulnerable to breaks and leaks.
Nevertheless, these localities are
subject to the same regulatory
requirements as larger and wealthier
communities, and their problems have
deepened with federal budget cuts
and increasing compliance costs.
The vast majority (418) of
Nebraska's 535 municipalities have
populations of less than 1,000. Of
these, 331 have populations of less
than 500. These municipalities have
very limited capacity to finance
infrastructure improvements.
Statewide, 50% of households have
annual incomes of less than $25,000.
More importantly, in towns or
localities of less than 500 people, 75% of
households have annual incomes less than
$25,000. Many of these municipalities are
very old, with infrastructure nearing the
end of its expected life. In addition, many
small governments lack the necessary
technical expertise to deal with
infrastructure and environmental
regulatory issues.
Introduced by Nebraska's Governor
Nelson, the Nebraska Mandates
Management Initiative is a unique
innovative effort that helps Nebraska's
small and rural governments cope with
public health and environmental laws and
regulations. The initiative uses an
intergovernmental, interdisciplinary team
process to help local leaders better
understand regulations, analyze local
conditions to determine which problems
pose the greatest risks, prioritize these
risks, and find technically and financially
feasible solutions to priority problems.
Rather than rote observance of
requirements, the initiative aims to
promote regulatory flexibility and to .
balance local fiscal and
human resources with
mandated requirements.
Governor Nelson has
brought the Nebraska
Mandates Management
Initiative to the attention of
his peers at the National
Governors' Association
meeting, and the W.K.
Kellogg Foundation has
expressed interest in the
Initiative. In July 1996,
U.S. Senator Bob Kerrey
announced that he had
secured grant funding to help support the
Mandates Management Initiative. EPA's
Region 7 (Kansas City) office manages this
grant funding and also provides the
Nebraska Department of Environmental
Quality with technical expertise as needed.
The core work of the initiative is done by
teams consisting of persons with
regulatory/technical, community
development, and financing expertise, who
are empowering local governments to find
innovative ways that protect human health
and the environment and ensure
compliance with laws.
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The initiative, which got started in
late 1994, has been extremely successful.
Its results range from large savings in
capital expenditures, to successful
coordination of regulatory, technical
assistance, and financial aid programs,
to the kinds of empowerment that can
lead to flexible, customized, common-
sense solutions to environmental
problems. The interdisciplinary,
intergovernmental teams have worked
with 18 local governments. In addition,
limited assistance has been provided to
over 35 other local governments.
Following are several specific examples
that illustrate the success of this initiative
in Nebraska:
• The Village of Gresham, population
253, after working through the
Initiative process, determined that it
did not need to construct an
additional lagoon cell, at a cost of
$250,000, and will instead
concentrate its investment in
upgrading the drinking water
system.
• The Village of Nemaha, population
188, was assisted in prioritizing
three public health and
environmental issues, and these
three issues will be solved for
approximately $80,000, in contrast to
the original estimated cost of over
$800,000. Several of the proposed
solutions in Nemaha concentrate on
using natural remediation
technologies (many of them low-cost,
low-tech) to solve public health and
environmental problems.
• The Village of Beemer, population 672,
was considering adding additional well
capacity and wastewater treatment
capacity. However, after working
through the team process, the Village
is now pursuing a water conservation
strategy which could reduce total
annual water usage by up to 45%,
thereby eliminating the need for
$600,000 of new drinking water or
wastewater infrastructure.
Contact:
Mary Carter
U.S. EPA Region 7
726 Minnesota Avenue
Kansas City, KS 66101
Telephone: (913) 551-7350
Fax: (913) 551-7267
Email: carter.mary@epamail.epa.gov
10
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PROVIDING SAFE DRINKING WATER FOR 9 MILLION
PEOPLE—THE NEW YORK CITY WATERSHED (NY)
Nine million residents of New York
City and surrounding suburbs rely
on a series of reservoirs located
many miles away in the Catskill and
Delaware watersheds in upstate New York
as their source of drinking water (1.4
billion gallons of water a day). New York
City owns less than 10 percent of the land
surrounding the 19 reservoirs that cover
approximately 2,000 square miles. EPA's
Surface Water Treatment Rule (SWTR)
requires surface water supplies (rivers and
lakes) to be filtered to protect against
microbial contamination. This requirement
can be waived if a water system's
treatment process and natural
conditions provide safe water and
if the watershed is actively
protected to ensure that safety in
the future. For the New York City
Catskill and Delaware Systems,
filtration is an extremely
expensive option that will likely
cost billions of dollars.
million residents, has made the
protection of New York City's drinking
water one of the most challenging and
difficult issues to face the State in
decades. Despite this challenge, under
the SWTR's authority, EPA worked with
New York State, New York City, and local
communities on a program to implement
this watershed protection requirement in
the Catskill and Delaware watersheds.
Since 1991, EPA has been promoting
the watershed approach as a mechanism
to achieve the next generation of water
protection. This approach involves
protecting drinking water at its source
through proper land uses and the
acquisition of sensitive lands to protect
reservoirs and waterways. Applying the
watershed approach to the Catskill and
Delaware watersheds is particularly
challenging given the numerous entities
involved from New York City to the small,
rural communities in upstate New York.
These numerous entities, which often have
different viewpoints, coupled with the
potential costs of filtration and the need to
ensure a safe drinking water for nine
In 1993, EPA issued New York City a
waiver of the filtration requirement on the
condition that the City would take steps to
maintain and protect the Catskill/
Delaware's drinking water
quality.
The City, in a landmark
agreement, will finalize its
regulations for watershed land
uses, acquire sensitive lands to
protect key reservoirs and
waterways, conduct more
extensive water quality testing in
the watershed, and support a
variety of technical assistance
and public education programs.
These actions will enable New York City to
continue to protect the quality of its
drinking water by preventing pollution at
the source, rather than through the
implementation of expensive water
filtration measures.
Maureen Krudner
U. S. EPA Region 2
New York City Watershed Team
Division of Environmental Planning &
Protection
290 Broadway
New York, NY 10007-1866
Telephone: (212) 637-3519
Fax: (212) 637-4942
Email: krudner.maureen@epamail.epa.gov
11
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COMMUNITY-BASED ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION:
COOPERATION WORKS IN HENRYETTA (OK)
Henrietta is a small municipality
(population about 6,200), situated
south of Tulsa and east of
Oklahoma City, which has experienced
environmental and economic setbacks.
From 1916 to 1968, a lead and zinc
smelter was operated by Eagle-Picher
Mining and Smelting, Inc. on 70 acres of
land on the northeast side of Henryetta.
Air emissions from the smelter
contaminated the surrounding area with
lead and other metals. Local people
unknowingly spread the contamination by
using spoil piles, which had been left at
the abandoned site, for fill dirt in
construction projects, such as driveways,
in Henryetta and nearby Dewar. When
Eagle-Picher closed the facility in 1968, it
donated the 70 acres to the City of
Henryetta.
Henryetta faced a dilemma: On the one
hand, several decades of smelter
operations had left an environmental
legacy that blocked commercial
redevelopment. On the other hand, the
Eagle Picher site did not meet the federal
criteria for a "Superfund site," meaning
that it did not qualify for full-scale cleanup
under the Comprehensive Emergency
Response, Compensation and Liability Act.
In general, Henryetta faced significant
environmental problems, diminished
economic prospects, and limited local
financial and technical resources.
Henryetta officials sought aid from the
Oklahoma Department of Environmental
Quality (ODEQ) and, through DEQ, from
EPA's Region 6 (Dallas) office. EPA and
ODEQ formed a working partnership with
the City of Henryetta to help Henryetta
through community-based environmental
protection (CBEP).
Although the Eagle Picher site was not
a full-scale Superfund site, when soil
contamination by heavy metals (arsenic,
cadmium, lead, and zinc) was confirmed
by laboratory analyses, the site did qualify
for emergency removal and remediation
assistance by EPA. EPA's sponsorship of
the cleanup, beginning in 1996, has been
augmented by state and local funds—and
a local citizen's donation of soil cap
material to cover the cleanup site.
Through CBEP—with the help of a
partnership that has expanded to include
additional State agencies, the University of
Oklahoma, and a nonprofit group—
Henryetta has gone beyond focusing on
the Eagle Picher site as an isolated
problem in their community. The
partnership assessed overall
environmental conditions in Henryetta and
subsequently came up with an Action Plan
that included 15 projects, many of which
have preventive benefits. Rather than
setting their sights on the minimum
requirements to meet baseline
environmental standards, the Henryetta
partnership came up with a vision: to
achieve the highest level of public health
protection practically available for the
community.
The former smelter site has been
cleaned up and capped. In addition, goals
have been set and actions taken on several
fronts: Hemyetta's drinking water
treatment has been tested and determined
to be safe; the lake that the City depends
upon for drinking water has been analyzed
for its useful life; the City's sewage and
drinking water lines have been mapped;
new drinking water distribution lines are
being installed; sewage collection and
treatment has been upgraded; sludge
12
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which had been accumulating at the
sewage treatment plant is being removed
(some of which will be beneficially
disposed of at the former smelter site);
garbage collection is being analyzed; a
recycling center is being designed; and
public education about solid waste
disposal is being conducted.
The Henryetta partnership estimates
that the CBEP approach has saved the
municipality roughly $3 million in
environmental costs. The central element
in the project has been a cooperative
partnership between Federal, State and
City officials to identify and solve
environmental problems. Most
importantly, Henryetta appears to be on
its way to a sustainable future because its
environmental problems have been
brought under control.
William Rhea
U. S. EPA Region 6
1445 Ross Avenue
Dallas, TX 75202-2733
Telephone: (214) 665-6767
Fax: (214) 665-6762
Email: rhea.william@epamail.epa.gov
13
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A COLLABORATIVE APPROACH TO RESTORING COHO
SALMON HABITAT (OR)
/" • "She Oregon Department of
I Environmental Quality (DEQ) is one
JL of many state and federal agencies
that administer laws, policies, and
management programs impacting the
Oregon waterways. Water quality highly
impacts one of Oregon's most precious
resources, the coho salmon, which has
significantly decreased from historic levels.
One key to restoring water quality is
management of the Total Maximum Daily
Loads (TMDLs) as set in section 303 (d) of
the Clean Water Act. The Oregon DEQ
committed to completing 870 TMDLs over
the next ten years, compared to
completing 50 over the previous ten years.
Pressure from the Endangered Species Act,
which protects the coho salmon, and the
Clean Water Act required Oregon to
leverage resources as never before in order
to restore water quality so that coho
salmon could once again be part of
people's lives.
The Oregon Plan, created early in 1997
out of the Healthy Streams Partnership
and the Coastal Salmon Initiative builds
partnerships at all levels of stakeholders—
communities who are closest to the
problems, industries, environmentalists,
and all levels of government. For those
who are impacting nonpoint sources of
pollution, a recently published guide walks
them through a process that addresses
TMDL issues. Using this guide, an
organization such the Bureau of Land
Management, the U.S. Forest Service, or
the Natural Resources Conservation
Service documents its environmental goals
that will help improve the quality of a
particular watershed they impact. The
document would include a description of
the problem being addressed, a
quantifiable goal or objective that is tied to
proposed management measures, create a
timeline, cost and funding, and plans for
public involvement. DEQ maintains its
responsibility establishing waste load
allocation and bundles the responsible
stakeholders plans in a TMDL for final
approval by EPA.
Nearly 2,000 copies of The Oregon Plan
guidance have been distributed. The
Bureau of Land Management just
completed a comprehensive plan for the
south Steens Mountain. This is an
especially important start since this plan
includes three streams that are listed due
to temperature. Temperature is the most
common reason for streams being listed,
and salmon are particularly sensitive to
the temperature of their habitat.
Opportunities are now seen for the
State and Federal agencies to align their
priorities, efforts and funding in a way as
never before. Under this plan, all
government agencies that impact salmon
are accountable for coordinated programs
in a manner that is consistent with
conservation and restoration efforts. It is a
model that will expand to include all
salmon and trout throughout the state.
Contact:
Russell Harding
Department of Environmental Quality
811 SW Sixth Avenue
Portland, OR 97204
Telephone: (503) 229-5284
Fax: (503) 229-6124
Email: harding.russell@deq.state.or.us
14
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PLANNING FOR 2002 WINTER OLYMPICS (UT)
Utah will host the 2002 Winter
Olympics, which will be held at
several venues in and around the
Salt Lake area. While hosting the Olympics
is expected to boost Utah's economy, EPA
and the State of Utah have recognized that
the expected influx of visitors and athletes
could bring a whole range of problems for
the environment. Crowds of people will
generate tons of solid waste. Heavy
increases in automobile traffic can be
expected to have adverse effects on air
quality. Energy and water use will increase
dramatically. Preparation of ski slopes and
supporting mountain facilities will pose
risks to ecosystems, and it is possible that
unexpected events resulting in
environmental contamination could occur.
Because hosting the Olympics is not a
"business-as-usual" event, special
precautionary measures will be necessary
to minimize environmental impacts during
Olympics activities. As planning proceeds,
it will be necessary to identify and quickly
address any bureaucratic stumbling
blocks to appropriate precautionary
measures.
EPA and the Utah Department of
Environmental Quality along with a formal
coalition of affected city and county
governments are actively working together
to ensure that the 2002 Olympics turn out
to be a truly green event. To deal with
particular environmental issues, an
Environmental Advisory Committee will
guide the development of initiatives that
will be closely coordinated with the federal,
State and local governmental entities.
EPA's Region 8 (Denver) Office has
assigned a special liaison to the State who
has been appointed to several working
subcommittees of the Environmental
Advisory Committee. The liaison identifies
opportunities for EPA involvement in
developing programs for waste reduction,
energy conservation, and sustainable
environmental practices, and then aids the
effort by helping to cut administrative red
tape.
