The environmental reporting season is just around the corner. Every year Ann O’Brien publishes a table to help you determine your reporting obligations. The table summarizes the most common types of environmental reports due to environmental regulatory agencies in Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin, along with respective due dates.
Table: environmental regulatory agencies in Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin
The professional engineers and consultants at SCS Engineers can help you navigate the local, state, and federal reporting obligations and permitting for your business, in your region, and in your industry. Contact us at or find a professional like Ann, nearest you.
Ann O’Brien is a Project Manager with SCS Engineers with more than 30 years of experience in the printing industry. Ann’s experience includes air and water quality permitting, environmental recordkeeping, reporting and monitoring programs, hazardous waste management, employee EHS training, environmental compliance audits, and environmental site assessments and due diligence associated with real estate transactions and corporate acquisitions.
Thanks, Ann!
EPA announced today a final policy to enhance effective partnerships with states in civil enforcement and compliance assurance work. The memorandum from EPA’s Assistant Administrator for Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Susan Bodine articulates the final policy procedures and practices for effective coordination between EPA and states when carrying out shared responsibilities under environmental laws.
The final policy memorandum is divided into three sections. The first section details requirements for joint planning and regular communication between EPA and states to promote enhanced, shared accountability. The second section of the policy provides greater detail on EPA and state roles and responsibilities in implementing authorized programs. The third and last section of the policy provides a process for the elevation and resolution of issues.
The issuance of today’s final policy replaces the interim guidance memorandum on enhanced planning and communication between EPA regional offices and states issued by Susan Bodine on January 22, 2018.
If you have questions about the final policy, please contact your SCS Project Manager, or send an email to .
Jeffrey Reed, P.E. is now leading SCS Engineers business operations in Texas, including all environmental consulting, landfill, landfill gas, and solid waste business. He commences his responsibilities immediately, under the title Business Unit Director, and is managing the staff and business operations of four offices. His primary office is located in Houston, Texas.
Jeff, a Professional Engineer, licensed in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas has a broad range of environmental expertise. He has provided design and consulting services for projects in 26 states across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.
Jeff is a Vice President of SCS Engineers and a National Expert on Landfill Design and Construction Quality Assurance for the firm. He has over 30 years of experience working in the solid waste industry. His project experience includes stormwater management, liquids management and leachate control, erosion control, hydrogeological/hydraulic analysis, landfill design and permitting, geosynthetic lining and cover systems, stability analysis, and construction quality assurance. He is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers and the Solid Waste Association of North America.
Kevin Yard, PE, BCEE, SCS’s former Texas Business Unit Director, will continue to support key projects in Texas while he manages clients nationwide that are investing in new infrastructure and processes compatible with their firms’ environmental climate goals.
“Over his ten+ years with SCS, Jeff has demonstrated his leadership and capabilities resolving complex environmental challenges,” said Kevin Yard. “Jeff provides the standard of quality and services to our clients who rely on SCS to support their business operations while meeting rapidly-changing air, water, and soil compliance standards.”
With the number of LFG monitoring technologies out there, it can be difficult for operators to distinguish which is the best fit. The authors, Pat Sullivan and John Henkelman of Understanding Landfill Gas Monitoring Techniques, do just that, help readers find the approach that works best for their landfill monitoring needs.
Methane can be monitored above the surface of the landfill as a gauge of potential emissions or can be directly measured using techniques that test for the rate or flux of emissions. The above-surface monitoring techniques for gauging potential emissions include surface emission monitoring, ground-based or low-altitude imaging and satellite and aerial imaging.
Landfill methane measurement is the direct measurement of methane emissions from landfills. Direct measurement of methane is more expensive than surface emission monitoring. Four ways to measure landfill methane directly are flux chamber testing, plume measurement, micrometeorological methods, and dispersion modeling.
The new Exceedance Response Action (ERA) paradigm has wide-reaching implications for future NPDES permittees of industrial stormwater discharges. This growing regulatory compliance mechanism is already being implemented in California, Washington, and most recently in Oregon. These states are viewed as precursors of future trends throughout the United States, as several key components of the forthcoming Multi-Sector General Permit (MSGP) will influence other states to move toward similar ERA response scenarios and regulations.
Join Forester University for this live, educational, two-part webinar as speaker Jonathan Meronek, QISP ToR, CPESC, QSDP/D, of SCS Engineers discusses the future of the tiered ERA paradigm and why stormwater managers and facility compliance personnel have only begun to come to terms with it. He will help you better understand if your site is covered and how an Industrial Permittee can come into compliance.
The webinar will examine past lessons, including the implementation of effective best management practices, water quality characterizations, and successful compliance strategies. It will also project what the compliance paradigm will look like during the first years of an industrial General NPDES Permit.
