The CWA is a Series of Acts, not a single document, Major Environmental Acts

Robert Hinderliter

Hall of Fame Member
[h=1]Major Environmental Acts[/h]

Major Environmental Acts (Website: http://www.epa.gov/region5/defs/index.html)


  • NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY (1969)


  • The National Environmental Policy Act was one of the first laws ever written that establishes the broad national framework for protecting our environment. NEPA’s basic policy is to assure that all branches of government give proper consideration to the environment prior to undertaking any major federal action that significantly affects the environment.


  • NEPA requirements are invoked when airports, buildings, military complexes, highways, parkland purchases, and other federal activities are proposed. Environmental Assessments (EA’s) and Environmental Impact Statements (EIS’s), which are assessments of the likelihood of impacts from alternative courses of action, are required from all Federal agencies and are the most visible NEPA requirements.





  • CLEAN AIR ACT (1970)


  • The Clean Air Act is the comprehensive Federal law that regulates air emissions from area, stationary, and mobile sources. This law authorizes the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to establish National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) to protect public health and the environment.


  • The goal of the Act was to set and achieve NAAQS in every state by 1975. The setting of maximum pollutant standards was coupled with directing the states to develop State Implementation Plans (SIP’s) applicable to appropriate industrial sources in the state.


  • The Act was amended in 1977 primarily to set new goals (dates) for achieving attainment of NAAQS since many areas of the country had failed to meet the guidelines. The 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act in large part were intended to meet unaddressed or insufficiently addressed problems such as acid rain, ground-level ozone, stratospheric ozone depletion, and air toxics.




  • Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1972


  • The Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1972 set the basic structure for regulating discharges of pollutants to waters of the United States and gave the CWA it current form. And established a national goal that all waters of the U.S should be fishable and swimmable. This is the act that first caused Municipalities to do an Environmental Assessment of themselves. Most Regulators refer to the CWA as being passed in 1972.





  • SAFE DRINKING WATER ACT (1974)


  • The Safe Drinking Water Act was established to protect the quality of drinking water in the U.S. This law focuses on all waters actually or potentially designed for drinking use, whether from above ground or underground sources.


  • The Act authorized EPA to establish safe standards of purity and required all owners or operators of public water systems to comply with primary (health-related) standards. State governments, which assume this power from EPA, also encourage attainment of secondary standards (nuisance-related).





  • RESOURCE CONSERVATION AND RECOVERY ACT (1976)


  • RCRA (pronounced “rick-rah”) gave EPA the authority to control hazardous waste from the “cradle-to-grave.” This includes the generation, transportation, treatment, storage, and disposal of hazardous waste. RCRA also set forth a framework for the management of non-hazardous wastes.


  • The 1986 amendments to RCRA enabled EPA to address environmental problems that could result from underground tanks storing petroleum and other hazardous substances. RCRA focuses only on active and future facilities and does not address abandoned or historical sites (see CERCLA.)


  • HSWA (pronounced “hiss-wa”) – The Federal Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments are the 1984 amendments to RCRA that required phasing out land disposal of hazardous waste. Some of the other mandates of this strict law include increased enforcement authority for EPA, more stringent hazardous waste management standards, and a comprehensive underground storage tank program.


  • Employee protection from being fired or discriminated against for either filing a proceeding or testifying about issues related to RCRA enforcement.


  • Allows Citizens to commence a civil action on his or her own behalf against any person, including any government entity, who is alleged to be in violation of any permit, standard, regulation, condition, requirement, prohibition, or order which is effective pursuant to RCRA




  • TOXIC SUBSTANCES CONTROL ACT (1976)


  • The Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) of 1976 was enacted by Congress to give EPA the ability to track the 75,000 industrial chemicals currently produced or imported into the United States. EPA repeatedly screens these chemicals and can require reporting or testing of those that may pose an environmental or human-health hazard. EPA can ban the manufacture and import of those chemicals that pose an unreasonable risk.


  • Also, EPA has mechanisms in place to track the thousands of new chemicals that industry develops each year with either unknown or dangerous characteristics. EPA then can control these chemicals as necessary to protect human health and the environment. TSCA supplements other Federal statutes, including the CLEAN AIR ACT and the Toxic Release Inventory under EPCRA.




