Houston, We Have a Problem!
How Environmental Management Systems Can Reach Their Full Potential!
Remember Colonial Pipeline?
No, not the ransomware attack from May 6-12, 2021 that constrained fuel resources on much of the East Coast. Some already know there is an underground pipeline from Houston-Greensboro, NC – Fairfax, VA – New York City. 20 million gallons of fuel are distributed from 9 Aboveground Storage Tanks (AST’s) each with a capacity of over 1M-3M gallons each. I am referring to the 1990 recognition the pipeline was leaking again. After action reports from the government indicate from 1990-1993 up to 300,000 gallons of fuel were released at the Terminal and 36, 900 gallons recovered, over 200 monitoring wells installed, and the area under tight monitoring for 18 years up to 2016.
“Hi! I see you are a commercial neighbor of the Fairfax Terminal on Pickett Rd. I wanted to see if you had any reactions or thoughts about the pipeline leaks in your neighborhood?” - Me in 1992
That was my first real job in 1992, an internship working for an environmental consulting firm. Just a few short years after the Exxon Valdez spill revealed in March 1989 that the ship loaded with 53.8M gallons of crude oil ran aground and spilled 10.8M gallons in the scenic Prince William Sound of Alaska. I was baptized by fire supporting one of the largest projects on the East Coast. I had some cursory knowledge of environmental law, media relations, the parties involved in the transaction, and some of the people. The corrective action made towards Exxon always made sense to me, but I kept asking myself “what part of the solution is preventing it from happening again?”.
The soil and water were remediated, some houses were vacated, property values shrank, numerous lawsuits were initiated, ownership of the Terminal changed hands and the project remains under the direct management of the US EPA as of today!
The US EPA has added a tool to their toolkit back when ISO 14001:1997 was released. When contemplating a consent decree, or legal settlement, the terms of an ECMS are sometimes a mandatory step but many companies who face rigorous and dynamic environmental regulatory requirements would benefit from implementing such an approach. The US EPA ECMS has twelve key components:
Environmental Policy
Organization, Personnel, and Oversight of the EMS
Accountability & responsibility
Environmental Requirements
Assessment, Prevention, and Control
Environmental Incident and Non-compliance investigations
Environmental Training, Awareness & Competence
Maintenance of Records and Documentation
Environmental Planning & Organization Decision Making
Pollution Prevention
Continuing Program Evaluation & Improvement
Public Involvement/Community Outreach
The primary reasons any firm with a dynamic regulatory situation should consider an ECMS/EMS:
Efficient – An EMS is essentially a playbook. When a playbook exists achieving the desired outcomes becomes increasingly likely. It also tends to meet compliance obligations at the lowest possible cost.
Dispersion of responsibility – most companies with a rigorous compliance landscape hire a team to “take care of it.” Unfortunately, as regulations are enhanced it becomes a thankless job sometimes when the feeling of a team effort is constrained to the environmental department.
Resource Optimization – as I audit countless manufacturers in many different sectors I see the interest to work together and team with other departments or functions. For example, I have seen compliance departments who are in charge of their own document creation and updating and being in charge of the work orders and regular maintenance. When working well, shift supervisors can do 3rd shift inspections to a given environmental law, create a work order and initiate the change. Also, the QA department offers an olive branch and looks to integrate some common processes such as document control.
Effective – Clearly, with the competent internal and certification auditors, the US EPA has faith that such an ECMS is worth the terms in the consent decree. The terms of the decree and the compliance program are subject to regular EMS internal audit and 3rd Party Certification Body audit to validate its ongoing effectiveness.
A few examples of behavior a firm with an ECMS will demonstrate includes:
A Virginia-based manufacturer who is ISO 14001 certified will be aware of changing regulations before they come into effect such as the law announced before 1 June 2021 that the Hydrofluorocarbons will come into effect 1 Jan 2022. (https://www.deq.virginia.gov/air/greenhouse-gases/hfcs).
Such an EMS will also be required to identify all new, evolving, and changes to environmental regulations at all relevant jurisdictions, including the US EPA. (https://www.epa.gov/climate-hfcs-reduction/final-rule-phasedown-hydrofluorocarbons-establishing-allowance-allocation)
Green House Gas Legislation – designed to reduce Carbon Dioxide (CO2), Methane (CH4), and Nitrous Oxide (NO2) is in development and will be released soon.
In the last few years, I had reasons to return to these impacted neighborhoods. On one occasion my kids had a summer swim meet at their community pool. Another occasion was my talented teenage softball player attended a clinic who is a commercial neighbor of the Fairfax Terminal. Finally, my wife had purchased an armoire second-hand and we drove back to the neighborhood to pick it up. All three of these occasions reaffirmed the importance of environmental compliance and the real impact it has on families – and what a positive impact an EMS CAN have.