The Salt Lake Olympic Organizing
Committee has adopted guiding principles
for ensuring that the Olympics respect the
fragile environment in Utah. These
principles include raising environmental
awareness within the community,
maintaining the environment at all venues
and monitoring the progress of each of the
environmental initiatives. Subcommittees
are in the process of identifying options for
minimizing energy consumption by
modifying building specifications;
minimizing solid waste generation through'
the inclusion of source reduction
requirements in purchasing contracts;
insuring a large percentage of the waste
stream is recycled by source separation;
protecting air quality through the use of
alternative transportation means; and
adopting a plan to maximize the purchase
and use of green materials.
Contact:
J. Dean Gillam
U.S. EPA Region 8
999 18th Street, Suite 500
Denver, Colorado 80202
Telephone (303) 312-6432
Fax (303) 312-6064
Email: gillam.dean@epamail.epa.gov
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IMPROVING RURAL SANITATION (AK)
A laska has more than 350 rural
Z-\ communities in need of sanitation
JL JLassistance. Numerous agencies and
programs exist with the mandate to
improve sanitation conditions, however,
due to different missions and authorities,
these programs are often unable to fund a
rural sanitation project in full. For
example:
4 EPA funding can be used for water
and wastewater systems, but not for
solid waste projects;
f Department of
Agriculture funding can
be used for solid waste
projects, but eligibility is
dependent on certain
income requirements;
* The Indian Health
Service can only work in
Native villages;
* Housing and Urban
Development has
limitations beyond housing hookups;
* Department of Transportation/
Public Facilities funding is restricted
to installation of transportation
infrastructure to provide access for
sanitation services.
In an effort to provide needed
sanitation services, six federal and State
agencies are coordinating their
construction funding and schedules in an
effort to share information and resources
and complement each others' work.
Using its authority to support water,
sewer and solid waste projects in Native
and non-Native communities, the State
Department of Environmental
Conservation (DEC) is able to leverage
federal dollars from both EPA and the
Department of Agriculture
(DOA) on a dollar for dollar
basis. Where funding gaps
remain, DEC funds are used
to make up the shortfall. This
arrangement is made based
on a combined annual
priority list that is
coordinated by DEC.
Although HUD, DOT, and IHS
have independent priority
lists, projects supported
through these agencies are closely
coordinated with the funding priorities of
DEC, EPA, and DOA.
This coordination process has been
championed by the Governor's Council on
Rural Sanitation, a twenty-member team
16
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of representatives from State and federal
agencies; native, regional and Statewide
organizations, local governments and the
public. The Council's goal is to develop a
unified plan for eliminating the
honeybucket from rural Alaska by the year
2005 through providing adequate facilities
to 1,000 households per year. To this end,
the Council recently completed a draft
Rural Sanitation 2005 Action Plan. A
major premise of the plan is that
coordinated management of sanitation
improvements should go a step further to
include non-construction activities such as
training, education, technical assistance,
and enhanced local involvement. Steps are
already being taken to integrate these non-
construction programs into the
coordinated management process. State
and federal funding is now targeted to the
two training and technical assistance
programs which have proved most effective
in rural Alaska—the Remote Maintenance
Worker (RMW) and Rural Utility Business
Advisor (RUBA) programs. Circuit riders
are hired through these programs to
provide training and assistance to 10-1 5
rural communities each. Working together
as a team, RUBAs provide hands on
accounting and bookkeeping training to
rural utility administrators and clerks and
RMWs provide over-the-shoulder training
to operators.
This multi-agency partnership
approach has enabled many projects to be
completed that would not have been viable
otherwise. By coordinating funding and
priority lists, agencies have maximized the
uses of limited funds and ensured that
duplication of effort is avoided. In
addition, they have bolstered the technical
capabilities of communities to manage and
operate new sanitation facilities in an
environmentally sound manner.
Keith Kelton, Director, Facility
Construction and Operation
AK Dept. of Environmental Conservation
410 Willoughby Ave., Suite 105
Juneau, AK 99801
Telephone: (907) 465-5135
Fax: (907) 465-5177
Email: kkelton@envircon.state.ak.us
17
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MEETING SMALL BUSINESS FUNDING NEEDS
THROUGH REVOLVING LOAN FUNDS (AR)
CkedLvm;
Established by the Arkansas Act 691
of 1997, the revolving loan fund is
designed to encourage investments
in pollution reduction technologies that
limit harmful water discharges, air
emissions, and other waste hazards
generated by small business in Arkansas.
The capitalization for an initial two-year
period is $1,000,000.
This initiative evolved from small
business needs identified through the
Mentor-Protege Partnership,
a special program funded by
a Leadership Grant awarded
by EPA Region 6. This
program is managed and
implemented between the
Department of Pollution
Control and Ecology and
member firms of the Arkansas
Environmental Federation. The Mentor-
Protege Partnership links the staff of
larger, more experienced manufacturers
with those of small companies who have
had limited exposure to pollution
prevention and the regulatory climate.
A qualified applicant for an
environmental loan must employ fewer
than one hundred individuals, including
full-time, part-time, contract employment,
and affiliates; and provide proof of
profitable operations for two of the three
most recent federal tax years. Collateral
requirements are limited to the borrower's
signature, reducing the paperwork
typically associated with most loan
programs.
Loans may be used for either capital
expenditures or operating expenses
associated with one or both of the
following purposes:
1. to comply with mandated pollution
control requirements, any change in
a commercial process that is
required by federal or state
environmental law or duly adopted
regulation; or
2. to adopt pollution prevention
technologies generally defined as
reducing or eliminating the
generation of pollutants and waste at
the source.
The maximum loan amount is $10,000
for a mandated pollution control activity
and $15,000 for a pollution prevention
activity. An eligible business may qualify
for more than a single loan; but all loans
in aggregate may not exceed
$25,000. to any eligible
business. Maximum loan
term are set at five years for
a mandated pollution control
activity and ten years for a
pollution prevention activity.
Interest rates are established
at one percentage point below the prime
interest rate charged by commercial
banks.
The revolving loan fund law became
effective on July 1, 1997; the fund was
capitalized in early fall. Currently three
initial loan applications are being
processed related to the regulation of
underground storage tanks.
Robert Graham III
Small Business Assistance Center
8001 National Drive
Post Office Box 8913
Little Rock, AR 72219-8913.
Telephone: (501) 682-0708
Fax: (501) 682-0707
18
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FUNDING FOR STATE ENVIRONMENTAL
PRIORITIES FROM THE PERFORMANCE
PARTNERSHIP GRANT (MO)
In the past Missouri has not always had
the ability to address high priority
environmental concerns because of
restrictions on the use of federal and state
funds. For example, in recent years,
several large confined animal feeding
operations have started operations in the
northern part of Missouri. These
operations have caused pollution problems
in nearby streams and rivers from spills
and over application of manure on
adjacent lands. Another example is Table
Rock Lake, historically one of the clearest
and cleanest lakes in Missouri, which has
begun to show increased levels of total
phosphorus, total nitrogen, and
chlorophyll. More ambient water quality
monitoring efforts to document changes in
water quality from confined animal feeding
operations and other pollution sources
and to provide more information in and
around critical watersheds in the state,
such as Table Rock Lake, were State
priorities. However, the State did not have
sufficient funding to address them.
With the flexibility provided in the
federal Performance Partnership Grant
(PPG) for FY97, the Department of Natural
Resources (DNR) negotiated with EPA
Region VII to set aside up to 15% of the
PPG funds to support State environmental
priorities. Under the agreement, the State
also committed to continue accomplishing
all tasks associated with maintaining
program delegation and to routinely report
to EPA on the status of these initiatives
through progress reports.
The state environmental initiatives were
identified in the Performance Partnership
Agreement and subsequently approved by
EPA.
The cooperative effort between the
department and EPA, Region VII has
allowed DNR to maximize funding to
address high priority environmental
initiatives in Missouri that might not
otherwise have been addressed. The
funding from the PPG to support these
initiatives continues into FY98.
John Young, Director, Division of
Environmental Quality
Missouri Department of Natural Resources
Division of Environmental Quality
P.O. Box 176
Jefferson City, MO 65102-0176
Telephone: (573) 751-8399
Fax: (573) 751-9277
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PARTNERSHIP 2000 REINVENTS THE STATE/EPA
GRANT PROCESS (MA, NY, DE, TX, AND AZ)
EA currently uses a paper-based
rocess to award and manage
nvironmental grants to States.
With its complex programmatic and
administrative components, this process is
resource-intensive, slow, and lacking in
user-friendly features for both EPA and
the States. In addition, the paper medium
does not facilitate collaboration by all
involved in writing and reviewing grant
applications. Frequently the demands of
working through the process strain the
EPA/State relationship.
EPA* and the States established
Partnership 2000 (P2000) to reengineer
the environmental grant process—from the
initial formulation of EPA grant guidance
to State agency award—using an
electronic, user-friendly system to replace
today's outmoded paper-based process.
To launch this effort, the
Environmental Council of the States
conducted a series of workshops with
State agencies to discuss working in a
paperless environment and to achieve a
consensus on State priorities for a
reengineered system. EPA evaluated
various electronic technologies that could
be applied to its grants management
process. With input from the States and
based upon EPA's assessment, the States
of Massachusetts, New York, Delaware,
Texas, and Arizona agreed to participate in
a pilot that would enable them to
automate their grants process and provide
input into the design and testing of a
national grants management system.
These States and their EPA Regional
counterparts shared and vetted the nuts
and bolts of their unique grant processes
so that the new system would be grounded
in day-to-day operations.
P2000 modules were designed to
provide electronic access to grant
guidance, electronic application capability,
and the ability to conduct on-line
workplan negotiation, as well as electronic
approval and award. Now, design work is
beginning for a program management
module that would link State workplans
with environmental goals and results,
using the P2000 system as a tool in the
reporting process. In the future, P2000 will
be fully integrated with EPA's broader
reform initiative for electronic grants
management, the Integrated Grants
Management System (IGMS), which will
add additional capability with post-award
management and closeout modules and
enhanced analytical and reporting
capacity for grants information.
Already participating states can access
national and regional guidance and grant
allocation targets for many Water and Air
programs on line. Feedback indicates that
the electronic availability of grant-related
documents is widening their distribution
among all parties involved in
administering the grants process. Features
are being added which will create review
and comment capability, a useful feature
for collecting regional or state input during
guidance development.
The workplan negotiation module and
the electronic applications and award
processes are now being tested. This
module lets States and EPA review,
comment, and approve workplans within
their own organizations or between each
other. It significantly reduces the massive
photocopying associated with the
workplan development process and
provides reviewers the ability to comment
20
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on-line, automatically consolidating their
comments and making them instantly
available to other reviewers. The electronic
application module allows information to
be stored in a national database for future
reference and retrieval, eliminating the
need for reentry during later stages. The
awards module facilitates administrative
and legal review and the preparation of the
funding package and award document.
To date, pilot states and regions have
commented positively on the user-friendly
nature of the system and its capacity to
facilitate communication. They are
predicting significant savings in resources
and time for the grant process at the state,
regional, and federal levels and enhanced
accountability by tying accomplishments
to grant funds.
Kathleen Herrin
U.S. EPA
Office of Grants and Debarment / 3903R
40 1M Street, S.W.
Washington D.C. 20460
Telephone: (202) 564-5346
Fax: (202) 565-2470
Email: herrin.kathie@epamail.epa.gov
* National Program Offices of Air and
Radiation, Water, and Administration
and Resources Management and
Regional Offices 1,2, 3, 6, and 9.
21
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PERFORMANCE PARTNERSHIP GRANTS
(ALL INTERESTED STATES AND TRIBES)
Historically, States and Tribes have
received a series of separate,
categorical grants from EPA to use
in implementing particular environmental
protection programs. Because each grant
was program-specific, grant funds could be
used only in restricted program areas, with
virtually no cross-program flexibility
allowed. Given these strict stipulations,
States and Tribes often found it difficult to
focus their resources on their most critical
environmental priorities, because funds
could not be co-mingled among program
areas. Under the traditional grant
management system, States and Tribes
must maintain separate accounts, produce
reports, and provide varying matching cost
shares for each grant received. The
problems inherent in this arrangement are
twofold. First, it does not support the more
integrated, multi-media approaches to
environmental management that often are
called for in order to address environmental
and public health challenges. Second, in a
time when environmental resources are
limited nationwide, single-media constraints
can be inefficient, preventing managers
from targeting funds to the greatest risks.
Following an agreement reached with
state environmental commissioners in 1995,
EPA established Performance Partnership
Grants (PPGs) to give States more funding
flexibility. Under PPGs, States and Tribes
have the option of combining multiple
grants into a single grant, and to target
their resources towards their most pressing
environmental problems. As compared to
traditional grants, PPGs reduce
administrative costs considerably. In
conjunction with the National
Environmental Performance Partnership
System (NEPPS) framework, PPGs allow
States and Tribes to target programs to
specific environmental goals and to create
innovative strategies for achieving
environmental results.
The evidence available so far indicates
that PPGs will allow States and Tribes to
devote less time and resources to grant
applications, budgets, work plans, and
reports. They should benefit from simplified
accounting systems because they will no
longer have to track and keep separate
several discrete funds for separate
environmental programs. These time and
resource savings can be redirected to solving
high-priority environmental problems.
EPA published Interim Guidance for
PPGs in December 1995, in the Federal
Register, and updated the Interim Guidance
in July 1996. The April 1996 Omnibus
Consolidated Rescissions and
Appropriations Act (P.L. 104-134) gave EPA
statutory authorization for Performance
Partnership Grants for States and Tribes.
EPA subsequently convened a workgroup of
State, Tribal, and EPA representatives to
revise the applicable federal regulations (40
CFR Part 35) to reflect the availability of
Performance Partnership Grants. The
proposed rule is expected to be ready for
publication in the Federal Register early in
1998.
As of June 1, 1997, approximately 5
Tribes and 40 State agencies in 36 States
have Performance Partnership Grants in
place.
Contftct:
Scott McMoran
U.S. EPA
Chief, Grants Operations Branch / 3903R
401 M Street, S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20460
Telephone: (202) 564-5376
Fax: (202) 565-2468.
