The Senate voted last December to approve a sweeping bipartisan chemical safety bill after years of work and months of tense negotiations.

The primary law overseeing the safety of chemical products—the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA)—was passed in 1976 and provides the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) authority to review and regulate chemicals in commerce. TSCA was designed to ensure that products are safe for intended use. While the law created a robust system of regulations, over time, confidence in EPA’s regulation of chemicals has eroded.

The Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, named after the late New Jersey senator, updates the 1976 TSCA to give the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) broad new powers to study and regulate harmful chemicals like asbestos, while restricting states’ individual abilities to make their own rules. Lautenberg had made chemical reform his top priority before his death in 2013.

The bill would eventually require testing for every chemical currently in commerce, and any new chemicals. The EPA decisions about chemicals would have to be made solely on the basis of the impact on health and the environment, not the compliance costs.

But the legislation also has significant provisions that the chemical industry asked for, such as restrictions on what states can do on their own, which the industry said is essential for certainty and to avoid a patchwork of rules.

The House passed its own chemical reform bill in June 2015. The Senate sponsors said they plan to work with the House toward a compromise measure.

Key Points of the Bill

Some of the highlights, as outlined in a summary of the Senate bill, are:

  • Arequirement that the EPA review the safety of all chemicals in commerce;
  • New chemicals must pass a safety check before they can be sold on the market;
  • An explicit requirement to protect populations whose exposures, age or other conditions make them vulnerable to chemicals;
  • New authority for the EPA to require companies to test new and existing chemicals for safety; and
  • EPA can retain enacted state regulations and laws for chemicals, but temporarily stop new regulations while the agency is assessing a chemical’s risks.

Other provisions include minimizing animal testing, the establishment of a federal sustainable chemistry program, interim storage by mercury generators and a prohibition on the export of certain mercury compounds.

California approves AB888, an important bill to prohibit the use of plastic microbeads in personal care products for sale in California by 2020. When someone uses a product – like a face wash, for example – that has microbeads, several things happen. First – they get a unique kind of cleanse in their face that beauty companies suggest they can’t get any other way. Second – the microbeads (tiny pieces of plastic) are washed down the drain with water. These microbeads do not get recycled. They do not get caught in filters before they hit the sea. They pollute.

With two just-released studies showing overwhelming levels of plastic pollution in San Francisco Bay and in Half Moon Bay’s marine life, it’s not an exaggeration to say that this bill will have a huge impact on the health of California’s waterways — and its people. Alaska, Hawaii, Iowa, Minnesota, New York, Vermont, and Washington also tried and failed this year to enact bans on manufacture and sale, while Oregon’s legislature is considering similar bans.

Studies found that San Francisco bay is contaminated with tiny pieces of plastic in greater concentrations than other U.S. bodies of water — at least 3.9 million pieces every day. Many of those plastic particles are tiny microbeads, less than one millimeter in diameter, which can be found in personal care products like shower gels, facial scrubs and toothpaste.

AB888 will ban the beads by 2020. Product manufacturers can use other exfoliants that aren’t as environmentally destructive, and increasingly, states are demanding that they do so. Six other states have already passed legislation that bans or restricts their use.

In addition to the plastic polluting our waterways — there are 471 million microbeads released into the bay every day from wastewater treatment facilities, Gordon said — they also contaminate the fish that we eat. A recent study in the publication Scientific Reports found “anthropogenic debris” in 25 percent of the fish sampled at markets in California.

Environmental Business Journal (EBJ) recognizes firms for growth and innovation in 2014

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., 10 March 2015 — Locus Technologies announced today that Environmental Business Journal (EBJ), a business research publication which provides high value strategic business intelligence to the environmental industry, granted the company the 2014 award for Information Technology in the environmental and sustainability industry for the ninth time.

Locus was recognized for significant strategic strides in 2014 including entering the water quality management (drinking water supplies and waste water) market; introducing its new Locus Platform (a highly configurable, user-friendly interface to fully meet individual organizations’ environmental management needs); and launching Locus Mobile (a field data collection solution that is fully integrated with Locus’s flagship Environmental Information Management [EIM] platform). In addition, Locus continues to maintain its leadership position in the commercial nuclear industry by solidifying business with more than 50 percent of all U.S. commercial reactor facilities that use Locus EIM for radionuclides monitoring management.

