Quick Tour of Environmental Regulations
This simple page was originally written for students in my course GE440:
Hazardous Waste Management. These resources may be of use to other students.
The course is recommended for environmental-track majors in geography and
other disciplines. It is organized according to the major federal environmental
regulatory programs in the United States. Contact me for details at jhayesboh@bridgew.edu.
CLEAN AIR ACT
We will get to information about Toxic Release Inventory and other CAA
data through EPA's Surf Your Watershed. We will navigate as follows:
1) Go to http://www.epa.gov/surf
2) Find the Naragansett Watershed by inputting a ZIP Code (02324)
3) Go to the Air / AIRS information
4) Choose Antonelli Plating Company in Providence - and examine the
AIRS and RCRIS data
5) Look at a dry cleaner for comparison
Note that for any kind of information provided, a link to an explanation
of that source is also provided. For example, we will click on "AIRS" in
step 3 before looking at a specific facility, to see what kinds of data
are available, how they are collected, and under what authority.
SUPER FUND
We will find EPA documents for a few Super fund sites. To begin, we will
go directly to the EPA's Envirofacts database. Note that the Surf database
in many cases (such as above) points to data contained in the Envirofacts
database. We will navigate as follows:
1) Go to http://www.epa.gov/enviro
2) In the "Generate Reports" area, choose "Super fund Data."
3) Use the Geography Search feature to find a site of interest. Let's
choose Woburn, Mass. (Do not check the "NPL Sites Only"
4) Notice that we find 17 sites, but only 2 are NPL. In loose usage,
these are sometimes called "CERCLIS" vs. "CERCLA" sites. The former have
been investigated and therefore remain in the CERCLIS database regardless
of their status; the latter have made the NPL, and are eligible for Super
fund action. Having a "CERCLIS" site is not necessarily a big deal.
5) Click on the EPA ID number for Wells G&H to get a summary page
for the site. Then click on both the ROD and the Super fund Fact Sheets.
MAPPING FOR ENVIRONMENTAL AUDITS
If
you took GE361 with me last year, you may have already seen this, but it
is particularly relevant to this course. It is now possible to obtain maps
of EPA listed facilities, including air, RCRA, CERCLIS, and more. We will
navigate as follows:
1) Go to http://www.epa.gov/enviro
2) In the "Maps on Demand" area, choose "Zipinfo."
3) Enter a ZIP code for which we would like to obtain a map.
4) Select parameters for mapping. In a work situation, you could save
yourself a tremendous amount of money by carefully choosing these parameters.
You can even save as ArcInfo!!!!
5) Submit required information, and check for results.
The processing takes anywhere from several minutes to several hours,
but before this system was implemented similar maps could takes weeks and
cost thousands of dollars to assemble!
SEARCHING CFR 40
Most environmental regulations are in CFR Title 40. We will navigate to
http://www.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/cfrassemble.cgi?title=199840,
which is Title 40. We will then navigate to Volume 2 -- corresponding to
paper volume number 2 of these regulations, which happens to include Parts
50 & 51. Notice what each of these parts is for. Let's explore them
some.
Then let's look at equivalents for two states:
Ohio - http://www.epa.state.oh.us/new/topics.html#rules
Massachusetts - http://www.magnet.state.ma.us/dep/matrix.htm
In some cases, state regulations read and are structured exactly like
the federal regulations.
FEDERAL REGISTER
EPA (and other agencies) are required to publish Final Rules and Regulations,
Sunshine Act Meetings, and Proposed Rules in the daily Federal Register.
This is now searchable. Let's look for recent Proposed Rules for a specific
industry. We will begin at:
http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/aces/aces140.html
EPA GUIDANCE
It is possible - and even likely - that a person (business) could be aware
of a set of regulations but unfamiliar with the techniques required to
meet that regulation. For example, specific laboratory techniques might
be needed to verify compliance with a discharge limit. For this reason,
EPA publishes a wide variety of guidance documents. They do not
have the force of law or regulations, but they provide more detailed explanations
of how to comply with the regulations. An example is at: http://www.epa.gov/superfund/resources/release/faciliti.htm
WASTE REDUCTION
We'll look at in-house programs for a major manufacturer, and a state-sponsored
institute in Massachusetts.
1) Let's go to the "Our Environment" section of 3M's web site: http://www.mmm.com/profile/envt/index.html
We will look at 3M's 3P program.
2) Then we'll browse to the Massachusetts Toxics Use Reduction Institute
(TURI)
at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell: http://www.turi.org/.
There we will look at state-wide progress on toxic-waste reduction.
Any questions? Contact me at jhayesboh@bridgew.edu.
James Hayes-Bohanan, Ph.D.
Bridgewater State College
Revised: December 7,
2000.