Email: McMoran.Scott@epamail.epa.gov
22
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EXPANDING USE OF STATE REVOLVING LOAN FUNDS
FOR CLEAN WATER PROJECTS
(MULTIPLE STATES)
Although the Clean Water Act
established the State Revolving
Fund (SRF) Program to provide
needed financing for a variety of water
quality improvements, individual State
programs have directed these funds almost
exclusively to wastewater infrastructure.
Most SRF programs were not designed to
address nonpoint source, estuarine, and
other less discrete water quality threats—
despite increasing evidence that these
problems are more significant relative to
traditional point source discharges.
Recognizing the important need to
secure funding for a broader universe of
projects, EPA initiated a dialogue with the
States to begin developing a more flexible
SRF funding framework. Based on this
effort, EPA issued new guidance in 1996
clarifying possible uses of funds and
providing States with tools to establish
statewide or watershed based priority-
setting systems that accommodate their
needs.
By working together, EPA and the
States came to consensus on an
appropriate funding framework that allows
more risk-based management. Based on
this guidance:
* Several States including CA, CO, NY,
OH, and RI have established
integrated priority setting systems
for targeting SRF resources. Nine
States, AZ, CO, MN, MT, NY, OH, TN
RI, and WA have used CWA Section
104(b) 3 funds to develop and pilot
test the approach.
* To date, these States have funded
899 NFS projects and 9 estuarine
projects with a combined value of
more than $650 million through
their SRF programs.
* EPA has developed a training
program to assist States interested
in establishing a more integrated,
risk-based SRF program.
Cvntad:
Kong S. Chiu
U.S. EPA
Office of Water / 4204
401 M. Street SW
Washington, DC 20460
Telephone: (202) 260-1722
Fax: (202) 260-1827
Email: chiu.kong@epamail.epa.gov
23
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GEORGIA FACILITY REDUCES ENVIRONMENTAL
"FOOTPRINT," GAINS REGULATORY
FLEXIBILITY THROUGH NEGOTIATED
PROJECT XL AGREEMENT (GA)
C/wllm
Since the early 1990s, Georgia has
actively recognized industrial
facilities that have demonstrated
leadership and innovation in
environmental protection. However, until
recently, the State had been frustrated
because such recognition could not be
translated into regulatory flexibility as a
way to encourage experimental
innovations aimed at achieving truly
meaningful environmental results. There
was no vehicle for providing such
regulatory flexibility.
When EPA announced Project XL
(excellence and Leadership)—which offers
regulatory flexibility in exchange for
achieving better environmental results—
the State nominated the Weyerhaeuser
facility in Oglethorpe as a possible XL
facility, particularly because of an ongoing
innovative program there called Minimum
Impact Manufacturing (MIM). MIM is a
holistic strategy for continuous
environmental improvement. It lays out a
series of steps to be taken over many years
to reduce the overall environmental
impact, or "footprint," of a facility. The
MIM program is an integral part of the
business plan for the entire company, and
it has the support of managers throughout
the organization. Weyerhaeuser officials
had introduced Georgia officials to the
MIM concept several years earlier and were
convinced of its viability and its
compatibility with the goals of Project XL.
EPA was impressed with the potential of
MIM, but thought that MIM could reach
higher levels of environmental protection
and benefit if teamed with Project XL. The
proposal was approved for negotiations
toward a Project XL agreement early in
1996.
EPA and State representatives met and
divided leadership responsibility for
various portions of the draft agreement.
24
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Both, teams were able to rely on each
other's analyses on certain issues, while '
working cooperatively together on others.
The shared objective was to develop a
signed Project XL Final Project Agreement
within a year. This objective was achieved
when a Final Project Agreement was
signed in January 1997.
Several kinds of benefits are expected
to flow from this Final Project XL
Agreement which is designed to achieve
superior environmental performance.
These include greatly expanded public
access to monitoring data, reduction in the
toxic waste stream, tightened permit limits
under the National Pollution Discharge
Elimination System (NPDES), conservation
of water, less solid waste generated by the
facility, targeted energy savings, the
recovery and reuse of lime mud, and
improved forest management practices. In
exchange for these commitments, the Final
Project Agreement gives Weyerhaeuser
flexibility in achieving the level of emission
reductions required by the MACT standard
and certain flexibility as to how the facility
conducts environmental reporting.
Michelle Glenn
U.S. EPA Region 4 / WMD-OCS
61 Forsyth Street
Atlanta, GA 30303
Telephone: (404) 562-8674
Fax: (404) 562-9598
Email: glenn.michelle@epamail.epa.gov
25
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NORTH CAROLINA LEADS TRANSITION TO
WATERSHED-BASED MONITORING (NC)
In the past, States have managed water
quality programs more in response to
mandated deadlines than to watershed-
based risks and priorities. This result is
largely based on a federal Clean Water Act
requirement that States must renew water
quality permits every five years. Because
the renewals were not conducted
geographically (i.e, by watershed), staff
believed that agency resources were not
being used as efficiently or effectively as
possible. Without simultaneous issuance,
it was difficult to determine how all
permitted discharges might affect overall
watershed conditions, a result that
hindered management decisions as well as
public stakeholder involvement.
Furthermore, staff might travel to the
same basin year after year to conduct
monitoring that might be accomplished in
a single outing.
In order to achieve a watershed-based
permitting cycle and still comply with the
federal mandate, North Carolina proposed
to issue five-year permits along with short-
term permits where needed to achieve
synchronization. The State faced obstacles
in the form of added workload along with
pressure from EPA's regional office to
eliminate the backlog of permits needing
reissuance. The State lacked the resources
to issue the short-term permits while also
addressing the backlog, so they proposed
to reissue the short-term permits without
modeling and to focus on establishing a
watershed based permitting framework.
The State asked EPA for special technical
assistance to help develop a transition
strategy. This assistance was provided and
ultimately led to development of an
acceptable strategy that has allowed
watershed-based permitting to proceed.
Today, North Carolina has
synchronized permitting and related
activities in about half of its basins. While
this approach was begun partly to help
achieve greater efficiency, savings have yet
to be realized as additional data
management and basin coordination
activities have grown. But over the long-
term, the State still expects to gain
benefits in the form of cost-savings,
improved water quality modeling and
decision-making capabilities, and more
meaningful stakeholder involvement. In
the past few years, watershed associations
have sprung up in several basins that are
helping to define priorities and supplement
State monitoring efforts.
What began as a streamlining effort in
one State has led to a breakthrough in the
water resource management arena.
Understanding the potential long-term
benefits, 20 States are now working
towards watershed-based monitoring,
reporting, and permitting programs of
their own.
Gail Vanderhoogt
U.S. EPA Region 4, 4 WMD-Water
61 Forsyth Street
Atlanta, GA 30303
Telephone: (404) 562-9232
Fax: (404) 562-9598
Email: vanderhoogt.gail@epamail.epa.gov
Greg Currey
U.S. EPA
Office of Water / 4203
401 M. Street SW
Washington, DC 20460
Telephone: (202) 260-1718
Fax: (202) 260-1460
Email: currey.gregory@epamail.epa.gov
26
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ONE STOP PERMITTING (MS)
In late 1996, EPA Region 4 provided
financial support to the Mississippi
Department of Environmental Quality
(MDEQ) to reengineer several core
business processes in the Office of
Pollution Control (OPC). One of three
processes was environmental permitting.
Currently, environmental permits are
processed and issued by four MDEQ
divisions: Air, Surface Water, Groundwater,
and Hazardous Waste. As a result, a
regulated facility may be required to
obtain multiple permits for the same site.
This approach increases regulatory burden
and hinders multi-media environmental
management.
The reengineered permitting process
that evolved includes a variety of features
to enhance environmental results and
improve efficiency. Rather than
four separate divisions handling
media-specific permits, the new
process calls for a single person—
a Permit Manager—to be
responsible for all permits
required for a given facility.
Depending upon the number and
complexity of the permits
required, this person will either
coordinate a multimedia team of
permit writers or will handle the
required permits independently.
In either case, any party required
to obtain environmental permits from OPC
will deal with a single individual who will
be accountable for all permit actions
related to that party's facility. In addition
to making the process much simpler, this
approach may result in more operational
flexibility and cost-savings.
Ensuring more effective communication
with applicants before permit submissions
so that both the applicant and OPC
permitting staff can work as efficiently as
possible is another priority. Providing the
applicant with guidance on permitting
alternatives, such as general permits and
options for reduced permitting
requirements based on pollution
prevention commitments, will also be
conducted at this stage with the stated
goal of minimizing the reliance on single
media and individual permits.
After appropriate pre-application
communication, the new process calls for
the Permit Manager and the applicant to
sign a non-enforceable agreement
specifying the applicant's obligations and
MDEQ's commitments regarding
timeliness of the permitting process if the
applicant meets those obligations. This
agreement will clarify the applicant's
uncertainties related to the permitting
process.
Based on the signed agreement, the
Permit Manager will prepare a customized
permit application for the applicant. This
application will allow the applicant
to submit all of the information
required for processing all permits
at one time to one individual. As a
result, facilities avoid submitting
information that is duplicative or
not applicable to the facility's
specific operations. To further
improve efficiency, OPC will
develop electronic information
management systems to allow
online permit submissions over the
Internet.
At the time the customized application
is submitted, members of the public who
would potentially be affected by the
permitted action will be notified in a way
that promotes meaningful public input
early in the application review process.
This early public notice should allow the
applicant and OPC staff to address any
public concerns as the review is being
conducted and the permits are being
27
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drafted. The result should be more
effective permits and shorter public
comment periods after the permit is
drafted.
In addition to being more efficient and
user-friendly for the regulated community,
this new approach also has advantages for
the State. The new approach should help
staff develop and maintain a high level of
expertise in pollution prevention options
and regulatory incentives that can be
offered for applicants that agree to build
pollution prevention into their permitted
activities. In addition, staff will develop
expertise in more than one program and
environmental medium, allowing for more
flexible deployment to address changing
needs and priorities. Finally, the move to
consolidate permitting requirements for
facilities should enhance multi-media
environmental assessment and
management opportunities.
OPC is reorganizing its staff to support
the new "one-stop" permitting process. The
transition from traditional, single-media
permitting will be managed using a
thoughtful, phased implementation
schedule. The first phase of
implementation of the new process will be
focused on industrial permitting.
Significant movement of staff to support
this new approach will occur in early
February of 1998. The staff will be
oriented around industrial sectors rather
than media or types of permits.
Contact:
Jerry Cain
Mississippi Department of Environmental
Quality
P.O. Box 10305
Jackson, MS 39289-1305
Telephone: (601) 961-5073
Fax: (601) 961-5703
Email: jerry_cain@deq.state.ms.us
Similar process and organizational
changes have been made in compliance
and enforcement. For further information
in this area, contact Don Watts at (601)
961-5155.
28
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IMPROVED PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IN SITING
LANDFILLS (MO)
In 1993, Region VII EPA and the
Missouri Department of Natural
Resources (DNR) Solid Waste
Management Program undertook a study
to streamline its permitting process. One
of the areas that the study addressed was
public participation in siting and
permitting landfills.
The Solid Waste Management Program
has historically utilized only structured
and formal public hearings in the
permitting process. These public
hearings have often slowed the permit
process, frustrated constituents and
applicants, and may not have been the
most effective or efficient manner of
gathering public comment or encouraging
constructive public participation.
Working with the regulated community,
a new process to involve the public in
landfill siting was tried on a voluntary
basis during 1996 and 1997. The new
process calls for the applicant to hold a
public availability and community
involvement session in the community
surrounding the site of the proposed
landfill. This session is in addition to the
public hearing that takes place much later
in the process.
During these sessions, educational
kiosks are staffed by the applicants and
the department. The applicant's kiosk
usually includes maps of the site,
information about the type of waste the
facility will accept, elevation sketches and
owner/operator background. They also
explain how the regulatory agency
determines if a site is hydrogeologically
suited for a landfill, how the permitting
process works, and how landfills are
inspected after they are constructed.
These sessions are very informal and
held in an "Open House" style, thus
allowing the public to look at displays
and ask questions at their own pace.
They occur very early in the permitting
process so the public can obtain better
information about what is being proposed
and better understand how they can be
part of the process. The sessions are
announced through newspaper and radio
advertisements. Permit applicants are
then asked to summarize and respond in
writing to any comments or questions
raised at this meeting.
This enhanced public participation
process, now incorporated into a proposed
rule, will help ensure early communication
between applicants and the community.
Bringing citizens, landfill owners and
operators, and government officials
together helps define issues, identify
options and fosters a sense of cooperation
rather than promoting adversarial
relationships. Ultimately, this process will
help ensure sound solid waste
management alternatives as the new
century approaches.
Jim Hull
Missouri Department of Natural Resources
Solid Waste Management Program
P.O. Box 176
Jefferson City, MO 65102-0176
Telephone: (573) 526-3900
Fax: (573) 526-3902
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STATE AND FEDERAL AGENCIES REVISE
PROCEDURES TO EXPEDITE ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW
PROCESS (PA)
To develop and build highways, State
Agencies were required to follow a
Lengthy process that involved
developing an Environmental Impact
Statement under the National
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA),
and then, in cases involving
wetland impacts, a Clean Water
Act Section 404 wetlands permit
application. Fulfilling these
requirements added at least 4
years to each and every highway
project. This lengthy time frame
combined with the additional data
collection and analyses resulted
in escalated project costs.
When the State looked at this problem
along with EPA, the Federal Highways
Administration, the Corps of Engineers,
the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the
National Marine Fisheries Service, they
realized that many steps in the EIS
process were similar to those in the
Section 404 process. Understanding the
needs of the development agencies as well
as the environmental agencies led this
federal and state group to develop an
integrated process which built in common
requirements to ensure compliance with
NEPA and the Clean Water Act. The
integrated process coordinates activities
and makes it possible to obtain NEPA
environmental approval and a Clean Water
Act Section 404 permit concurrently.
