Tag: environmental

SO2 NAAQS: What’s Next?

By Timothy P. Fagan, BLR Air Expert tfagan@blr.com How were nonattainment designations determined? Once the NAAQS was set in 2010, EPA and state agencies worked together using monitoring data to determine what areas should be designated nonattainment and establish the area’s boundaries.  The newly designated nonattainment areas were designated as such because each had air […]

E-Learning Makes Training Easy

In some cases, EPA specifies general types of training (e.g., classroom or hands-on) and time frames for refresher training but leaves the duration of training and choice of training materials up to facility managers. For example, EPA requires hazardous waste large quantity generators and treatment, storage, and disposal facilities to provide classroom instruction or on-the-job […]

$25,000 for Failing to Report Oil Spill

MassDEP received a telephone report from an environmental cleanup contractor on behalf of the building owner that a release estimated to be 260 gal of diesel fuel had occurred 6 days earlier during the transfer of oil from a basement tank to a rooftop generator when a pump had failed to cycle off. The oil […]

Everybody’s ‘Real’ Economic Impact is Different

Do a Google search on “Do environmental regulations hurt economic growth?” and you will come up with enough studies to cover a wall in your local public library.  If you review the studies themselves – or at least flip through the abstracts – you will find most of the researchers answer “no.” That answer is […]

Keys to Good Classroom Training Sessions

Instructor-led training remains one of the most popular training techniques for trainers. There are many types including: Blackboard or whiteboard. This may be the most “old-fashioned” method, but it can still be effective, especially if you invite trainees to write on the board or ask for feedback that you write on the board. Video portion. […]

9 Ways to Make Your Training More Interesting

Quizzes. For long, complicated training, stop periodically to administer brief quizzes on information presented to that point. You can also begin sessions with a prequiz and let participants know there will also be a follow-up quiz. Trainees will stay engaged in order to improve their prequiz scores on the final quiz. Further motivate participants by […]

LPG Odorants in Rail Tank Cars

But in what appears to be a regulatory lapse, the federal odorant standards overseen by the Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) apply only to LPG rail shipments in cargo and portable tank containers; there is no comparable regulation for LPG transported in railroad tank cars.  In a safety advisory issued April 2012, the […]