Contributed by Matt Ebbert, Senior Geologist, PPM Consultants
Within 5 minutes of meeting someone new, the common question of “So, what do you do?” pops up. As much as I would like to say, “I’m a professional fisherman” I end up telling them I am an environmental consultant. Nine times out of ten the reply is somewhere along the lines of “it must be great to protect the environment” or “awesome, our world needs saving.” At this point, I dash their hopes temporarily by replying “my job is to protect our clients and not the environment.” I must admit that I love to see the facial expressions that immediately morph onto their faces but then I go on to explain further.
As an environmental consultant my job is to guide our clients through the countless regulations, policies, and guidance documents as they balance their company’s requirements to operate their business in the most cost-effective way while still in compliance and yes, protecting the environment. In addition, our clients look to us to find ways to help reduce their impact to the environment, while they perform their jobs to make the chemicals, materials, and goods that we as consumers use on a daily basis.
For the few who want to get past common small talk, I explain the situation: many regulations are fifty years old; some were developed based on “agendas,” while others were omitted for the same reason. Many of these rules make no sense at all. As an example, you have a gas station across the street from a small factory. The gas station has a release of 10,000 gallons of gasoline and the factory has a release of 100 gallons of benzene. Which is worse? Both have impacted soil and groundwater with benzene (one of the major components of gasoline) and the gas station plume contains benzene at a level 100 times higher than the factory plume. We would all likely agree that the gas station release is worse for the environment; however, the EPA policies do not see it that way as they consider the release from the factory as “Hazardous Waste” and the gasoline release as non-hazardous.
To the average person, this does not mean anything; however, to our clients, it means hundreds of thousands of dollars. Therefore, as an environmental consultant, my job is to have thorough knowledge of the regulations, policies, guidance documents, and years of experience to minimize the cost to our client to reach the same goals.
Some people occasionally ask me something along the lines of “why don’t the gas station owners maintain their equipment, so a release doesn’t occur?”. My response is to open up the dialogue in this manner: Have you ever had a water leak at you house? The reply almost invariably is “yes.” I then ask, “why didn’t you replace all of your plumbing before you had a water line leak?” I then tell them that my clients do their best to maintain their equipment to the highest standards. They are required to do regularly scheduled upgrades and testing, but accidents still occur. None of my clients want to have a release of gasoline or diesel from their facilities as it is very expensive and a disruption to their business.
The storage tanks and piping used at most gasoline stations are underground and this is a harsh environment. The soil and groundwater are corrosive, soil moves under the weight of trucks and cars that drive across the parking lot, and there are human factors that can damage this equipment or human error when filling the tanks. Most of the tanks and piping have secondary containment or other forms of leak detection/prevention but these safeguards also fail at times for varying reasons.
When it is time for any of us to fill up our cars, we look for the station with the cheapest fuel and when gasoline prices start going up, we all complain. To replace the tanks and piping at a gasoline station costs on average well into 6 digits. If my clients replaced these systems every 10 to 20 years, they have to increase their prices; and we as consumers would go to the next gasoline station on the block to get the cheaper fuel.
Many of the spills are actually caused by the consumers at these stations. They start fueling their cars and go inside the store to buy their Monster Energy drink, only to come out and gasoline is pouring out of their tank and onto the ground. Who pays to clean this up or is responsible to the state agency for the spill? Definitely not the driver that left his car unattended while pumping fuel (even though there are signs stating not to leave the pump) but our client. As a consultant, my job is to educate our client on how to stay in compliance with the federal and state regulations regarding their fueling system and to help the client clean up the soil and groundwater if a spill occurs, all while keeping their sign with the lowest fuel price.
The news and social media throw out catch words such as “toxic chemicals,” “hazardous waste,” “violations,” and others to grab the viewers’ attention and to make a company look bad. These terms are typically applied incorrectly to a situation, and the user did not research what these terms mean based on federal and state policies. They love to harp on the number of violations a facility has had, but do they even know what these violations consisted of? The significant portion of the violations are paperwork related and have nothing to do with the actual storage, use, or disposal of chemicals.
When the news reports “Company XYZ had a spill of toxic waste that has impacted drinking water to levels 10 times the safe level,” I agree this sounds bad; however, let me interpret what this actually means. Throughout 40 years of operating this facility, incidental spills of a chemical listed in the EPA or state regulations have occurred. Groundwater beneath this commercial facility contains concentrations of chemicals that if a person consumed 2.5 liters (that is a lot of water) of groundwater from beneath this facility, for 350 days per year, for 70 years of their life, they would have a one in a million chance of getting cancer from this. To say this is unlikely is an understatement!
The news, social media, and initial thoughts lead everyone to believe that “industry is bad for the environment.” This could not be further from the truth! Our clients want to be responsible and spend a large percentage of their revenue to put in place a workplace culture, infrastructure, permitting, and internal plans to protect the environment. Many of my clients spend portions of their profits to do river cleanups, plant trees, protect wetlands, and so much more. This is what I wish the news channels would share with the general public.
So yes, I am proud to say, “My job is to protect our client!”