Since the integrated NEPA EIS/CWA
Section 404 process was adopted, highway
projects are expedited, construction costs
are reduced and the economic benefits of
the completed facility are made
available to the community
sooner. In its first years of
implementation, $119 million
dollars were saved on three
Pennsylvania highway projects
alone. The integrated process also
generates substantial
environmental benefit including a
decrease in direct impacts to
natural and cultural resources,
the development of
environmentally sensitive master
and transportation plans, and the use of
an integrated watershed approach.
Denise M. Rigney
Office of Environmental Programs (3EP30)
NEPA/404Team
841 Chestnut Building
Philadelphia, PA 19107
Telephone: (215) 566-2726
Fax: (215) 566-2782
Email: rigney.denise@epamail.epa.gov
Roy E. Denmark, Jr., Deputy Chief
U.S. EPA Region 3
Office of Environmental Programs / 3EP30
841 Chestnut Building
Philadelphia, PA 19107
Telephone: (215) 566-2721
Fax: (215) 466-2782
Email: denmark.roy@epamail.epa.gov
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THE ELECTRONIC PERMIT SUBMITTAL SYSTEM
(AZ, CA, HI, NV)
The 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments
authorized a new permitting program
under Title V that requires major
and some minor stationary sources of air
pollution to obtain an operating permit.
EPA Region 9 estimated that nearly 3,000
State and local governments in its
jurisdiction would be required to submit a
permit to comply. Traditionally, EPA and
state and local air pollution control
agencies have exchanged permits and
related documents via mail—a slow and
inefficient process that can delay permit
issuance and hamper EPA's ability to
respond quickly to requests for technical
assistance from the agencies or to
inquiries from the general public. Given
the projected workload expansion, EPA
Region 9 recognized a need to update and
automate its permitting system.
Working with the State agencies, Region
9 initiated development of an electronic
permitting process. The result was the
Electronic Permit Submittal System, or
EPSS. EPSS is an electronic (Lotus Notes)
database that is revolutionizing the way
EPA and air agencies exchange permit
data. Permits, engineering reports,
supporting documentation, and EPA's
comments on permits are exchanged
electronically. As use of EPSS increases, it
will become a central repository of air
permit data for EPA, state and local
agencies, and the public.
To date, EPSS has been installed at 16
State and local agencies. Information has
been exchanged with eight agencies, and
more data is expected as agencies prepare
to submit their first Title V operating
permits to EPA.
EPSS has many benefits for both EPA
and its customers. It speeds EPA's review
of permits, assisting the local
permit-issuing authorities in responding
rapidly to the needs of industry. Because
EPSS allows Region 9 and air agencies to
exchange information electronically, the
delays associated with mailing documents
have been eliminated. Because EPA
comments are transmitted to participating
agencies electronically, the agencies have
an automatic signal when permit approval
is given. On average, this capability cuts
the average waiting time in half—from 10
to 5 days.
In addition to streamlining the
permitting process, EPSS tracks the start
and end dates of EPA's 45 day review
period for Title V operating permits. When
EPA does not review a permit, based on a
determination that review is unnecessary,
a no comment letter is transmitted by
EPSS to the permitting authority. This
action provides the authority with a
response to all submissions and reduces
unnecessary waits by permittees.
EPSS also provides for improved public
access and involvement. In the near term,
EPSS allows EPA to respond more rapidly
and accurately to requests for information
about air permits. In the longer term,
EPSS will allow EPA as well as State and
local agencies to provide all interested
parties with information about air quality
permits. A new website, to be completed in
1998, will provide all users with direct
access to EPSS data via the Internet.
Finally, by allowing EPA to focus its
resources on the most environmentally
significant permits, EPSS enables the
Agency to better pursue its core mission of
protecting human health and the
environment.
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Csntstd;
Matt Haber
U.S. EPA Region 9
75 Hawthorne Street
San Francisco CA 94105
Telephone: (415) 744-1254
Fax: (415) 744-1076
Email: haber.matt@epamail.epa.gov
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THE OZONE TRANSPORT COMMISSION'S NOx
BUDGET PROGRAM
(NORTHEAST REGION: ME TO VA)
The Ozone Transport Commission
(OTC), as created by the 1990 Clean
Air Act Amendments, is designed to
help formulate region-wide strategies for
controlling ground level ozone in the
northeastern United States. (The OTC is
comprised of all the northeast States from
Maine to Virginia, plus the District of
Columbia.) Recognizing the importance of
achieving significant reductions in
nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions to achieve
the ambient standard for ozone
throughout the region, the OTC States
developed a Memorandum of
Understanding (MOU) in September 1994
that prescribed future reductions to this
end. The MOU calls for region-wide NOx
reductions in 1999 and 2003 from electric
generating and large industrial
combustion facilities.
In order to achieve the emissions
reductions at lowest cost to the affected
facilities, the OTC States chose to
implement the MOU as a regional cap and
trade program modeled after EPA's Acid
Rain Program as an alternative to
traditional facility-by-facility permitting.
Following creation of the MOU, several
EPA offices (Regions I, II, and III and the
Office of Air) along with representatives
from industry and the environmental
community worked with the OTC States
to develop a single model rule to support
trading. The model rule, approved by the
OTC in February 1996, identifies key
elements that should be consistent among
the States' requirements. The States are
now working to adopt their State
regulations in order to allow for the
operation of an integrated interstate
emissions trading program. Building upon
EPA's experience in administering the Acid
Rain Program, the OTC States requested
that EPA manage the emissions and
allowance information for the NOx Budget
Program. As such, EPA's Acid Rain
Division will be responsible for managing
this information and for determining
compliance for all affected facilities; the
States will retain the implementation' and
enforcement authority for the program.
The OTC States are currently at
different stages of developing and adopting
new State regulations. The program is on
course to begin implementing trades in
May 1999. EPA estimates that the NOx
Budget Program will achieve a cost savings
of approximately 33%* below the cost of
implementing the program through
traditional regulatory controls.
Contact:
Carla Oldham
U.S. EPA
U.S. EPA Mail Room
Research Triangle Park, NC
Telephone: (919) 541-3347
Fax: (919) 541-0824
Email: oldham.carol@epamail.epa.gov
* "Estimated Effects of Alternative NOx
Cap and Trading Schemes in the
Northeast Ozone Transport Region,"
ICF Resources, September 1995.
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PILOT PROGRAM FOR POLLUTION PREVENTION
PROJECTS (P4) (CT, GA, NM, OR, WA)
Under Title V of the Clean Air Act
(CAA), over 20,000 industrial
facilities are required to obtain
comprehensive operating permits that
include all applicable CAA requirements.
Many industries have expressed concern
over their ability to keep pace with
changing market demands if each physical
or operational change within their facilities
must be individually reviewed and
approved by the State via a permit
modification. The industry's view was that
the current preconstruction review
program and the subsequent need for
incorporation into the Title V permit would
critically impact the timing of the change
and, in markets such as electronics which
depend on quick response, ultimately
affect global competitiveness. A solution
was needed that would provide the
necessary flexibility to sources within
existing regulatory requirements.
To address this problem, last year EPA
initiated the pollution prevention
permitting program (P4) to test ways of
providing more operational flexibility
within the existing regulatory structure
and of achieving better environmental
protection through improved pollution
prevention techniques. Through a series of
pilot projects, EPA is working with States
and industry to develop innovative permits
that provide advance approval of certain
operational changes, provided they comply
with a facility-wide emissions cap and
meet certain emission control technology
requirements. These provisions essentially
preapprove certain operational changes to
occur over the 5-year life of a permit
without further regulatory agency review.
To date, EPA has worked in
partnership with Connecticut, Georgia,
New Mexico, Oregon, Oklahoma, and
Washington in developing flexible permits
for industries such as electronics
manufacturing, and pharmaceutical and
chemical production. These partnerships
result in permits that provide necessary
operational flexibility to the industry,
reduce burden to both States and
industry, and achieve equal if not better
environmental protection than required
under current rules.
The P4 program is expected to produce
several important benefits. First,
promotion of pollution prevention
opportunities and overall net reductions in
emission levels are likely to improve
environmental protection. Second, the
experience of developing these innovative
permits on a pilot basis will help lay the
framework for potential broader
applications to other industries and for
addressing other environmental problems.
Third, operational flexibility may help
companies avoid unnecessary financial
losses that can occur as a result of
regulatory delay. In one pilot project
involving a pharmaceutical plant in
Georgia, the company—Searle
Corporation—estimated that the added
operational flexibility helped save up to $1
million per day. Finally, streamlining the
review process is expected to lower
workload burdens for air emissions
sources and permitting authorities,
allowing each to focus on higher priority
issues.
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Mike Tratna
U.S. EPA
U.S. EPA Mailroom / MD-12
Research Triangle Park, NC 27711
Telephone: (919) 541-5345
Fax: (919) 541-4028
Email: trutna.mike@epamail.epa.gov
Dave Dellarco
U.S. EPA Region 10
1200 Sixth Avenue
OI-085
Seattle, WA 98101
Telephone: (206) 553-4978
Fax: (206) 553-8338
Email: dellarco.dave@epamail.epa.gov
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REDUCED RCRA REPORTING REQUIREMENTS
ACHIEVED THROUGH PERFORMANCE
PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT (FL)
For many years, Florida carried out
delegated Resource Conservation
and Recovery Act (RCRA)
responsibilities in accordance with a
traditional Cooperative Agreement
between EPA and the state. Under
this arrangement, EPA's oversight
role involved reviewing extensive
documentation required from the
state to demonstrate fulfillment of
its permitting, inspection, cleanup,
and enforcement responsibilities
under RCRA. This documentation
was voluminous and included all
inspection reports, sampling data,
exposure information reports,
enforcement documentation,
permit applications, minutes of
technical meetings, and public
meeting notices. These reporting
requirements were a tremendous burden
to the State. They were also burdensome
to EPA regional staff in the RCRA program,
who were assigned to review and interpret
all the data and documentation submitted.
In the course of developing a
Performance Partnership Agreement,
Florida and EPA officials created an
itemized list of all data and documentation
routinely being submitted to EPA
for oversight purposes,
indicating the purpose served by
each item. Upon reviewing this
detailed list, EPA and Florida
officials were able to agree on a
scaled-back set of regular
submissions needed by EPA to
determine the adequacy of the
RCRA program in Florida. As
part of the agreement, EPA has
the option of requesting
additional information from the
state if needed, and the State
has agreed to provide such items
immediately.
As a result of Florida's Performance
Partnership Agreement with EPA, the
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state's reporting requirements have been
cut by about 75%, effective April 1997,
and EPA receives only the information it
needs. Consequently both State and EPA
staff have been given back time previously
spent submitting and reviewing
voluminous amounts of information in
order to satisfy procedural requirements—
restored time that can be devoted to high-
priority environmental issues. Moreover,
the new arrangement has helped foster
trust and build a better working
partnership between EPA and the State.
C&nfact:
Jeff Pallas
U.S. EPA Region 4 / 4WD-RCRA
61 Forsyth Street
Atlanta, GA 30303
Telephone: (404) 562-8569
Fax: (404) 562-9598.
Email: Pallas.Jeff@epamail.epa.gov
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"ONE-STOP" DEMONSTRATION PROJECT IMPROVES
ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION (NJ)
iecause U.S. environmental
standards originated from a series
of media-specific environmental
statutes passed sequentially over the last
25 years or so (the Clean Air Act, the Clean
Water Act, and the Resource Conservation
and Recovery Act, among others),
regulators and the regulated community
routinely deal with multiple single-media
permitting and environmental reporting
requirements, even for a single facility. In
carrying out their program responsibilities
under these environmental laws, states
collect a great deal of environmental
data. Consistent with the media-
specific legislation and program
management frameworks, this data
is typically stored and managed in
separate media-specific data bases,
that are generally incompatible with
each other. In other words, the
databases are not "integrated" in
ways that can easily support cross-
media environmental assessments.
This deficiency is a major obstacle to
multi-media permitting, facility-wide
pollution prevention, increased
public access to environmental
information, and other evolving demands
upon environmental regulatory programs.
As part of a larger program aimed at
supporting State information reforms, in
September 1996, EPA awarded a
$500,000 "One-Stop" Demonstration grant
to the New Jersey Department of
Environmental Protection (NJDEP) to
develop an integrated "systems" approach
to environmental data management.
Building upon its new "Masterfile" system,
New Jersey is taking a "warehousing"
approach to its ongoing information
reengineering effort. Rather than
reengineering and integrating all of its data
systems, the NJDEP developed a model
data system (Enterprise Data Model),
standardized key data according to that
model and established the Masterfile to
house and integrate all site-related data in
one location. The Masterfile is a user-
friendly, central repository that provides
access to multimedia compliance and
environmental data on regulated facilities.
The Masterfile will replace the
Departmental Integrated Facility Files
(DIFF), which currently integrates
information from approximately 20
individual program databases. The
Masterfile will allow both internal
and external users to access basic
facility information and links to
other relevant program databases,
and to the Department's
Geographic Information System
(GIS). Through the Masterfile, users
will be able to electronically pull
relevant data from the program-
specific databases and merge
information into single reports for
immediate viewing. A single multi-
program report (or GIS-generated
map) will be displayed presenting a
complete accounting of NJDEP's
involvement with a facility. NJDEP also
will be using One-stop grant funds to
explore opportunities to link its databases
with EPA's information systems and other
relevant national program databases. The
State also committed to improving public
access to environmental information.
The first official deliverable under this
grant was completed March 31, 1997. An
easy-to-use interactive CD was produced
to provide public access to selected GIS
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data sets and familiarize users with GIS
tools. Other activities since the start of this
project include the collection of 12,858
facilities' locational coordinates using
global positioning systems (GPS)
techniques and the verification of its air
system data with the program records in
preparation for connection to the
Masterfile. NJDEP's goal is to eventually
connect all major site/facility-related
databases to the Masterfile system. The
resulting integrated system will draw on all
potential sources of program data for a
given site/facility.
