Improving Operations, Compliance, & Environmental Performance at Public Works Facilities APWA

1. Improving Operations, Compliance, & Environmental Performance at Public Works Facilities APWA 4/11/08

3. Ever had challenges meeting or maintaining compliance?What made it a challenge?

4. What are your biggest challenges?Operational?Compliance?Supervisory?Fiscal?

5. What’s changed over past 5, 10, 20 years?What challenges lie in the future?

6. Contributing Factors?

7. What could make it better? How could Plan-Do-Check-Act help?

8. ISO 14001 Household EMS Exercise

9. An EMS Has Three Key Commitments • Compliance with relevant laws and regulations • Prevention of pollution • Continual improvement ENV. POLICY C O M P L Y P P R O E L V L E U N T T I O N I M P R O V E

10. The P-D-C-A Framework plan Continual improvement do act check

11. What is an EMS? • An Environmental Management System is a system of processes to support an organization in integrating environmental concerns into its daily practices

12. A way to figure out: • Who has what impact on the environment • How to prevent/address that impact • Make it everyone’s responsibility • Stay out of trouble, save money, feel and look good over a long period of time

13. Fancy term for good management

14. Basic Steps IDENTIFY how operations affect the environment PRIORITIZE MANAGE MITIGATE DOCUMENT CHECK LEARN

15. Say what you doDo what you sayProve it

16. Lessons Learned • Much of what is needed for an EMS may already be in place • An EMS is more of a change management issue than a technical fix

17. Keys to Success Management support Effective ‘champion’ Involved and engaged staff KISS Effective teams

19. Plan-Do-Check-Act Tools • Process flow diagrams • Aspects and Impacts • Significance Ranking • Action Plans/Environmental Management Programs • Operational Controls

20. Environmental Aspects & Impacts: Figuring out how our activities affect the environmentHow do you do it now?

21. What is an Environmental Aspect? • An Element of An Organization’s Activities, Products or Services That Can Interact with the Environment Examples • Air Emissions (CO & NOx) • Energy Usage (Gas & Diesel) • Used Oil Recycling • Solid Waste Generation

22. Key: Identify the environmental aspects that your organization - Can control, and - Over which it can have an influence

23. Examples Degradation of Air Quality Reduction in Natural Resources Conservation of Natural Resources Reduction in Landfill Space Environmental Impact Any Changes to the environment, whether adverse or beneficial, wholly or partially resulting from an organization’s activities, products or services

24. ASPECT CAUSE Air Emissions (CO, NOx) Energy Usage (Gas and Diesel) Used Oil Recycling Solid Waste Generation IMPACT EFFECT Degradation of Air Quality Reduction in Natural Resources Conservation of Natural Resources Reduction in Landfill Space Relationship

25. We do or provide…….. (Activity) • That results in……… (Aspect) • That has an impact on….. (Impact)

26. How? • Identify main activities, products, and services within your ‘fenceline’ - Brainstorming, process flow diagrams • List environmental aspects - Are they under your control and influence? - Identify the associated impacts

27. Aspect/Impact Matrix ACTIVITIES, OPERATIONS, SERVICES POTENTIAL ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS ENVIRONMENTAL ASPECTS 1. Purchasing recycled paper 2. Recycling paper 1. Recycling conserves natural resources 2. Promotes demand for recycling and contributes to societal goals for resource conservation PRODUCING BROCHURES paper 1. Water use 2. Water treatment 3. Water discharge to sewer 1. Drawing water impacts rivers and aquifers 2. Overburden at POTW results in untreated discharges water 1. Storing supplies 2. Removing unneeded suppl. 3. Recycling 4. Possible spills 5. Disposal of packaging 1. Incompatible compounds pose potential hazard 2. Health hazard 3. Landfill impacts Ink ink preservers cleaning solv.

28. Activity Aspect Impact

29. NOW WHAT? What do we work on first? Determining SIGNIFICANCE helps you decide How do you currently decide what’s important?

30. Criteria for Significance • Defined by the core team • Unique to the organization • Subjective, not an exact science • Not based on a complex formula

31. A Simple Matrix Approach You determine these criteria Everything regulated is significant Aspects with a total 12 or higher are significant Sig? Reg Total ASPECT Cost Volume Toxic Health Nuisance Key: 5 = high 3 = moderate 1 = low 0 = N/A

32. Common Issues: • If it’s “Significant” it must be managed! • Just because it’s not (per the scoring) doesn’t mean it’s not important • “Significant” environmental aspects need extra intervention and attention

33. Setting Goals • Objectives and Targets • Accomplish______ by__________ date.

34. How do we get there? • Action Plans and Environmental Management Programs

35. What does it take to make it part of the way we work? Training

36. SOPs & Operational Controls

37. Communication

38. Communication

39. Communication

40. The EMS Framework plan Continual improvement do act check

42. Checking Back: The Role of Audits in an EMS • Compliance Audits: Determines whether operational • practices comply with applicable regulatory requirements. • It is a systematic inspection of regulatory conditions, • techniques and practices, operations, records and assesses • violations for emissions, effluents, accidental releases, • or failed record keeping.

43. Role of Audits EMS Audit: Determines whether the environmental management system conforms with planned arrangements. (3 stages) A Documentation Auditto assure the documented procedures conform to a standard. A Conformity Audit to verify that the actual management and operational activities meet the goals of the management system. Addresses Continuous Development of system procedures to prevent reoccurrences of non-compliances

44. When? • Audit periodically during development – like mid term exams. • Check what has worked and what could work/improved.

45. BOTTOM LINEAre we doing what we said we would do? Do we need to modify things to improve implementation and efficacy?

46. Build a SYSTEM to SurviveBuild a SYSTEM to Manage BetterBuild a SYSTEM to Excel

47. Resources www.peercenter.net www.uml.edu/emsc Madeline Snow, UML, 978-934-4875 www.epa.gov/ems EMS: An Implementation Guide for Small and Medium-Sized Organizations, NSF International, January 2001 www.epa.gov/owm/iso14001/ems2001final.pdf Ensuring a Sustainable Future: An Energy Management Guidebook for Wastewater and Water Utilities, January 2008 http://www.epa.gov/waterinfrastructure/pdfs/guidebook_si_energymanagement.pdf http://www.epa.gov/waterinfrastructure/pdfs/guidebook_si_energymanagement.pdf