Sustainable Land Development Today - April 2008 - (Page 38) TECHNOLOGY Real Time Solution Internet-based technologies clean up NPDES reporting By Tony Middlebrooks NPDES inspection accountability is one of the biggest problems facing the construction and development industry. As federal, state and local regulations are enforced at an increasing rate and fines are on the increase, it becomes mission critical for individuals and companies that are disturbing land to be able to comply with the permit. Primary permit holders should be aware that without 100-percent accountability in the inspection process they are increasing risk as opposed to mitigating risk in the area of NPDES inspections and records management. One of the most difficult problems facing the development industry today is compliance and cost associated with maintaining compliance on the jobsite. In the past few years many have sat idly as fines and assessments have been handed out on thousands of jobsites across every state. The days of $500 and $1000 dollar fines are long gone. Check out your local paper’s environmental section, and watch as the dollar amounts on construction-related violations soar to an alltime record high. It is no longer uncommon for developers, construction companies, and even general contractors to be stuck with penalties in excess of $100,000. Not only are the fines on the incline, but the rate at which they are being served is rapidly increasing as well. companies to perform NPDES site inspections, distribute those inspection documents and maintain the records. The problem with this process has been created by the focus on the Stormwater Prevention and Pollution Plan (SWPPP) and management and training programs for field personnel. These new processes are a huge improvement but fall short in some key areas. Companies in the past have reached a settlement with the Department of Justice and the Environmental Protection Agency for stormwater violations. The settlement agreement requires these companies to put specific business processes in place to comply with the settlement agreement. One of the quickest ways to incur a violation on your jobsite is to let your records management process fall to the wayside, or, ignore it all together. The first thing that federal and state inspectors are trained to look for on a jobsite is the fieldrecords book and, most of the time, this is where the first violation occurs. Four major issues must be addressed to mitigate risk and to satisfy the inspection: Who created the inspection? What type of report was created? When did the inspection occur? And where was the inspection created? NPDES data and information is fragmented with multiple stakeholders. Here is an example: their restaurants are responsible for erosion control and NPDES inspections and that the engineering firms are responsible for creating and updating the SWPPP. As a follow up on behalf of the director of construction the consultant The following should be taken into consideration when choosing an Internet-based reporting system: I Report Customization L Header, Company Logo, Questions, Risk Mitigation For companies with multiple sites the best way to mitigate risk in the area of NPDES inspections and records management is to implement an Internetbased technology solution. It’s simple. Instead of third-party inspection contractors using their own data-capture tool, they use yours. In the past, builders and developers have relied on NPDES inspection 38 April 2008 Sustainable Land Development Today The Primary Permit Holder - Recently a consultant met with the director of construction for a national chain that builds 100-plus stores nationwide. The reason for the meeting was to discuss the company’s need to comply with the NPDES permit in the area of mitigating risk associated with the capture, distribution, management and retention of field inspection reports. The director of construction said that the general contractors that are building Signature Footer, Electronic Signature I Management Tools L Track Inspectors N Who, What, When and Where G In real time track who captured the inspection data G View data instantly through a web browser G Generate a management report of exactly when the inspection data was captured G Track the GPS location of where the inspector was when they captured the inspection L Alerts N 7 day, 14 day, Open Items G Select parameters for specific alerts G System notifications of reports that are overdue G System notifications of open items that have been documented but not completed N Reporting G Custom, Standard I Data Capture L Broadband Access L True Internet I Report Distribution L Distribute reports in manual or automatic mode I Customer Management L Customers instant access to inspection data I Records Retention L Records backup in a secure data center
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