Richard Yue
U.S. EPA Region 2
290 Broadway
New York, NY 10007-1866
Telephone: (212) 637-3424
Fax: (212) 637-3772
Email: yue.richard@epamail.epa.gov
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PERFORMANCE BASED REDUCTION IN MONITORING
AND REPORTING FOR WATER PERMITS (OK)
G>
Under the federal Clean Water Act's
National Pollutant Discharge
Elimination System (NPDES), all
facilities that discharge wastewater to
waters of the United States are required to
obtain a permit prior to discharge, to
routinely monitor compliance with these
permits, and to report to the States and
EPA through Discharge Monitoring Reports
(DMR). The monitoring and DMRs are
critical components in a comprehensive
system that allows the States and EPA to
assure compliance with environmental
standards. The amount of information
being collected has grown considerably
over time—NPDES monitoring and
reporting is recognized as one of the
largest environmental regulatory burdens
imposed on the regulated community.
Many regulated facilities have a history
of excellent compliance and are performing
even better than required under their
permit limits. As such, EPA recognized
that monitoring and reporting
requirements might be reduced—based on
a record of excellent compliance and
performance—without compromising the
integrity of the NPDES program.
Based on an extensive analysis of
historical permit and compliance
information, EPA determined that
monitoring and reporting could, in fact, be
reduced for many facilities while still
providing the permitting agency with an
ability to assure public health and
environmental protection. Through a
partnership with the States and EPA
regional offices, EPA's Office of Water and
Office of Enforcement and Compliance
Assurance developed criteria for reducing
the frequency of reporting and monitoring
for facilities with excellent compliance and
performance records. EPA issued interim
guidance specifying the criteria in April
1996.
When fully implemented, this guidance
could reduce the existing NPDES
monitoring and reporting burden by about
25% nationwide. On average, monitoring
and reporting at individual facilities would
drop by about 25%-30%. However, certain
facilities with exemplary compliance and
enforcement records could be eligible for
reductions of up to 80%. Appropriate
reductions will be incorporated into
permits as they come up for renewal
through the NPDES permitting cycle, thus
minimizing the administrative burdens
associated with guidance implementation.
The States and EPA Regions are now in
the process of implementing the interim
guidance. The State of Oklahoma has been
particularly successful in implementation.
Oklahoma assumed delegation of the
NPDES program from EPA in November
1996. Since then all wastewater permits
up for reissuance have been screened to
determine eligibility for monitoring and
reporting reductions. Based on this
screening, approximately 70% of the
dischargers were found to be eligible for
some reductions. Oklahoma is in the
process of issuing these permits with
reduced monitoring and reporting and no
negative responses have been received
through the public comment process.
Contact:
Jim Home
U.S. EPA / 4201
401 M St, S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20460
Telephone: (202) 260-5802
Fax:(202)260-1040
Email: horne.jim@epamail.epa.gov
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BAY AREA GREEN BUSINESS PROGRAM (CA)
In the past, small businesses have been
expected to comply with environmental
regulations through a regulatory
system composed of many different
agencies representing different levels of
government and programs. In many cases,
small business owners perceive that their
facility is being inspected continuously in
order to find fault with environmental
performance. From a governmental
perspective, the limited resources of small
businesses is regarded as an obstacle to
bringing small businesses into compliance
and introducing pollution
prevention and resource
conservation techniques.
The (San Francisco) Bay Area
Green Business Program (GBP) is
an EPA Region 9 cooperative effort
with state and local governments
to test a new model which
consolidates environmental
compliance requirements, and
provides resource conservation
and pollution prevention information as
well as public recognition for improving
performance. The model was developed
based on input from the small business
community. They identified the following
needs as most important:
* Better working relationships with
regulators,
* A single source to go to for all
environmental compliance
information,
* A consolidated set of environmental
compliance requirements,
* Information on useful resource
conservation and pollution
prevention practices, and,
* Recognition for being
environmentally responsible.
The GBP model, initially
targeting the automotive repair
industry, provides a fully
integrated compliance and
pollution prevention recognition
program. The first of its kind,
GBP goes beyond other
environmental recognition
programs by recognizing
environmental compliance and
adherence to pollution
prevention/ resource
conservation standards.
Since January 1996, Region 9 has
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provided funding and staff support to local
governments in Napa and Alameda
Counties to implement the GBP model.
Participating agencies include the
California Regional Water Quality Control
Board, the California Department of Toxic
Substances Control, the Bay Area Air
Quality Management District, the Country
Environmental Health Agencies, City Fire
Departments, and local wastewater
treatment plants. In June 1997, both
counties conducted recognition events for
the auto repair shops that achieved the
program standards. Based on the results,
other counties have come forward
expressing interest and a desire to
implement the program as well.
Over the next year, this program will be
extended to address the wine and printing
industries. In addition, EPA's Office
Enforcement and Compliance Assurance
(OECA) will develop a national 'Road Show3
through the Joint Center for Sustainable
Communities (a partnership of the U.S.
Conference of Mayors and the National
Association of Counties) as a means of
promoting the program for use in other
communities. This effort will be a key test
in determining whether small business
recognition/ compliance programs can be
transferred more broadly.
Mark Samolis
U.S. EPA Region 9 / SPE-1
75 Hawthorne Street
San Francisco CA 94105
Telephone: (415) 744-2331
Fax: (415) 744-1916
Email: samolis.mark@epamail.epa.gov
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TAX LAW REFORMS HELP IMPROVE
AIR QUALITY (CA)
In 1992, California passed a law
requiring certain employers who offer
free parking to their employees at work
to also offer an equivalent benefit for other
commuting options. Intended as a way to
discourage solo driving and reduce air
pollution from automobiles, the law
applied to employers in areas of the state
with poor air quality. It did not require
employers to increase spending on their
transportation benefits programs. Rather it
was designed to allow
employers already incurring
costs for parking to recoup
those costs to fund a cash
ridesharing subsidy or public
transit benefit instead.
Shortly after the
California law was passed,
Congress passed the Energy
Policy Act of 1992, which included tax-
exempt parking as part of a new set of
transportation fringe benefits. But it also
stipulated that employers who offered
taxable cash in lieu of tax-exempt
parking—exactly the offer being made
under California law—would lose their tax
exemption for any parking provided to any
employee. Furthermore, employees would
be required to treat their parking as
income, creating additional tax liability.
Because California did not want to
increase the tax liabilities for its employers
or residents, it elected not to enforce its
law. But this created problems for the
State in meeting its air quality goals,
particularly in Southern California. As San
Diego Congressman Brian Bilbray
expressed it recently, "It had a way of
killing our clean air strategy in California."
California explained the problem to
U.S. EPA, which coincidentally was
looking at ways of using commuter benefit
incentives to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions from the transportation sector.
EPA developed a federal proposal, called
Parking Cash Out, that was modeled on
the California law and removed the federal
tax disincentive to offering employees
choice among commute benefits. The
proposal was included in the President's
1993 Climate Change Action Plan.
The original proposal was attached to
the General Agreement on Tariffs and
Trade legislation in 1994, but was not
enacted. U.S. EPA and U.S.
DOT worked jointly to craft a
new proposal, and the
Administration proposed a
new version of the measure in
its 1997 transportation
reauthorization bill. Senator
Chafee (R-RI) sponsored a
similar measure as part of the Tax Relief
Act of 1997, which was enacted. Beginning
with taxable year 1998, this measure
eliminates the federal tax penalty for
offering taxable cash in lieu of tax-exempt
parking.
Beginning in 1998, California will be
able to implement its 1992 law without
concern about added tax liability. And any
state may use this new tax tool to improve
air quality, either by adopting mandatory
programs like California's or by educating
employers on how to use the new flexibility
in the tax code to add more choices in
employee commute benefits programs
without increasing employer spending on
those programs. To further assist states in
using the new tax provisions to help meet
their air quality goals, EPA will issue
guidance in early 1998 on taking credit in
state implementation plans for commuter
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choice-type programs that improve air
quality.
Ultimately, this tax reform could prove
a powerful tool for improving air quality.
Eight California employers—who chose to
comply with the State law despite the
negative federal tax consequences—found
that solo driving to work fell by 17 percent,
on average. The resulting emission
reduction is the equivalent of taking one in
eight cars headed to these sites off the
road during rush hour, the time of day
when smog formation begins.
Laura Gottsman
U.S. EPA/ 2 129
40 1M Street, S.W.
Washington D.C. 20460
Telephone: (202) 260-9247
Fax:(202)260-0512
Email: gottsman.laura@epamail.epa.gov
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STREAMLINING RCRA CORRECTIVE ACTION
PROCEDURE (IL)
-a,
-L'
Standard RCRA corrective action
procedures are extensive and
include many steps—investigative
sampling, corrective measures
investigation, risk assessment, and
corrective action implementation. The
thoroughness of the procedure
ensures that the extent of the
environmental problem is identified
and that appropriate action is
implemented. But, each step is time
consuming, delaying remediation and
prolonging releases of hazardous
constituents to the environment. It
has become apparent that these
procedures may not always be
appropriate for each facility involved
in corrective action, and that a
streamlined process was needed.
This realization was highlighted by
a corrective action dilemma at a Marathon
Oil Company facility in Robinson, Illinois.
The company was allocated significant
funds by its parent company for
environmental restoration, however, the
funds needed to be utilized within one
year. Marathon proposed using the money
to voluntarily remediate five solid waste
management units (SWMUs) at the site. In
order to take advantage of this windfall,
EPA Region 5, the Illinois Environmental
Protection Agency (IEPA), and
Marathon Oil Company needed to act
quickly, knowing that the accelerated
timeframe would require flexibility
and some level of risk-taking by all
parties involved.
Based on the company's
willingness to excavate all of the
SWMUs and the need to complete
remediation within one year, EPA and
IEPA chose not to perform all of the
standard investigative sampling and
corrective measures investigations.
Instead they allowed the facility to proceed
with expedited remediation. Working with
EPA, the State issued a permit for a
corrective action management unit (CAMU)
45
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that allowed the facility to treat the
excavated material and to perform soil
sampling in the remaining areas in the
SWMUs to verify that cleanup had been
achieved.
Rank
The successful results of the
streamlined RCRA corrective action at
Marathon Oil demonstrated that, with the
appropriate safeguards in place, RCRA
corrective action procedures can be
managed more efficiently in some
circumstances. Compared to the standard
corrective action scenario, remediation
time was cut by years and costs to the
company and to regulatory agencies were
reduced. In addition, the company gained
previously contaminated land for
productive uses.
Following successful completion, the
Company shared the results from this
innovative effort with others in the
petroleum refining industry. They gave a
presentation at the industry's national
meeting titled Do What Makes Sense,
which documented how the company and
the regulatory authorities were able to
work together to achieve mutually
beneficial results.
Gale Hruska
U.S. EPA Region 5 / DRP-87
77 West Jackson Boulevard
Chicago, IL 60604-3507
Telephone: (312) 886-0989
Fax:(312)353-4788
Email: hruska.gale@epamail.epa.gov
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SETTING SUPERFUND PRIORITIES (KS)
By definition, a Superfund site is an
abandoned hazardous waste site
that poses a threat to public health
and the environment, as specified under
the Comprehensive Emergency Response,
Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA).
Not all sites referred for Superfund
consideration meet the criteria for a
Superfund site and may be better suited
for a different state or federal program
such as EPA's Brownfields Economic
Redevelopment Initiative. The process of
determining whether a site is fully eligible
for Superfund cleanup is resource-
intensive, requiring EPA to make a series
of decisions at each stage of the process
(such as the Preliminary Assessment and
Site Inspection stages). In the past, states
have not had the authority to determine
how to address a clean up site
without EPA approval.
In October 1995, the
Administrator announced
Superfund Reform initiatives,
one of which pilots giving a
State the authority to select
the type of clean up required
at certain sites. The pilots are
evaluated and the lessons
learned from the experience
are publicized. The State of Kansas and
EPA's Region VII developed a Site
Assessment State Empowerment Pilot
Project (State Empowerment Pilot) as one
outcome of these Superfund Reforms.
Under this pilot, Kansas was given
increased decision-making authority at the
preliminary site assessment stages.
Specifically, Kansas is performing "Pre-
CERCLIS Screening" investigations to
determine whether immediate Superfund
action is necessary, whether the site may
be more quickly and effectively addressed
by another state or federal program, or
whether the site should be addressed by a
traditional Superfund investigation.
Potentially responsible parties (PRPs) are
identified, and possible Brownfields
eligibility is evaluated in this initial site
screening.
This pilot project changes the EPA-
State relationship from one based on
"command and control" to one based on
cooperation and delegated authority. EPA's
close oversight role is lessened, saving
federal resources and reducing transaction
costs.
Preliminary results indicate that under
the State Empowerment Pilot, Kansas is
expediting the pre-remedial stages of
decision-making concerning problem sites
referred for Superfund. Using
the traditional site assessment
approach, the Kansas
Department of Health and the
Environment, on average,
performed 20 Preliminary
Assessments, ten Site
Investigations, and one to two
Expanded Site Investigations—
a total of 32 site assessment
projects. Under the State
Empowerment Pilot, the
department completed 67
Initial Site Screening, 36 Site
Reconnaissance and Evaluation and four
Preliminary Removal Evaluations, two Site
Investigations and one Integrated
Preliminary Assessment/Sight
Investigations—a total of 110 assessment
projects.
Anticipated benefits in Kansas include:
* Fewer sites directed to CERCLIS,
reducing EPA's costs
* Streamlined screening and
assessment of sites
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4 More sites managed by appropriate
state cleanup programs
The bottom line: this pilot enhances the
development of state Super-fund expertise
and encourages Brownfields
redevelopment, participation in voluntary
cleanup programs, and other appropriate
initiatives for particular sites. For the same
investment of cooperative agreement
funding and time, the pre-CERCLIS/State
Empowerment approach significantly
expedites preliminary decision-making on
problem sites as compared to the
traditional site assessment process.
Missouri is now in the process of
implementing their own Pre-CERCLIS
Screening program.
