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Earlier this year, former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship was brought to trial on charges of conspiracy to violate mandatory federal mine safety and health standards, conspiracy to impede federal mine safety officials, making false statements to the Securities and Exchange Commission, and securities fraud. Blankenship faced up to 31 years in prison on the […]
Outreach. A CBP3 requires timely communication on progress, feedback, and forward planning. Key outreach points a municipality must consider include: Effective and well-documented transparency and participation; Opportunities for stakeholders, property owners, businesses, and institutions to become partners in planning and implementation; Access for stakeholders to all relevant documents, plans, meetings, and reports; Measurement and evaluation […]
What Is a CBP3? The EPA has been promoting CBP3 programs to help municipalities meet their stormwater management program needs. A traditional P3 is a performance-based contract between the public sector and the private sector to arrange financing, delivery, and typically long-term operations and maintenance of public infrastructure. The CBP3 includes many features of the […]
Who Will Be Paying the Compliance Costs? The EPA estimates $160 million in annual compliance costs for the final UST regulation. Motor fuel retailers, which account for roughly 80 percent of UST systems, are expected to bear approximately 70 percent of the total costs. Previously deferred tanks—emergency generator tanks, airport hydrant fuels distribution systems, and […]
What WOTUS Does Briefly, WOTUS redefines which waters are waters of the United States and, by doing so, decides whether your project will need a permit. According to the EPA, the rule does not alter existing exemptions from Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction, including exemptions for normal farming, ranching, and silviculture activities. The major and most […]
According to the EPA, while information on sources and causes of releases show that releases from tanks are less common than they once were, releases from piping and spills and overfills associated with deliveries have emerged as more common problems. The Agency attributes the lack of proper operation and maintenance of UST systems as a […]
So, if you’ve decided that the best option for managing your solvent-contaminated wipes is to see if you can get them exempt from EPA’s definition of solid and/or hazardous waste by complying with either the rule’s solid waste exclusion or therule’s hazardous waste exclusion, you need to know the steps to take to satisfy the […]
Fracking Company Settlement In late December 2014, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Justice announced a settlement with a subsidiary of the nation’s largest holder of natural gas reserves for violations of the Clean Water Act (CWA). According to the EPA, the company allegedly violated sections 301(a) and 404 of the CWA […]
Sufficiently Sensitive Testing Methods Rule—The Rationale Under the Clean Water Act’s (CWA) NPDES program, the EPA established and required “sufficiently sensitive” analytical methods be used by permit applicants and for “analysis of pollutants or pollutant parameters under an NPDES permit.” These “generally approved” methods under 40 CFR Part 136 and 40 CFR Chapter I, […]
Hydraulic Fracturing—5 Reasons to Consider Wastewater Recycling 1) Hydraulic fracturing requires the use of millions of gallons of freshwater per well. Although hydraulic fracturing water volumes vary across the United States, a single well generally requires the use of one million to five million gallons of water, and the U.S. Department of Energy notes that […]