“Locus continues to influence the industry with its forward-thinking product set and eye for customer needs,” said Grant Ferrier, president of Environmental Business International Inc. (EBI), publisher of Environmental Business Journal.

“We are very proud to receive the prestigious EBJ Information Technology award in environmental business for the ninth time. It is a statement of our vision and perseverance to accomplish this level of recognition, especially now as we lead the market by providing robust solutions for the emerging space of cloud and mobile-based environmental information management,” said Neno Duplan, President and CEO of Locus Technologies.

The 2014 EBJ awards, hosted by EBI Inc., will be presented at the annual executive retreat called the Environmental Industry Summit XIII in San Diego, Calif. on March 11-13, 2015.

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., 12 August 2013 — Rogue Disposal & Recycling, Inc. (Rogue), a company that’s been providing Southern Oregon with innovative solid waste disposal and recycling services for over 73 years, has selected Locus Technologies’ cloud-based ePortal software for its compliance management.Rogue will use ePortal to take a more holistic view of its operations, and to proactively manage all compliance activities associated with its Dry Creek Landfill site. The company’s decision to use ePortal for compliance management stems from its continuous commitment to environmental responsibility. Rogue has always strived to become an environmentally conscious leader, and has enacted various innovative “green” policies and programs in order to do its part to both improve and protect the environment.

“Rogue’s overall goal is to be the leading environmental company in Southern Oregon,” said Lee Fortier, Dry Creek Landfill’s General Manager. “Locus’ ePortal system will help us to actively monitor all of our environmental compliance activities as we embrace the environmental regulations as our minimum commitment to our clients.”

“We are very pleased Rogue has chosen Locus to assist it with managing its compliance,” said Neno Duplan, President and CEO of Locus. “We believe Rogue will reap the benefits of tracking and reporting on all compliance activities in a single cloud-based secure system.”

About Rogue Disposal & Recycling, Inc.
Rogue management’s goal is to be the greenest company in Southern Oregon. The company has worked hard to become an environmentally conscious leader by continually looking at ways to both improve and protect the environment. The company features: solar panels at its main transfer station facility to produce clean, renewable energy; two waste collection trucks powered entirely by compressed natural gas (CNG); and the innovative Dry Creek Landfill gas-to-energy facility that converts methane gas from landfill refuse to electrical energy. Rogue is dedicated to new technology and the best management practices that exceed governmental mandates in a continued effort to provide superior service, affordable rates and a commitment to recycling and environmental protection.

Enablon, IHS and SAP have emerged as key application providers for forward-thinking businesses looking beyond compliance for ways energy and resource conservation can make them more competitive.

While the amount of damage that Hurricane Sandy caused is still being tallied up, particular attention needs to be paid to one environmental issue: Sandy’s impact on Superfund toxic-waste sites. The Wall Street Journal recently identified that out of the 198 sites in both New York and New Jersey, 45 are within a half-mile from coastal areas, thus making them extremely vulnerable to the effects of storms.

Even though a specific number was not given as to how many of these Superfund sites were flooded, it’s clear that several felt the impact of Sandy. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has tested water samples from Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal and nearby flooded buildings and has only found low levels of potentially cancer-causing pollutants. However, there are many more sites that need examined, such as the Raritan Bay Slag Superfund site in Sayreville, New Jersey, that poses the possible threat of lead contamination. The amount of hazardous toxic-waste that Sandy may have unearthed at Superfund sites like these makes it essential that there is a thorough evaluation of possible waste disturbance.

In addition to the Superfund sites, other concerns such as fuel spills and issues at water treatment facilities have members of the Coast Guard, officials from the EPA and the states of New York and New Jersey working to quell the threats. One thing is for certain: a considerable amount of work still needs to be done in order to assess the flooding damage.

To accurately determine the extent of the contamination caused by Sandy, numerous water samples must be collected and analyzed. The management of this data becomes extremely important due to the possible outcomes that may be discovered. By organizing this critical data in a centralized, Cloud-based environmental management platform, its accuracy is improved, and information can be analyzed at portfolio level a thousand times faster, providing actionable insight in real time- which is crucial in a situation like this.  Having a system like this in place will help the EPA and affected parties to not only assess the nature and extent of possible contamination spread more accurately and faster, but it will also help to prepare better for future events of a similar nature.  Information on which remedies worked, and which did not work as well, will assist the EPA and owners of contaminated sites with knowing what improvements are necessary.