Cecilia Tapia
U.S. EPA Region 7
Superfund Division
726 Minnesota Ave.
Kansas City, KS 66101
Telephone: (913) 551-7733
Fax: (913) 551-7063
Email: tapia.cecilia@epamail.epa.gov
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EXPEDITED CORRECTIVE ACTION PROGRAM
FACILITATES HAZARDOUS WASTE TREATMENT,
STORAGE, AND DISPOSAL (MO)
Many hazardous waste treatment,
storage and disposal (TSD)
facilities in Missouri have
successfully closed or are closing their
hazardous waste management units, but
under RCRA must complete corrective
actions before they can be released from
regulatory oversight. These activities are
traditionally administered under consent
orders or permits issued by EPA or
authorized states.
In the Missouri Department of Natural
Resources' (MDNR) and EPA's
administration of the corrective action
program, all TSD facilities are ranked from
low to high in terms of their priority—
based upon documented releases or
potential releases of hazardous waste
material from the waste management
units. Facilities that receive low to medium
priority rankings typically do not get
agency action until the higher
environmental priorities are addressed.
This process can take years.
Many low and medium priority facilities
have expressed interest in taking a
proactive approach to corrective action
with oversight and approval of MDNR, but
without waiting for the traditional priority
list to drive the process. However,
performing corrective action voluntarily
without MDNR or EPA oversight and
approval leaves the facility vulnerable to
potential future corrective action liabilities.
MDNR is currently developing the
Expedited Corrective Action Program to
allow these proactive facilities to proceed
with corrective activities. The State would
still maintain oversight and provide
approval; however, facilities can take
action more quickly and avoid the
potential liability by doing so. The Program
is expected to consist of three elements.
The first two elements, a Final Corrective
Action Transition Plan and a
Memorandum of Agreement Regarding
Expedited Corrective Action, will define the
responsibilities of MDNR and EPA Region
VII. These two documents will outline the
roles of staff relative to specific corrective
action projects and clarify expectations
regarding corrective action authority,
reservation of rights, and corrective action
to be performed.
The third element is a Letter of
Agreement that is tailored to facility-
specific circumstances and acts as the
administrative mechanism for the
expedited corrective action process.
Under the Letter, facilities agree to
address all substantive corrective action
concerns in a manner consistent with
normal requirements under a consent
order or permit. Unlike traditional
regulatory mechanism, the Letter of
Agreement will be more responsive to the
needs and desires of the regulated
community and will provide flexibility in
consideration of facility budgets, project
time lines, and other constraints.
Either party may terminate the Letter
of Agreement, however the MDNR and
EPA retain their respective rights to
legally pursue corrective action through
traditional regulatory mechanisms. If the
facility completes the corrective action
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objectives of the Letter of Agreement,
MDNR issues a Certification of
Completion.
The Expedited Corrective Action
Program is expected to achieve the
common goal of addressing environmental
concerns at these facilities in a timely and
efficient manner. The State estimates a
savings of 12-24 months or more in
administrative time. The Letter is also
expected to contain provisions for MDNR
corrective action oversight reimbursement,
since the state agency cannot divert grant
resources from higher prioriry facilities.
Facilities entering into this new
agreement will not be held to a lesser
technical, environmental, or public
participation standard. However, it is
expected that administrative burden
associated with corrective action will be
minimized such that motivated facilities
can move through the process more
quickly and devote greater resources to
actual site investigation, monitoring, and
remediation. These corrective actions,
entered into without formal permits or
orders, require mutual trust on the part of
all parties. The arrangement is a
significant sign of cooperation among
MDNR, EPA, and the regulated facilities.
Richard Nussbaum, P.E., R.G.
Missouri Department of Natural Resources
Hazardous Waste Program
P.O. Box 176
Jefferson City, MO 65102
Telephone: (573) 751-3553
Fax: (573) 751-7869
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STREAMLINING STATE SEWAGE SLUDGE
MANAGEMENT REGULATIONS (UT, OK)
Every day facilities throughout the
country generate biosolids, also
known as sewage sludge, through
their wastewater treatment processes.
This material is either used or disposed
of through land application, surface
disposal, or incineration according to
permit conditions specified by EPA or
State permitting authorities. However,
currently, only 2 States—Utah and
Oklahoma—have delegated authority
from EPA to manage the federal biosolids
permitting programs. Facilities in the
remaining 48 states are subject to State
and federal requirements.
In an effort to address this
unnecessary duplication and to
encourage State delegation, EPA
conducted a survey to determine why
more States had not sought authority to
manage the federal program. A number
of States noted the inconsistency
between their own program and federal
requirements. The federal biosolids
requirements are based on federal
National Pollutant Discharge Elimination
System (NPDES) regulations, and yet,
States may manage their biosolids
through their solid waste programs or
through some combination of water, air,
and solid waste programs. These
programs usually have many of the basic
elements required under the federal
biosolids regulations, but lack the exact
substantive requirements needed for
delegation under the NPDES program.
(Some States indicated that they were, in
fact, taking the steps needed to gain
approval by revising their regulations to
ensure consistency with the federal
requirements). Other States cited a lack
of resources and strong incentives that
would lead them to pursue delegation.
Based on this feedback, EPA's Region 8
organized a group of volunteer States with
well-managed biosolids programs to review
the existing federal biosolids regulations and
make suggestions on reforms needed to
facilitate State authorization for
management. The comments were compiled
by Region 8 and circulated among all the
States for review and discussion. In this way
States were able to see how changes that
might aid one State could cause problems for
another. The final recommendations made to
EPA were far less extensive than expected,
and all came with a full explanation as to
why the reform was needed. EPA used this
insightful information as a basis for revising
the federal regulations.
These revisions were issued as a final
rule in December 1997 following proposal in
March 1997. By involving States at the very
beginning of this process, EPA has developed
a rule that incorporates the States' concerns.
As such, the final rule is expected to
facilitate the authorization process, and
increase the number of States assuming
federal program management. This
development will help eliminate the
duplicative permitting requirements that now
exist, allowing the States, EPA, and the
regulated community to focus their resources
on more environmentally beneficial activities.
Contact: '
Wendy Bell
U.S. EPA / 4203
401 M. St. SW
Washington, DC 20460
Telephone: (202) 260-9534
Fax: (202) 260-1460
Email: bell.wendy@epamail.epa.gov
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DELISTING WASTES (AR, NM, AND TX)
/"T"\he Federal hazardous waste
I regulations identify wastes to be
•*- regulated as hazardous in two ways
Some wastes are identified through
specific listing of the material or process
that generates it However, because similar
processes do not always generate wastes
with the same degree of hazard, EPA
is allowed to "delisf certain wastes
that can be demonstrated to be of
such low concentration of hazardous
constituents as to not warrant
compliance with the more stringent
and costly hazardous waste
regulations. The delisting program
was seldom used by EPA and was
delegated from EPA Headquarters to
the Regions in October 1995.
EPA Region 6 used this new authority
to increase delisting opportunity. Working
with the States of Arkansas, New Mexico,
and Texas, they developed a streamlined
process to delist hazardous waste using a
risk-based approach. As a result of their
action, the average time required for a
delisting decision was cut to 180 days—
down substantially from the 2-7 year
timeframe typically required before. This
streamlined process includes substantial
involvement by the State agencies
responsible for hazardous waste
management and for the industries
generating the waste proposed for
delisting.
Three petitions for delisting have been
approved by EPA Region 6 since it was
delegated delisting approval authority. The
three facilities granted
delisting exclusions estimate
cost-savings that range from
approximately $50,000 to
$500,000 annually. The
Region is currently
processing two new delisting
petitions, with decisions to
be rendered in the first
quarter of 1998.
EPA continues to work
closely with its State
partners to exchange
information on risks and regulatory
impacts associated with delisting.
Bill Gallagher
U.S. EPA Region 6
Fountain Place
1445 Ross Avenue
Dallas, TX 75252-2733
Telephone: (214) 665-6775
Fax:(214)665-6762
E-mail: gallagher.william@epamail. epa. gov
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THE ONE-PLAN PROJECT: GOVERNMENT AND
INDUSTRY WORKING TOGETHER TO SIMPLIFY
FACILITY EMERGENCY RESPONSE PLANNING
(ALL STATES)
^ • Ahe current approach to preparedness
I for oil and hazardous materials spills
J. is a maze of Federal, state, and local
programs that often overlap. Nine major
Federal regulations require preparation of
emergency response plans by certain
regulated facilities. Facilities typically
prepare different plans, which are mostly
duplicative, to comply with each individual
regulation. This practice requires
significant resource expenditures on the
part of industry, does little to improve
industries' emergency response
effectiveness, and sometimes actually
impairs response actions because
individuals in an emergency situation may
be uncertain which plan applies.
Realizing the difficulties of the current
system, EPA's National Response Team
and its counterparts in Region 6 convened
State and local government, industry,
labor, and environmental groups to
evaluate alternatives. Together, these
stakeholders developed an integrated
contingency planning (TCP) document for
regulated community that fulfills all the
requirements of the existing plans while
improving overall use and efficiency.
Facilities now using the ICP format
benefit from reduced costs of maintaining
and updating multiple plans as well as
simplified response training for staff. Use
of the ICP format also reduces confusion
about which plan to use and improve
coordination between facilities and state
and Federal response agencies during an
actual emergency response situation.
Finally, a single facility plan can be
integrated into other local, State, and
Federal plans that might apply to the same
area.
A great deal of cooperation between
EPA and the other government agencies
was the key to developing a guidance
document that was more efficient and
useful, yet still in accordance with the
various agencies' requirements. The ICP
workgroup's approach could be used to
address other issues that require the
cooperation of a number of agencies and
serve equally well in dealing with other
areas of regulatory overlap. In recognition
of the breakthrough achieved by the ICP,
the project has been awarded a Vice-
Presidential "Hammer Award" given for
major accomplishments towards creating a
federal government that works better and
costs less.
Jim Staves
U.S. EPA Region 6
Fountain Place
1445 Ross Avenue.
Dallas, TX 75202-2733
Telephone: (214) 665-6485
Fax:(214)665-7447
Email: staves.james@epamail.epa.gov
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ENABLING STATES TO BETTER MANAGE
CHEMICAL RISKS (GA, IL, NY, WI)
o
Under the federal Toxic Substances
Control Act (TSCA), vast amounts
of information on chemicals in
commerce are generated and collected.
This information, which includes
unpublished health and safety studies,
manufacturing information, and chemical-
testing data, is reported to EPA and is
often unavailable from other sources.
About 65 percent of the substantive TSCA
submissions contain information claimed
as confidential business information (CBI).
In the past, and under traditional program
management, EPA has not shared that
information claimed as CBI with any
nonfederal government outside sources
(other than contractors), including the
States. The denial to States has existed
irrespective of their ability to protect
confidentiality, any program delegations
that may be in place, or intrinsic value to
state managers facing chemical risk
management decisions.
EPA recognized State chemical
managers concern about the scarcity of
meaningful health and safety data on
some chemicals that are manufactured,
processed, used, and transported within
the state borders, and the need to
establish a process that would enable
them to access and analyze information for
better addressing State-specific
environmental and public health risks.
Following successful dialogue with
interested stakeholders, including the
States, industry, and the general public, in
late 1995, EPA devised a pilot project
through which four states—New York,
Georgia, Illinois and Wisconsin—secured
access to all TSCA-derived data, including
CBI, for the purpose of evaluating the
utility of that information for state
chemical management activities. In mid-
1996, these States reported how chemical
management goals could be better met
through access to TSCA data. The states
reflected on how the TSCA data filled
information gaps. In two instances, they
reported that different chemical risk
management decisions might have been
made if the TSCA data had been available.
In one of those instances, TSCA
information might have been useful to
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support regulatory relief for a company; a
second suggested that existing controls
were not sufficient to address possible risk
to the public health and the environment.
In the fall of 1996, EPA sought public
comment on whether it should pursue
making TSCA CBI data available to the
States. Twenty-eight States directed
comments to the Agency urging EPA to
pursue the project. Industry trade groups,
including the Chemical Manufacturers
Association and the Chemical Specialty
Manufacturers Association, and some
individual companies sent comments to
the Agency supporting continued efforts in
this area as well. Several individual
companies sent comments expressing
concern about the Agency's legal authority
to make TSCA submitted information
claimed as CBI available to state chemical
management authorities.
Currently, with critical input and
support from the interested public,
including state and industry
representatives, EPA is attempting to
devise a mechanism that will allow States
more generally to secure access to all
TSCA data, and in so doing, close
important information gaps. The process
for evaluating this issue and making the
information available has been open and
inclusive.
Scott Sherlock
U.S. EPA
401 M Street, SW / 7407
Washington DC. 20460
Telephone number: (202) 260-1536
Fax number: (202) 260-1657
Email: sherlock.scott@epamail.epa.gov
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ENVIRONMENTAL/RECYCLING HOTLINE (ALL STATES)
Many states and other agencies
address waste management needs
in part by establishing recycling
information and education programs,
along with drop-off or curbside pick-up for
recyclables. Others have enacted
mandates requiring businesses to accept
return of products for recycling. The key
element missing in these kinds of
programs has been consumer outreach
and education. Nationally and
internationally, information and data
readily exist that, if efficiently
disseminated, would enable everyone—
government, the general public, and both
big and small businesses—to actively
participate in activities and programs that
would noticeably improve our
environment. The barrier to national
diffusion of this information has been the
cost of assembling and accessing the data,
and assembling the technology to provide
national access.
An Environmental Technology Initiative
grant from EPA Region 9 to the State of
Arizona has helped overcome these
limitations. The State developed the
Environmental/Recycling Hotline (Hotline)
which provides all Americans with
geographically-specific recycling
information via a single, toll-free telephone
number, 1-800-CLEANUP and an Internet
site, www. 1800CLEANUP.org. Through
state-of-the-art technology, the Hotline
provides users with a nationally accessible
system that provides easy access to locally
tailored environmental information,
tailored by zip code, for any locality in the
country. The Hotline uses database
engines that, within seconds, evaluate
incoming calls from across the nation to
locate the recycling site(s) nearest the
caller, empowering the public with
information to make recycling easier.