  • CLEAN WATER ACT (1977)


  • The Clean Water Act is a 1977 amendment to the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1972, which set the basic structure for regulating discharges of pollutants to waters of the United States.


  • The law gave EPA the authority to set effluent standards on an industry basis (technology-based) and continued the requirements to set water quality standards for all contaminants in surface waters. The CWA makes it unlawful for any person to discharge any pollutant from a point source into navigable waters unless a permit (NPDES) is obtained under the Act.


  • The 1977 amendments focused on toxic pollutants. In 1987, the CWA was reauthorized and again focused on toxic substances, authorized citizen suit provisions, and funded sewage treatment plants (POTW’s) under the Construction Grants Program.


  • The CWA provisions for the delegation by EPA of many permitting, administrative, and enforcement aspects of the law to state governments. In states with the authority to implement CWA programs, EPA still retains oversight responsibilities. Website: http://www.epa.gov/region5/water/cwa.htm


  • COMPREHENSIVE ENVIRONMENTAL RESPONSE, COMPENSATION, AND LIABILITY ACT (1980)


  • CERCLA (pronounced SIR-cla) provides a Federal “Superfund” to clean up uncontrolled or abandoned hazardous-waste sites as well as accidents, spills, and other emergency releases of pollutants and contaminants into the environment. Through the Act, EPA was given power to seek out those parties responsible for any release and assure their cooperation in the cleanup.


  • EPA cleans up orphan sites when potentially responsible parties cannot be identified or located, or when they fail to act. Through various enforcement tools, EPA obtains private party cleanup through orders, consent decrees, and other small party settlements. EPA also recovers costs from financially viable individuals and companies once a response action has been completed.


  • EPA is authorized to implement the Act in all 50 states and U.S. territories. Superfund site identification, monitoring, and response activities in states are coordinated through the state environmental protection or waste management agencies. In Region 5, CERCLA is administered by the Superfund Division.

URL:http://www.epa.gov/region5/defs/html/cercla.htm



  • POLLUTION PREVENTION ACT (1990)


  • The Pollution Prevention Act focused industry, government, and public attention on reducing the amount of pollution through cost-effective changes in production, operation, and raw materials use.
Opportunities for source reduction are often not realized because of existing regulations, and the industrial resources required for compliance, focus on treatment and disposal. Source reduction is fundamentally different and more desirable than waste management or pollution control.


  • Pollution prevention also includes other practices that increase efficiency in the use of energy, water, or other natural resources, and protect our resource base through conservation. Practices include recycling, source reduction, and sustainable agriculture.


 
Robert, you are mistaken. Even in your post you mention the Clean Water Act. Our environmental laws are a series of acts.
 
Robert, this is all great background information and it is familiar to Scott, Ron, and me. Much of it has little impact on our industry and is directed at industrial runoff.

The background, while important, and while valuable in forecasting trends, is not as important as the present and the future.

At present the goal of the is to eliminate all illicit discharges into the MS4. It is now and has always been "to the greatest extent practicable".

That is why the EPA in Phase II is implementing construction runoff permitting on 1-5 of disturbed acres reduced down from Phase 1 at 5 acres. The construction industry has found ways to deal with the EPA regulations in a "practicable" manner due to the efforts of "lobbyists" just like you said in your other post, who have been able to fight for the construction industry and make BMP's that are truly "reasonable".

Robert, how many construction sites are laden with vacuums running and polluting the air near the storm drains? What about sump pumps to the POTW? Where are they?

Las Vegas was the top in the country for construction a couple of years ago and powered equipment to deal with runoff was virtually non-existent.

Why is the construction industry not laden with restrictions? Because the construction industry presented themselves as necessary AND responsible and fought for their contractors.

Our first mistake was to attempt to "go along" and just try to "keep up" with the regulations.

The construction industry, street sweepers, and many other industries that have had to deal with these coming regulations have done a great job of presenting themselves to the EPA as reducers of pollution rather than sources of it.

