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How To Select an Enviornmental Contractor
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The How-To Business Book
11/20/2000
By: Mitchell Young
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Few business decisions today are as complex - or fraught with potential risk - as choosing an environmental contractor for your project.
Improper disposal of hazardous waste, and disposal sites that fail and themselves become liabilities are all too common. The public and government have grown increasingly intolerant of toxic releases into the air, waste spills, and mishandling of hazardous material. Companies that don't take proper precautions, innocently or not, may be dragged down into a toxic legal and public-relations quagmire themselves.
Put aside that feel-good stuff about a business-friendly government: During the first six months of 2000 the state's Department of Environmental Protection conducted more than 4,300 inspections and issued 680 citations. More than a dozen cases were referred to the state's attorney general, nine to the federal EPA and three to the chief state's attorney for possible criminal prosecution. It may well be that environmental enforcement could or should be tougher, but if you're on the wrong side of an environmental problem, you'll fee the pain.
Regulations that were once cloudy in terms of the chain of responsibility are now quite tight - generators and/or property owners are responsible for the hazardous or unknown material on their sites and for its safe disposal if necessary.
What Is Hazardous?
First, if you generate a solid waste you must determine if that waste is a hazardous waste. Generators are responsible for making hazardous waste determinations.
If you want to sell a property, for all practical purposes it will need a clean bill of health first. While you may find assistance from economic development agencies, the responsibility resides with the property owner.
What you know (or believe) will likely be considered inadequate to properly characterize the waste. According to the DEP, “If you are generating a waste and your knowledge of the waste is insufficient to completely and accurately characterize it, you will need to get the waste tested by a [state-certified] lab to perform the tests that need to be conducted on the waste.”
Disposing of hazardous material is also your ultimate responsibility. An irresponsible disposal company or even a waste site that goes out of business (regardless of whether you've paid for the proper disposal) will put you back on the hook.
Clearly there are some simple things you need to do. Review the licensing and permits of any contractor you hire. Testing labs need certification and haulers needs licenses from the Department of Transportation. Site remediators and companies that respond to spills need licenses from the DEP.
• The DEP can provide you with a list of companies that are licensed environmental contractors.
• You may wish to consider a company that itself is hired by the state to respond to spills.
• Check insurance levels. The state has minimum mandates, but you may want greater protection.
• Personnel: Does the contractor have licensed engineers and hydrologists on staff?
• Recommendations from an environmental consultant are a good start, but be sure to obtain a list of references and check them thoroughly.
• Check the contractor's credit and banking references and the condition of its equipment.
• A well maintained facility and equipment may speak to the level of professionalism that you can expect.
• Ask about the firm's own employee training programs, including the size and nature of its staff. Environmental workers must be trained to OSHA standards. Are the workers mostly employees of the company, or freelancers?
• What is the guaranteed response time for a spill? The state requires a maximum of two hours for its spill-response contractors.
• Choose a company that is open to working with other environmental firms, engineering companies and consultants.
• Have the company supply audits of any facility that waste will be removed to. Things can change quickly in the industry. Look for a current audit and who did it. If a facility goes belly-up, the source of the waste remains responsible.
Manage your relationship with a contractor correctly from the start.
The contractor should tour your facility, identify what materials are on site, where they're located and in what quantities. If you don't know with certainty what something is, then it can't be removed.
A good contractor will likely have suggestions on how problems can be avoided and how they will be handled. Ask to see spill agreements from some other clients and be sure to have a written agreement that includes response time, identifies acceptable disposals sites, etc.
Identify for the contractor all the personnel and the key decision-makers with regard to hazardous material. Establish procedures for the routine treatment of material and be sure to monitor the relationship. If the company is not performing consistently when things are going along fine, you ought not to trust it in a more critical situation.
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