Practical EHS Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
The Clean Air Act required the EPA to develop NAAQS for six pollutants commonly found throughout the United States. These pollutants, referred to as “criteria pollutants,” are: Sulfur dioxide; Particulate matter (PM-10 and PM-2.5); Carbon monoxide; Ozone; Nitrogen dioxide; and Lead. The EPA established a primary and a secondary NAAQS for each criteria pollutant. The […]
EAB Throws Out Huge TSCA Penalty Earlier this year, EPA’s Environmental Appeals Board (EAB) reversed a $2.5 million penalty against Elementis Chromium, Inc. for the company’s failure to report under TSCA Section 8(e) information contained in an occupational epidemiology study on hexavalent chromium. The study showed that occupational exposure to hexavalent chromium is associated with […]
What are nanoscale materials? Nanomaterials are chemical substances that have structures with dimensions at the nanoscale—approximately 1 to 100 nanometers (nm). To get an idea of their size, a human hair is approximately 80,000 to 100,000 nm wide. The thinking is that nanomaterials may have properties different from the same chemical substances with structures at […]
The CAA’s Chemical Accident Prevention Program requires that any facility that has listed substances above threshold quantities in any single process prepare a Risk Management Plan (RMP). The listed substances contain 77 toxic chemicals with thresholds ranging from 500 pounds (lb) to 20,000 lb and 63 flammable substances with a threshold quantity of 10,000 lb. […]
Recent enforcement statistics from the EPA show that during fiscal year (FY) 2014, enforcement actions required companies to invest more than $9.7 billion in actions and equipment to control pollution and clean up contaminated sites. Companies paid $63 million in combined administrative, civil, and criminal fines. And that’s just on the federal level! Follow these […]
Note: The current health-based ozone standard is 75 parts per billion (ppb). The groups discussed in this article all recommend that the EPA retain the current ozone standard. National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) NAM commissioned a study concerning the costs of EPA’s proposed ozone standards. The initial (July 2014) and updated (February 2015) study was […]
By law, the EPA cannot consider costs when setting a health-based National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS). Nonetheless, to inform stakeholders, the Agency typically calculates the costs of meeting the NAAQS as well as the monetary benefits. Note: The current health-based ozone standard is 75 ppb. The EPA estimates costs at $3.9 billion in 2025 […]
Counting Hazardous Waste You know you generate hazardous waste at your facility and you want to keep your disposal costs down. Well, then, you have to keep down the amount of hazardous waste you have on-site each month. If you are a large quantity generator (LQG), your responsibilities and costs will be greater than if […]
The top violation DOT inspectors have found so far in FY 2015 is that packages are not secured in vehicles. At 1,207 violations, this mistake accounted for 8.12% of the total violations. Following at a close second, inspectors have found 1,197 instances when there was no copy of the U.S. DOT registration number in the […]
After a Flood If your UST has been in a flood, take the following actions, depending on site-specific conditions: Do not assume everything is OK because water didn’t actually flood over the station. The water table could have risen and caused problems. Make sure the power to any UST-related equipment is off (such as power […]