We presented our industry in the wrong light to begin with. Something that is "Cosmetic" is not usually necessary. That is why the term "cosmetic cleaning" presents us as an industry that can be turned on and off with little consequences at the first water shortage. While our service is cosmetic in some instances, most of our cleaning is for sanitary, health or safety reasons.

Maybe, being the owner of a fleet washing company has skewed your own view of our industry because fleet washing is more "cosmetic" than cleaning nasty food spills from the front of restaurants or cleaning slippery algae off of sidewalks. This might also explain why you have portrayed all sectors of the industry as polluters because fleet washing and garage cleaning which is done by your partner, Jim Gamble has a much higher chance of releasing pollutants than many other aspects of pressure cleaning.
I can only speculate on the reasons.

The latest direction of the EPA is to work towards TDML limits for the NPDES holders. This could be good or bad news for us. But that is the direction we need to look at to stay ahead of the game. Just as they have here in Las Vegas where the Federal EPA put Selenium limits on the city that were below the limits that happen in the desert naturally 50 miles out of the city. They dealt with it by striking a deal with the EPA which allowed them to dump treated water back into the waste stream to DILUTE the runoff to meet acceptable levels while negotiating the levels down to a reasonable rate.

This is how we deal with the EPA as an industry.

We present ourselves as necessary and willing to work on Practicable solution that don't impact the environment negatively in other ways, i.e, air pollution from unnecessary running equipment.

We work with the EPA to show that not only does our industry as a whole operate as a very LOW IMPACT industry, and work towards exemptions like the cities have given us for sidewalk cleaning and bus stops (much to the chagrin of your partner, Jim.)

The past is important.

The future is of utmost importance.
 
Our first mistake was to attempt to "go along" and just try to "keep up" with the regulations.


If by "our" you mean the pressure washers on the ground, I disagree.

Our first mistake was to allow vendors to get involved in the first place.

Our second mistake was to allow TPTB to carbon copy the environmental steering committee across two Org's

The third was to ignore the economics of the regulations and BMP's that were allowed to infest our trade. I'm not endorsing regulation but, if you are going to have it and it's here to stay, it has to be funded somehow. Until the true polluters (the facilities) are required to have periodic cleanings, the increased costs are totally absorbed by the service provider.

For example, if the costs to clean a gas station increased 300% because of equipment and procedure, and the gas station owner has no requirement to clean, the choice he has is to clean or not to clean. If he does nothing, he has no cost, and no risk of a fine for improper cleaning (like wash water reaching the storm drain). If he does nothing, the oil is still going down the storm drain, seeping into the concrete and ground underneath....more so than if it was cleaned regularly.

I've said this many times....if the issue were ever thoroughly investigated, trialed and tested, they'd put red lights on our trucks and call us first responders. We'd be the solution....not the problem. Heroes....not villains.

We clean pollutants but are viewed as the polluters....This is the result of allowing accountants, sales and marketing and management of manufacturers and distributors steer the environmental issues for our industry.

Finally....just because there is a law, act or regulation does not mean it's smart, right, just or even well thought out. Most are knee jerk responses motivated by political issues cooked with lobbying and special interest and of course, money. When someone comes at you with a fist full of government documents....they generally fit into one of those groups.

Never concede the battlefield....we shouldn't be arguing how to regulate PW's, we should be arguing the entire concept and need. Better to lose ground from that start point then to begin it in a losing position.
 
If by "our" you mean the pressure washers on the ground, I disagree.

Our first mistake was to allow vendors to get involved in the first place.

Our second mistake was to allow TPTB to carbon copy the environmental steering committee across two Org's

The third was to ignore the economics of the regulations and BMP's that were allowed to infest our trade. I'm not endorsing regulation but, if you are going to have it and it's here to stay, it has to be funded somehow. Until the true polluters (the facilities) are required to have periodic cleanings, the increased costs are totally absorbed by the service provider.

For example, if the costs to clean a gas station increased 300% because of equipment and procedure, and the gas station owner has no requirement to clean, the choice he has is to clean or not to clean. If he does nothing, he has no cost, and no risk of a fine for improper cleaning (like wash water reaching the storm drain). If he does nothing, the oil is still going down the storm drain, seeping into the concrete and ground underneath....more so than if it was cleaned regularly.

