Environmental Regulation Compliance

Knowing what to expect should assist in determining the current compliance status with any applicable environmental policy. This is generally accomplished by conducting a baseline compliance audit. The audit involves evaluating the various applicable environmental regulations (CAA, CWA, RCRA, SARA, CERCLA, and EPCRA) as previously mentioned. The goal of the audit is to evaluate compliance and deficiencies with respect to permitting, reporting, monitoring, record keeping, and limitations...

Trichloroethylene (TCE), which is used as a degreasing and cleaning solvent, has played an important role in the industrialization of this country. However, the prevalent use of TCE has also left its fingerprint upon our environment making it a common soil and groundwater contaminant at environmentally impacted properties throughout the United States.

TCE has been a widely used solvent in the past, especially for industrial metal cleaning and vapor degreasing purposes. TCE has also found use as a...

Is your facility prepared to maintain its environmental compliance throughout the year?  Many manufacturing companies are struggling with ways to cost costs while still producing a high quality product and meeting the needs of their employees. One area that tends to be continually looked at from a cost-savings perspective is environmental, health and safety (EH&S). Often times, it is common for facilities to cut EH&S costs to save on overall operating expenses with the hope they will not be...

A reprint of one of our popular articles:

Hazardous material regulations are often found to be confusing and dense, and in our experience people often are not even clear on the delineation between a hazardous material and a hazardous waste. In response to the frequent questions we receive on this topic we have prepared a brief primer on hazardous materials management.

First, a few key words need to be defined:

• Solid Waste - any discarded material that is (1) abandoned, (2) recycled, burned to...

Look around, everything we do today is done electronically. In the eWorld, we can find the answer to almost every question in minutes rather than hours, days or weeks. However, with all of this information available at our fingertips it is becoming harder and harder to discern what information is valuable and what information is not. This task is even more cumbersome for those individuals responsible for managing environmental, health and safety (EH&S) functions for their company because these...

During the last ten years, August Mack’s eCAP® program (Compliance Assurance Program) has expanded and grown from a regional initiative to a national program that has served more than 100 facilities. The genesis of the program began in 1998 and the natural evolution has seen the eCAP program morph into a fully functional sustainable Environmental Management System (EMS), currently approved as a Supplemental Environmental Program (SEP). Applying a tad of revisionist history we might be...

Do have an on-site technical expert in environmental air regulations? Do you need help with File Organization? Would you like a dedicated web page that contains ALL of your required permits, monitoring logs, training records, report submittals, permit modifications, and deviation reports required to demonstrate compliance? Would you like a trusted company to provide these services at a fixed monthly cost? If you’re looking for guaranteed results from an experienced Ohio environmental consulting...

A facility’s Environmental Manager is tasked with ensuring compliance with the ever-changing rules and restrictions of today’s environmental policies. If this is a new role it is easy to get overwhelmed and not know where to begin. The following are typically regulated environmental policies and some of the common violations found in these areas.

Clean Air Act
Through the enforcement of the Clean Air Act (CAA), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) seeks to protect and enhance the quality...

When a property is undergoing a transaction (e.g., sale, refinance, foreclosure), a Phase I Environmental Site Assessment (ESA) is conducted to identify any potential liabilities associated with past or present use of the property. The industry standard for performing Phase I ESAs is based on the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) Standard E 1527, which specifies industry-accepted minimumrequirements for evaluating the environmental condition of a property. The Phase I ESA is...

In 2004, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released national emission standards for hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) for new and existing industrial, commercial and institutional boilers and process heaters. The standards required certain boilers and process heaters meet air pollution limits reflecting the application of maximum achievable control technology (MACT). These new rules are commonly referred to as “Boiler MACT” standards.

The 2004 standards were soon challenged and vacated by...

A facility’s Environmental Manager is tasked with ensuring compliance with the ever-changing rules and restrictions of today’s environmental policies. If this is a new role, it is easy to get overwhelmed and not know where to begin. Over my next several blog posts, I will post typically regulated environmental policies/media and some of the common violations found in these areas. An article on this same subject can be found in our July newsletter.

A large company was found in violation of the Clean Air Act earlier this year.  They had to pay over $5 million in penalties and are planning on spending over $700 million to improve their facility to help resolve their violations.  This is a good reminder to other companies to make sure they are following Clean Air Act rules.  If you need assistance maintaining compliance with the Clean Air Act or other environmental regulations, contact August Mack at 317.916.8000.