EHS Month Part 2: 30 Years of EHS
August 9th, 2021
In 1987 I was a junior chemical engineering major in need of an elective. After scouring the course catalog, one class, and its intriguing description, seemed to speak directly to me, Introduction to Industrial Hygiene.
Yeah; I am an engineer for sure, who else gets excited by that title?.
What I thought would be a straightforward break from the complexities of engineering was actually the birth of the Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) professional, charged with keeping track of the regulatory requirements and keeping the regulated community, “out of jail.” It was also the beginning of my career in the field.
Here’s just a sampling of what this era saw:
The Clean Air Act. Unleashed to curb acid rain, urban air pollution, toxic air emissions, and introduce regulatory provisions requiring the phaseout of ozone depleting chemicals according to a compliance schedule outlined in international negotiations (revised Montreal protocol). A decade of Underground Storage Tank upgrading, replacing, or closing. Air toxic modeling, conditional major permits, synthetic minor, Title 5 permits, PSD permits, emission reports, control technology, more acronyms, and subparts, and title VI Ozone depletion. EPCRA and SARA Reporting.
How about Stormwater? one word or two? The EHS compliance professional question since the EPA modified regulations in 1987-1993 to add the term “storm water discharges associated with industrial activity” and “storm water discharges to municipalities in populations of less than and great than 100,000”. The permits, pollution prevention plan preparation and implementation, training, mapping, sampling, and GIS compliance game was on!
Oh the madness!!
Environmental and OSHA health and safety compliance is a lot to manage for one individual, and in most cases compliance at industrial facilities is completed by teams of two or more, with large corporations having teams, regions, and technical subject matter experts dedicated to compliance.
From piecemeal and patchwork beginnings the EHS professional sets into the present day highly trained and focused, with data management, source reduction, pollution prevention and sustainability.
At HRP, our service pillar dedicated to EHS compliance grows individually with our professionals, as a company, and as a discipline in tune with ever changing regulations. We understand the content, direction and intent of the regulations, and their relevance to the regulated community. We are a liaison to our client base, advocating for a compliance engineering approach, making sure that EHS is at the forefront of capital investment conversations and not at the time of construction.
But hang on folks, we’re not done yet.
Let’s get back to the CAA Title VI, the Game Changer. To dive into compliance and to do it correctly, and to make it sustainable is to take every bit of your available resources, past and present to make a difference. Periodic EHS audits or assessments are essential to not only perform a check and balance on compliance, but to identify areas of improvement and the ever-important Best Management Practices (BMP) which gets everyone on board and moving in a positive direction. CAA Title VI of the Clean Air Act dedicated to the reduction of ozone depleting and global warming chemicals initiated and exploded HRP’s Air Compliance and OSHA Process Safety Management compliance practices. Grinding through the sea of regulations to provide proactive consulting advice and solutions to client process changes and capital investment projects.
In blink of an eye, the professional world at HRP went from being a group of compliance folks to what I like to call “ an urban EHS assault team” which has gone to over 40 US States, and 24 countries to provide our high level of services in the EHS arenas of air, tanks, waste, OSHA, process safety, waste water, storm water, EPCRA, DOT and world class environmental and ISO corporate and facility auditing.
Up next---PFA’s compliance and more---we've got you covered!
During the month of August, HRP will be hosting EH&S month! During this time, we will publish a weekly blog from our EH&S practitioners, each at a different point in their career, relative to the past, present and future of EH&S. We will focus many of our social media efforts on EH&S topics to further highlight the field of EH&S. Be sure to tune in and share your perspective as well as we can all join and move the EH&S environment forward!
Tad Goetcheus, COO and President at HRP Associates, Inc.
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