I've said this many times....if the issue were ever thoroughly investigated, trialed and tested, they'd put red lights on our trucks and call us first responders. We'd be the solution....not the problem. Heroes....not villains.

We clean pollutants but are viewed as the polluters....This is the result of allowing accountants, sales and marketing and management of manufacturers and distributors steer the environmental issues for our industry.

Finally....just because there is a law, act or regulation does not mean it's smart, right, just or even well thought out. Most are knee jerk responses motivated by political issues cooked with lobbying and special interest and of course, money. When someone comes at you with a fist full of government documents....they generally fit into one of those groups.

Never concede the battlefield....we shouldn't be arguing how to regulate PW's, we should be arguing the entire concept and need. Better to lose ground from that start point then to begin it in a losing position.

Quite possibly the best post I've seen on this subject in a long time.

Thanks Barry!
 
I've said this many times....if the issue were ever thoroughly investigated, trialed and tested, they'd put red lights on our trucks and call us first responders. We'd be the solution....not the problem. Heroes....not villains.

We clean pollutants but are viewed as the polluters....This is the result of allowing accountants, sales and marketing and management of manufacturers and distributors steer the environmental issues for our industry.

Barry, we are working hard on this very issue at the UAMCC. I've never been too big on orgs, but I don't think we can change the perception without coming together. Not coming together unanimously. That will never happen. But we need a group of like minded contractors together in order to be taken seriously by regulators. Robert was absolutely right on that point.

I have a little different take on the org situation. It's almost the same belief I have on organized religion. While I don't believe my salvation has much of anything to do with whether or not I regularly attend services at any given church, we go to church regularly because as a group we help each other and help others and there is value in that.

I don't even know what the UAMCC offers for "bennies". It doesn't really matter to me. The UAMCC does offer a platform for us to completely change the perception of our industry over time and that's worth the membership cost for me. If anything should teach us the danger of supporting only things that have an immediate payback for us personally without looking out for others in the future it's the latest presidential election. Let's not allow our industry to follow that path.

Can the UAMCC become corrupted? Certainly. And I expect the org to be attacked very soon by opposing forces by introducing members from the previous failed org and attempting to elevate them to BoD positions to control the org. That is why I advocated a ban on anyone who held a PWNA board, committee or any other position of authority from being able to run for the UAMCC board for a period of at least 8 years or four election cycles.

At least that would give us a foothold that would be harder to destroy. I don't know if that suggestion will be accepted by the UAMCC board and I don't know if it is even legally possible.

Changing the perception is hard work. It was hard to travel the west coast and leave my family in the hotel or the car to talk to all those regulators. It's hard to study late into the night or be on phone calls all morning to be able to post accurate environmental information on these boards. It's hard to oppose faulty ideas that come from a well liked source like Robert. But it was hard for each of us to start up our businesses from scratch. The eventual rewards were worth it though!

We are going to change the perception. The street sweepers went through the same thing. They were attacked for everything. They were attacked based on the Clean Water Act for the small amounts of water they use to wet down dirt as they vaccuum. They were attacked based on the clean air act for the small amounts of dust that was generated as they vacuumed. They were attacked based on noise ordinances for their engines running on the streets. But they stuck together, changed the perception of their industry and now are viewed by the EpA and the public alike as a necessary and valuable industry.

We can do that too. But it will take time, some money and numbers. If you are currently putting your money towards the goals of the PWNA which are now becoming very clear I'd urge you to consider both directions and choose to help us change the perception, ease the regulations, and keep our costs down before our industry prices itself out of existence.
 
I've never been too big on orgs, but I don't think we can change the perception without coming together.

I don't see it happening....sorry. You start an Org....I'll be the first to join.

Focusing on things we agree on.......the environmental issue, I think we are on the same page.
 
I don't see it happening....sorry. You start an Org....I'll be the first to join.

Focusing on things we agree on.......the environmental issue, I think we are on the same page.

You have Said this Before Barry, didn't happen
 
Back
Top