Before the Hotline, each municipal and
state jurisdiction needed to develop then-
own information dissemination system to
inform the public about local
environmental programs, including how
and where to recycle. Many jurisdictions
set up hotlines staffed by live operators
during regular working hours, limiting the
number of hours information was
accessible, as well as the number of calls
the jurisdiction could manage. With the
Hotline, a single, nationally available
toll-free phone number/Internet site can
be marketed to the public that is available
24 hours a day, 7 days a week. By
combining the information provided via
many other hotlines and organizations
around the country, the Hotline realizes
national-scale efficiency, thus saving many
millions of dollars annually.
In less than five years, the Arizona
initiative has expanded into a national
network including environmental and
recycling information from all 50 states,
numerous counties, private citizens, and
environmental associations and
organizations. It has received over 12
million calls from citizens nationwide. In
April 1996, the Hotline received the White
House "Closing the Circle" waste
minimization award, and in November
1996, received Vice-President Gore's
"Hammer Award" for reinventing
government. The consolidation of
numerous recycling programs into the
single Hotline network is expected to save
millions of dollars and generate
immeasurable environmental benefits. For
example, a study of hotline savings
potential in California estimates that by
eliminating just one of the States 7
56
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liotiines, taxpayers could save $7 million a
year. The Hotline program also is readily
adaptable, both in terms of recycling and
for other kinds of environmental and
public interest endeavours that require
large-scale information collection and
access.
Contact:
Michael Schulz, Associate Director
Water Management Division
U.S. EPA Region 9 / Wtr-1
75 Hawthorne St.
San Francisco, CA 94105
Telephone: (415) 744-1817
Fax: (415) 744-1235
Email: schulz.mike@epamail.epa.gov
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THE FACILITY IDENTIFICATION INITIATIVE—
A FIRST STEP TOWARDS INTEGRATING
ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION (MULTIPLE STATES)
EPA and its State partners are
authorized to collect a wide range of
data from a variety of sources. For
the most part, the Federal laws authorizing
environmental data collections were
developed under different statutory
authorities to address specific
environmental media concerns such as
toxic air emissions or wastewater
discharges. Over time, EPA, State, and
local governments developed
organizational structures and programs
tailored to address these specific, single-
media concerns. In reality, this
arrangement means that a company might
report environmental data to multiple
federal and/or state programs, each of
which stores the information in a different
database. Because each database system
might use different reporting criteria or
nomenclature, it is difficult, often
impossible, to assess cumulative or multi-
media impacts from single or multiple
facilities.
In an effort to make better use of
environmental information, EPA and its
State partners are working to establish
common data standards and management
practices that will allow information to be
shared and linked in ways never before
possible. As a starting point, they are
working to standardize information about
facilities and sites, such as name and
address, through the Facility Identification
Initiative. Once these standards are in
place, it will be possible to aggregate,
integrate, and analyze information about
specific facilities or sites in a much more
accurate, comprehensive manner. This
capability will enhance environmental
assessments and allow for more accurate,
meaningful reporting to the public.
Through several years of committed
effort, EPA and the States have developed a
mutually acceptable approach for
standardizing facility /site information.
Specifically, they have agreed to the
following:
* EPA would maintain a master linking
file for facilities;
* States could voluntarily accept
responsibility to establish and keep
facility records current;
+ Administrative procedures for
ensuring data management; and
* EPA will act as a default data
manager until a State can participate;
The projected timeframe for having the
standards in place is mid- 1998.
Standardizing data for regulated facilities is
regarded as a critical step for reinventing
the collection and use of environmental
data. As such, it has become a pre-requisite
for obtaining financial support for
information reform projects through EPA's
"One-Stop Program" (see example on page
31).
Diane Sheridan
U.S. EPA / 7407
40 1M Street SW
Washington D.C. 20460
Telephone: (202) 260-3435
Fax:(202)401-8390
Email: sheridan.diane@epamail.epa.gov
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ENVIRONMENTAL CIRCUIT RIDER PROGRAM (IN)
Nationwide, small municipalities
function with small work forces and
even smaller budgets. As much as
they would like to, most of these
municipalities cannot afford the services of
an environmental professional to address
and assist in regulatory compliance and
prioritization of environmental issues.
Under a special pilot program
administered through the Indiana
Association of Cities and Towns (IACT) and
sponsored by the Indiana Department of
Environmental Management (IDEM) and
the U.S. EPA, small towns in Indiana have
access to free, confidential environmental
assistance without the threat of regulatory
action. Known as the Environmental
Circuit Rider program, this service began
on June 3, 1996 with $103,000 for 66
weeks. During the first year pilot phase,
the target area was limited to nine Indiana
counties (Howard, Tipton, Hamilton,
Grant, Madison, Blackford, Delaware, Jay,
and Randolph). The program is expanding
in 1998 to offer environmental compliance
assistance to communities throughout the
State.
By acting as a liaison among
municipalities, IDEM and EPA, the circuit
rider helps communities understand and
come into compliance in a confidential
manner. This confidentiality encourages
environmental awareness and compliance
by allowing individual municipalities to
decide on their own which issues to
address and which methods of compliance
work best for them. Through personal
interaction, the program encourages
relationships that create and expand
dialogue on environmental issues and
compliance.
The circuit rider maintains active files
on each municipality that participates in
the program. He also personally visits
those areas as often as necessary. During
his visits, the circuit rider meets with
town officials and discusses the needs,
concerns, and compliance status of the
municipality. Afterward, a tour is
conducted to observe known problems and
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to identify potential new ones.
Then the circuit rider researches
and answers the municipality's
questions and follows through
with special assistance tailored to
local needs. Other duties include:
maintaining an EPA/IDEM
publication clearing house,
assisting with watershed
management group creation and
facilitation; providing information
over the Internet site (http://
www.ai.org/iact), and providing an
environmental compliance manual with
case studies based on the circuit rider's
findings during the pilot period. The
manual is now being distributed to all
municipalities in the State.
In its pilot phase, an estimated 50
Indiana cities and towns used the
program's services. Overall, the program
has helped increased environmental
awareness among town officials. As
evidence, several municipalities have
moved to cleaned up properties and set
priorities for targeting environmental
resources.
Municipalities and State regulatory
personnel report heightened satisfaction as
a result of the program. As one east-
central Indiana mayor stated, "It is
refreshing to know we have a person and a
program that takes an individual
approach to everyone's problems
and offers a solution."
The program has been a great
asset to IDEM's Compliance and
Technical Assistance Program
(CTAP) which offers confidential
compliance assistance to
business and industry. Now, the
useful partnerships and
improved relationships
established with the private
sector are being fostered with
municipalities. As a result, IDEM,
communities and service businesses are
working together more effectively to
decrease regulatory action and promote
cooperation and environmental results.
Leslie K. White
Director, Office of Community
Relations, IDEM
IGCNRoom 1301
100 N. Senate Avenue
P.O. Box 6015
Indianapolis, IN 46206-6015
Telephone: (317) 233-6648
Fax: (317) 233-6647
E-mail: whiteC@opn.dem.state.in.us
Environmental Services Coordinator
Indiana Association of Cities and Towns
150 W. Market Street, Ste. 728
Indianapolis, IN 46204-2882
Telephone: (317) 578-8923
Fax: (317) 595-3110
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ENVIRONMENTAL LEADER PROGRAM (ME)
Maine's Department of
Environmental Protection (DEP) is
seeking non-technical compliance
techniques, particularly for small
businesses, to help improve environmental
quality in the State.
With financial assistance from EPA,
DEP launched a special Environmental
Leader program to recognize businesses
that are in compliance or going beyond
compliance with environmental
regulations.
Initially targeting the gasoline service
station industry, DEP worked closely with
the Maine Oil Dealers Association and
independent gas station owners to develop
an appropriate recognition program. The
goal is to help increase a station's
customer base by attracting consumers
who prefer to support a business that is
committed to environmental excellence.
As a first step, DEP and industry
representatives developed a short, simple,
up-to-date guide to environmental
regulations and statutes most commonly
applicable to stations. The guide
summarizes the major requirements and
provides a checklist for facility owners and
operators working to meet these
requirements. Also included are helpful
suggestions to reduce pollution and go
beyond compliance.
The guide and other materials have
recently been sent to every station in
Maine. Station owners or managers
interested in being recognized as an
Environmental Leader complete the self-
audit checklists. If they are in compliance,
they complete a one-page application form
and submit it to DEP. DEP staff, then,
arrange a site visit to verify the operator's
findings and/or provide assistance in
correcting any problems.
If a station has achieved total
compliance, the owner or operator is given
a package of promotional materials
designed to advertise their
accomplishments to station customers.
The package includes:
* A framed Environmental Leader
Certificate for display at the facility;
* Large, colorful Environmental Leader
stickers for display on windows or
gas dispensers. (Facility owners who
install Stage II Vapor Recovery
systems on their pumps also receive
a promotional "Vapor Free" banner);
* A sample press release package,
including the Environmental Leader
logo that can be submitted to local
newspapers and used in advertising;
4 Pocket calendar cards for customer
distribution that explain the
significance of the award;
+ An invitation to attend and be
recognized at the Governor's Annual
Environmental Excellence Award
ceremony.
Forty-four stations have already
submitted applications since the program
began in May 1997. If this pilot project
proves successful, DEP may offer
recognition to other small businesses.
Guidebooks are currently under
development for two additional industries:
auto repair and printing.
Brian Kavanah
Office of Innovation and Assistance
State of Maine Department of
Environmental Protection
17 State House Station
Augusta, ME 04333-0017
Telephone: (207) 287-6188
Fax:(207)287-2814
Email: brian.w.kavanah@state.me.us
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COMMUNITY BASED ENFORCEMENT ACTION YIELDS
GREATER ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFITS (MT)
Pegasus Gold Corporation and
Zortman Mining were unlawfully
discharging mine drainage
containing toxic metals, low pH, and
contaminated storm water into a water
body adjacent to Fort Belknap Indian
Reservation. Montana issued
administrative orders and brought an
enforcement action against these
companies, but was unable to bring the
facilities into compliance.
In an effort to remedy the situation,
EPA, Montana, the Gros Ventre and
Assiniboine Tribes, the Fort Belknap
Community Council, and the
Island Mountain Protectors,
a local environmental group,
worked together in
negotiating with the
defendants to resolve this
matter so as to address not
only the defendants' specific
Clean Water Act violation,
but also to assess and
address the impact of those
violations on the local environment. In
addition to obtaining injunctive relief
sufficient to remedy the violations and
paying a civil penally of $2 million that
was split between the federal government
and Montana, the defendants agreed to
perform three supplemental environmental
projects to benefit the local community,
including the Reservation. These projects
included:
1) a community health evaluation to
identify the pathways and possible
impacts of environmental
contaminants on the residents of the
Reservation, particularly on children,
2) a study of the general health of the
aquatic resources on and abutting
the southern portion of the
Reservation, and
3) a water system improvement project
to improve the availability,
consistency, and quality of drinking
water on the Reservation.
This case demonstrates how
enforcement can be used to achieve
environmental benefits beyond compliance
with regulatory
requirements. As a result of
this community-based
enforcement approach, the
mining operations are not
only complying with the
Clean Water Act
requirements, but also
fulfilling more extensive
environmental commitments
to the local community.
Contact:
Elizabeth Bohanon
U.S. EPA Region 8
999 18th St. / 8ENF-L
Suite # 500
Denver, CO 80202-2466
Telephone: (303) 312-6904
Fax: (303) 312-6953
Email: bohanon.elizabeth@epamail.epa.gov
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EVALUATION OF ENFORCEMENT PROGRAMS (NH)
In the early 1990s, EPA Region I began
the process of auditing the enforcement
programs of the New England states.
Based on experience with the southern
New England states' audits, and in an
effort to make the audit more meaningful
and productive, New Hampshire requested
three specific changes to which EPA
agreed:
1. A review of the State's own pollution
prevention and compliance
assistance programs would be
undertaken at the same time;
2. A review of cases at the New
Hampshire Attorney General's Office
that had been referred by
Department of Environmental
Services (DES) for civil or criminal
enforcement; and
3. Process completion in one less year.
One of the first steps of the audit/
review was for DES to undertake a self-
assessment of the programs being covered
by the EPA audit. This assessment
included regulatory programs such as
RCRA Subtitle C, NPDES/Industrial
Pretreatment, and Stationary Sources of
air as well as non-regulatory pollution
prevention/compliance assistance
programs. Next, DES undertook a similar
evaluation of all regulatory and non-
regulatory programs not covered by the
audit. Through these efforts, DES
established a baseline of performance for
all programs—regulatory and non-
regulatory—and gained a more
comprehensive understanding of
compliance assistance efforts underway
throughout the agency.
At the outset of the EPA audit/review,
DES also established a special workgroup,
comprised of members from the public and
private sector for two distinct purposes:
to invite input to DES on various aspects of
enforcement and compliance assistance,
and to provide a context to those most
interested in DES's activities for receipt
and review of EPA's report of its audit/
review.
Compared to the traditional audit/
review, the New Hampshire audit is
expected to be a more accurate,
comprehensive assessment of the State's
environmental efforts. This information
will be useful for State and federal
regulatory officials and for other public
and private entities interested in the
State's environmental performance.
Contact:
Gretchen Rule, Enforcement Coordinator
Dept. of Environmental Services
PO Box 95 6 Hazen Drive
Concord, NH 03302-0095
Telephone: (603) 271-3503
Fax: (603) 271-2867
Email: g_rule@des.state.nh.us
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PROVIDING COMPLIANCE ASSISTANCE TO SMALL
COMMUNITIES (NE, OR)
Small communities may lack the
technical, financial, or
administrative capacity to address
all of their environmental responsibilities.