Attendees can expect to learn to:
Attendees can expect to earn credits: 2 PDH / 0.2 CEU
Air rules are complicated. Landfill emissions differ from typical industrial sources resulting in rules that vary in significant ways. If you’re a landfill owner responsible for compliance, a regulator charged with monitoring landfills, or new to the industry, join us for this informative Air & Waste Management Association live presentation. The webinar will help you will learn how the rules affect landfills, understand what must be submitted and when, and the steps to take for compliance.
Senate Bill-1383 is California legislation establishing aggressive organics recycling targets. Other states are establishing their own goals, some with enforcement components. It is up to municipalities to secure processing capacity and to implement comprehensive organics diversion programs to meet these goals.
Tracie Onstad Bills and Lisa Coelho, both with SCS Engineers, explain how one solid waste authority known as RecycleSmart, is proactively seeking to tackle the tough questions pertaining to new regulation compliance. RecycleSmart’s stance is proactive, they began to research and review their organics programs last year and have been working simultaneously during the formation of the regulations. By doing so, they have given themselves time to establish a direction for compliance and time to provide the public outreach and education necessary for a smooth transition.
Read “Shifting Focus,” an article published in Waste Today detailing the Central Contra Costa Solid Waste Authority’s study and six integrated programs that will provide the direction they need to help six Northern California municipalities make the right infrastructure and programmatic investments to attain the goals.
Learn more about Organics Management and Integrated Solid Waste Management.
Tracie Onstad Bills and Lisa Coelho are the Northern California director and sustainable materials management specialist, respectively, for SCS Engineers. Please feel free to contact us if you have comments or questions about organics program planning and management at .
A federal appeals court ruled that the Obama administration’s rule to regulate coal ash does not go far enough in some areas. However, the court did not give environmentalists everything they were seeking. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit’s Aug. 21 decision in the case, Utility Solid Waste Activities Group v. EPA gave neither side all it wanted.
The decision comes as the Trump administration seeks to revise the EPA’s 2015 rule intended to regulate coal combustion residuals (CCR) from coal-fired power plants—one of the largest waste streams in the U.S. In July, the EPA issued a final rule granting more flexibility to industry and states. Both the Obama and Trump administrations have sought to give states the ability to create their own standards, but according to the D.C. Circuit, neither set of rules satisfied the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act–a 1976 law that allows the federal government to regulate solid waste generation, storage and disposal.
In its ruling, the court agreed that the EPA erred when it failed to mandate unlined CCR surface impoundments be closed, and when it exempted inactive impoundments from the regulation. The court also ruled that EPA should not have classified clay-lined impoundments as being lined.
The court also ruled against industry groups. For example, it determined that EPA does have the authority to regulate inactive impoundments and that it did provide enough public notice that it intended to apply aquifer-location criteria to existing impoundments.
The court also found that EPA decision to prohibit certain unencapsulated beneficial uses of CCR in amounts 12,400 tons or greater was arbitrary and remanded that decision to the EPA. The Agency had previously acknowledged the error in setting the 12,400 ton threshold (the threshold using the Agency’s methodology should have been about 75,000 tons).
Several industry publications have provided coverage of the decision and reaction from industry leaders, including E&E News, APPA, Utility Dive, Engineering News Record, and Courthouse News Service.
For questions or more information, please contact SCS Engineers’ staff.
Regulatory policies governing the food industry are in flux giving corporate compliance headaches, but it doesn’t need to keep you up at night with a massive workload. Consultants are an option if you lack the workforce or expertise to conduct PSM/RMP compliance audits.
William Lape, CIRO, reviews the questions to ask of your consultant before hiring. Starting with the amount of experience that the auditor has evaluating programs against the PSM/RMP regulations; review the resumes and auditor’s support structure; training related to the PSM/RMP regulations and how to properly audit; and ask questions, is the auditor familiar with your covered process, or just PSM/RMP in general? Imagine hiring a consultant with the lowest price and discovering s/he has little experience with ammonia refrigeration.
Read this article and others by clicking here.
This paper, presented at A&WMA’s 111th Annual Conference details the Tier 4 process and the potential issues that have arisen from conducting a Tier 4. This paper also assesses potential Tier 4 sites, exceedance reporting, wind monitoring, additional SEM equipment requirements, penetration monitoring, notification and reporting requirements, and impacts on solid waste landfills that will use the Tier 4 SEM procedure for delaying GCCS requirements. This paper reviews the changes between the draft NSPS and the final version of the new NSPS that was promulgated.
Click to read or share the paper, and learn about the authors.