States may avoid addressing small
community environmental compliance
because the discovery of violations can
trigger an obligation to initiate
enforcement action and recover penalties,
when the community's lack of money is
often the primary cause of its
noncompliance. Even when States do
evaluate small community environmental
performance, they often focus on a single
medium, either ignoring the community's
environmental problems in other media, or
pursuing those problems in a separate
action that adds to the community's
administrative burden and competes for
the community's resources available for
compliance activities.
Recognizing the need to better address
small community compliance assistance
needs, in 1995 EPA's Office of
Enforcement and Compliance Assurance
issued a policy to provide small
communities with additional flexibility in
complying with environmental laws. The
Policy on Flexible State Enforcement
Responses to Small Community Violations
signaled States that EPA would accept
comprehensive compliance assistance as
an alternative to the traditional
enforcement response. States adopting this
approach would assess a community's
compliance status with respect to all
applicable environmental regulations,
identify a small community's compliance
concerns, and enter into an enforceable
agreement with the community to correct
all violations by a specific date,
prioritizing, if necessary, on the basis of
risk to human health and the
environment. A State can waive all or part
of the usual penalty for the small
community's violations. The policy does
not apply to a community's criminal
violations, and EPA may require
immediate action to address violations
that create an imminent and substantial
endangerment.
Based on this new policy, Oregon and
Nebraska have active programs to provide
compliance assistance to small
communities. In both States, communities
that had been reluctant to ask for the
States' help are now asking for an
opportunity to participate. Since 1995,
Oregon has entered into compliance
agreements with 8 communities and is
currently working toward agreements with
another four. Since piloting the approach
with three communities in 1995, Nebraska
developed agreements with 15
communities in 1996. Figures for 1997 are
being finalized; another increase is
expected.
As a complement to the new policy, in
1996, EPA offered funding to help States
pilot small community compliance
assistance programs. A grant to South
Dakota resulted in compliance agreements
with five communities in 1996. Grants to 2
additional States are expected in late 1997
or early 1998.
Contact:
Kenneth Harmon
U.S. EPA / 2224A
401 M Street SW
Washington, D.C. 20460
Telephone: (202) 564-7049
Fax: (202) 564-0037
Email: harmon.kenneth@epamail.epa.gov
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MENTORING PROGRAM DEVELOPED TO BOOST SMALL
BUSINESS COMPLIANCE (DC, MD, VA)
^ I Ahe dry cleaning sector is populated
I predominantly by small businesses.
•L Thirty percent of the industry is
owned/operated by Koreans, many of
whom have little or no English-speaking
skills. Conventional outreach from EPA
and the industry trade association is not
effective. In addition to the language
barrier, many owners/operators are not
members of these associations, and the
sheer number of dry cleaners are too
numerous to be comprehensively reached
by environmental regulators
In September 1996, EPA's National
Emission Standard for Hazardous Air
Pollutants for Perchloroethylene (Dry
Cleaners) became effective requiring dry
cleaning stores to comply with new air
requirements. An innovative outreach
mechanism was needed to aid compliance.
In an innovative approach to address
the needs of the Korean dry cleaning
community, EPA Region 3, Virginia,
Maryland, the District of Columbia and the
Korean Dry Cleaners Association of
Greater Washington developed a mentoring
program whereby experienced dry-
cleaners, "coaches," teach and assist less
sophisticated dry cleaners to increase their
understanding of and compliance with
environmental requirements. Staff from
EPA and the States have conducted
training sessions for the coaches about
multimedia federal and state/local
requirements; conducted mock inspections
to demonstrate what inspectors look for;
and provided Korean language compliance
assistance materials developed by EPA.
Thirty-five directors of the trade
association have become trained "coaches"
and have agreed to work with local Korean
dry cleaners by conducting group
demonstrations and individual
inspections; identifying violations, areas
for improvement, and strategies to correct
the violations; and subsequently, following
up to ensure that violations and problems
have been corrected.
To date, 400 dry cleaners have
attended group inspection demonstrations,
and coaches have conducted multimedia
inspections at individual dry cleaning
stores. Eighty-six stores have passed their
inspections by demonstrating compliance
with an inspection checklist and others are
working with their coaches to improve
compliance performance.
The trade association has determined
that drycleaners participating in the
mentoring program have a 20 percent
better compliance rate than non-
participating stores in the region. Based
on the program's early success, thirty
other trade association directors outside
the Greater Washington area have
expressed interest in becoming coaches for
dry cleaners in their area.
Combining the regulatory expertise of
State and Federal agencies, the technical
experience of the trade association and its
trusted relationship with the Korean
community, and an innovative program
that empowers the industry to help itself
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has resulted in a winning strategy for
addressing the environmental compliance
assistance needs for the Korean dry
cleaning community. In addition to being
duplicated for dry cleaners in other
regions, this program may serve as a
model for reaching out to other small
business sectors in the future.
Karin Leff
U.S. EPA / 2224K
401 M Street SW
Washington, B.C. 20460
Telephone: (202) 564-7068
Fax: (202) 564-0037
Email: leff.karin@epamail.epa.gov
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THE CLEAN PROJECT: COMPLIANCE AND
LEADERSHIP THROUGH ENVIRONMENTAL
ASSESSMENT AND NEGOTIATION (ME, NH, AND RI)
^ I traditionally, many of EPA's voluntary
I compliance assistance programs
JL have been targeted towards larger
companies, who have the resources to
invest in environmental improvements
required by programs such as Project XL
or the Environmental Leadership Program.
Moreover, smaller businesses often lack
the regulatory knowledge to comply with
environmental requirements or the
resources to hire consultants or lawyers
for guidance. These situations can lead to
enforcement actions being taken against
companies that are making their best
effort to manage their operations in an
environmentally responsible manner.
Recognizing that many of these small
companies want to comply, but simply
lack the resources they need to succeed,
EPA's New England Office designed a
special compliance assistance program
called CLEAN that:
1. Promotes improved performance in
small industry sectors through no-
cost compliance and pollution
prevention assessments,
2. Provides incentives for active
participation, and
3. Promotes pollution prevention.
The program, initially targeting metal
finishing, printing, and wood products
industries, offers small and medium sized
businesses free, on-site compliance and
pollution prevention audits—and limited
enforcement relief consistent with the
provisions of EPA's Audit and Small
Business Assistance policies—in exchange
for an agreement to correct violations and
undertake a beyond compliance pollution
prevention project.
EPA has awarded $300,000 grants to
New Hampshire, Maine, and Rhode to
implement CLEAN. To leverage these
resources and take advantage of outside
expertise, the States solicit volunteers from
industry, government, universities and
other organizations to work with the
targeted industries. For example, State
regulatory agencies, the University of New
Hampshire, and the Maine Center for
Technology Transfer/Maine Metal
Products Association have joined together
and set up multi-disciplinary technical
assistance teams to conduct in-depth
pollution assessments at metal finishing
companies in Maine, New Hampshire, and
Rhode Island.
An important outcome of the CLEAN
program has been an opportunity to build
trust with small and mid-sized businesses.
Some of the more tangible benefits can be
seen in the following examples:
* Granite State Plating (GSP) of
Rochester, New Hampshire, a small
job shop with a wide customer base,
maintains custom plating lines for
zinc plating and aluminum etching.
By installing a no discharge
wastewater treatment system, the
company eliminated 100% of their
wastewater discharge and associated
costs while also decreasing water
usage by 95%. GSP's total
improvement are expected to reduce
its hazardous waste generation by
95%, saving the company more that
$20,000 a year as a result.
« C.M. Almy (CMA) of Pittsfield, Maine
manufactures high quality, hand-
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made liturgical articles, including
cloth vestments and metal objects
such as brass candleholders and
silver and gold plated chalices and
plates. Michael Fendler, CMA's
president saw CLEAN as an
opportunity to get a no cost, low risk
compliance assessment. CMA was
interested in ensuring that its
operations qualify for the less
burdensome and less costly small
quantity generator hazardous waste
rules. The Maine CLEAN team
worked with CMA to achieve that
goal. Over the past two years, CMA
has made significant progress in
reducing the amount of hazardous
waste generated from its
electroplating process by
implementing pollution prevention
practices and technologies. Their
actions resulted in a 50% reduction
in cyanide bath filter waste, 90%
recovery of dragout from silver
plating tanks and elimination of
halogenated solvents for parts
cleaning. CMA is now saving more
than $11,000 a year as a result.
Jean Holbrook
U.S. EPA Region 1
John F. Kennedy Building / SPP
One Congress Street
Boston, MA 02203-0001
Telephone: (617) 565-9048
Fax: (617) 565-4939
Email: holbrook.jean@epamail.epa.gov
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PROMOTING NEW ENVIRONMENTAL TECHNOLOGIES
(CT, NH, MA, VT, RI, AND ME)
Those who develop, market, use and
finance new and innovative
environmental technologies are well
aware of the many obstacles that exist
along the path to getting these
technologies approved. Some obstacles are
technical. However, others are more the
result of a fragmented regulatory system.
Because many of the environmental
programs are delegated to the States,
technology developers and users may face
standards that vary from State to State.
This scenario often causes duplicative
testing and demonstration to substantiate
the technology's performance, a costly,
time-consuming process for the public and
private sector. The result is a loss of
market opportunity for both technology
developers and users and increased
government expenditures to evaluate and
approve new technologies. Because
innovative technology has the potential to
clean up and protect the environment and
the public's health in a more cost-effective
and efficient manner, finding solutions to
overcome these barriers is crucial.
In order to achieve interstate regulatory
cooperation and promote region-wide
acceptance of innovative environmental
technologies, EPA-New England's Center
for Environmental Industry and
Technology, the New England Governors'
Conference, the New England Interstate
Water Pollution Control Commission
(NEIWPCC), and the States of Connecticut,
Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire,
Rhode Island and Vermont developed a
model approach for encouraging the
development and use of innovative
environmental technologies within the
region. This approach included selecting a
technology to pilot; collaborating on a
regional framework to evaluate
performance and cost data; developing a
common protocol for the type of
information required by the States for
permitting approval; and establishing a
clearinghouse to gather and disseminate
information.
The New England Interstate Regulatory
Cooperation Project provides an
opportunities for federal and state
environmental agencies to work
cooperatively with the private sector in
expediting the development, deployment,
and evaluation of promising innovative
environmental technologies. The Project
began in 1996 when the New England
Governors adopted a resolution endorsing
and supporting regional efforts to promote
regulatory cooperation in New England.
This resolution set the stage for a series of
technology agreements to be developed
and implemented by the state regulatory
agencies.
A Memorandum of Agreement was
signed between EPA and the New England
states to carry out a yearlong pilot project
to demonstrate the value of this
cooperative effort for on-site wastewater
treatment and disposal technologies. In
1997, EPA, the six New England states
and regional organizations expanded the
scope of the project and chose additional
technologies for evaluating drinking water
treatment and hazardous waste site
assessment and characterization.
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Carol Kilbride
U.S. EPA Region 1
John F. Kennedy Federal Building / SPP
One Congress Street
Boston, MA 02203-0001
Telephone: (617) 565-9175
Fax: (617) 565-4939
Email: kilbride.carol@epamail.epa.gov
Jim Cabot
U.S. EPA Region 1
John F. Kennedy Federal Building / SPP
One Congress Street
Boston, MA 02203-0001
Telephone: (617) 565-4899
Fax: (617) 565-4939
Email: cabot.jim@epamail.epa.gov
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TESTING ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
(AZ, CA, IN, NC, NH, OR, VT, WI)
A fter twenty-five years of steady
f-\ progress in cleaning up the most
X A^ibvious sources of pollution,
environmental regulatory agencies are now
looking for innovative approaches for
achieving continued gains for
environmental protection in the future.
Moreover, regulated facilities are
increasingly looking for ways to not just
meet—but to exceed—minimum levels of
environmental compliance and improve
their environmental performance as part of
an overall goal of reducing operational
wastes, minimizing potential liability, and
cutting costs. Today, many regulated
facilities as well as government agencies
are showing interest in voluntary
environmental management systems (EMS)
as a logical mechanism for improving
environmental performance and
compliance. Essentially, an EMS provides
a regulated facility with a framework for
managing environmental responsibilities in
a manner that is more efficient and
integrated into business operations. It is a
tool not only to help ensure compliance
with environmental laws, but also to
continuously improve environmental
performance. Despite growing interest, the
EMS concept has yet to be fully explored
or evaluated as an effective environmental
management tool. Without a better
understanding of the expected benefits of
EMSs, public and private interests are
understandably cautious about pursuing
their use.
In an effort to test and evaluate the
effectiveness of voluntary EMSs, EPA's
Office of Water has established an EMS
pilot program with the States. Regulated
facilities selected by each State will put in
place comprehensive, multi-media EMSs
based on the ISO 14001 international
environmental standard. They must have
an excellent record of historical
compliance and agree to involve
stakeholders in the development and
implementation of their EMSs. Finally,
participating facilities are asked to collect
and share various types of information,
both quantitative and qualitative, on the
characteristics and performance of their
EMSs as they are implemented. While no
specific incentives are provided by EPA for
participation, States will be asked to
identify specific areas of regulatory or
other flexibility that may be appropriate
for facilities that demonstrate successful
EMS implementation. (This initiative is
closely linked to the efforts of the Multi-
State Working Group on ISO 14000).
Eight States—Vermont, New
Hampshire, North Carolina, Indiana,
Wisconsin, Arizona, California, and
Oregon—have been selected for
participation in the program. Once
completed, the results should contribute to
a much broader understanding about the
environmental outcomes that might be
expected from EMS adoption and
implementation and how these outcomes
could be considered in future public policy
decisions.
Csxfacfc
Jim Home
U.S. EPA / 4201
401 M St., S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20460
Telephone: (202) 260-5802
Fax: (202) 260-1040
Email: horne.jim@epamail.epa.gov
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The Environmental Council of the States (ECOS) is
the national non-profit, non-partisan association of
state and territorial environmental commissioners.
The mission of ECOS is to improve the environment
of the United States by providing for the exchange of
ideas, views and experiences among states and
territories, fostering cooperation and coordination in
environmental management, and articulating state
positions to Congress and the Environmental
Protection Agency on environmental issues.
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