Environmental, Energy, Emissions, and Compliance Management in the Cloud presented by Locus’ CEO, Neno Duplan.

RailTec, University of Illinois at Urban-Champaign

Abstract of Original 2012 Presentation Follows:

As they go about the lengthy, tedious, expensive and very often dirty job of decontaminating polluted industrial sites, environmental consultants bill their clients by the hour, capturing…and then completely controlling…the superabundance of project-related environmental data that underlies remediation strategies. As a result of this process, a “consultant-centric model” has dominated the field of corporate environmental data management.  This is primarily because environmental data is not integral to the daily functioning of a company, and because the quantities and complexities of the data produced are enormous.  So company managers are generally quite comfortable with letting their consultants do all the querying, analysis, reporting…and then storing the data.

And since the consultants derive increased billing hours from controlling their clients’ data, the ultimate incentive for them is a renewed or extended contract, an outcome which, though certainly not guaranteed, is optimized by their control of the data.

But change is coming.  The environmental data management practices of corporations and their consultants are undergoing a profound transformation as new Web-based software provides a low-cost means of making available the critical information that organizational decision makers need not only to better understand and manage their overall environmental liabilities but also to improve their operations by analyzing the valuable data.  While environmental data is collected primarily for compliance reporting, when mined with the right tools it can also be used to point to weaknesses in data gathering and processing operations and provide valuable information on how to eliminate or reduce these.

A new “company-centric” environmental data management model now offers a remote data repository situated in the Internet “Cloud” and equally accessible in real time to all, including both the client and its consultants.

Cloud computing is a software outsourcing model that offers great promise for managing environmental, energy, emissions, and compliance  information of any type. It is slowly making its way into companies that have to manage large quantities of data and meet routine compliance requirements. The model fits the way environmental information needs to be managed through mashups (applications that integrate data or functionality from multiple sources or technologies), and has the potential to completely upend the way railroad industry  organize, manage, and report their environmental and energy data and information. Companies that have large portfolios of sites and facilities can use Cloud computing as a very low-cost means to take control of their mission-critical environmental data and information, gain new functionality and capabilities, and at the same time circumvent the involvement of their IT department if they so desire.

Cloud-based data management can completely replace existing stand-alone data systems and reporting tools to provide a comprehensive integrated solution to the railroad industry’s one of the most vexing problems—the centralization and management of complex data pertaining to contaminated water, groundwater, soil, and air.

At many contaminated transportation sites or at facilities and other sites contaminated with hydrocarbons, Cloud-based information management systems already provide market-tested solutions that were rapidly deployed and provide a high level of functionality and data security, an extensive set of QA/QC standards, and scalability.

The Cloud provides a platform for the complete electronic processing of analytical data, emissions data, compliance activities, and sustainability data beginning with the upload of electronic data deliverables from labs, and terminating in state-mandated or federal regulatory exports and reporting. When companies use such Software as a Service (SaaS) models, they eliminate most of the difficulties associated with the management of complex data sets while offering the opportunity for more rapid customization of data reporting to meet the changing needs of the industry.

The most significant discussions focused on the recent Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) guidance to combine Underground Piping and Tank Integrity efforts with the Groundwater Protection program as a whole.

EPRI is happy to announce the third annual coordination of the EPRI Groundwater Protection Workshop with the NEI Radioactive Effluent Technical Specifications/Radiological Environmental Monitoring Programs(RETS/REMP) Workshop.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is announcing a schedule to develop standards for wastewater discharges produced by natural gas extraction from underground coalbed and shale formations. No comprehensive set of national standards exists at this time for the disposal of wastewater discharged from natural gas extraction activities, and over the coming months EPA will begin the process of developing a proposed standard with the input of stakeholders – including industry and public health groups. Today’s announcement is in line with the priorities identified in the president’s Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future, and is consistent with the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board recommendations on steps to support the safe development of natural gas resources.

Currently, wastewater associated with shale gas extraction is prohibited from being directly discharged to waterways and other waters of the U.S. While some of the wastewater from shale gas extraction is reused or re-injected, a significant amount still requires disposal. As a result, some shale gas wastewater is transported to treatment plants, many of which are not properly equipped to treat this type of wastewater. EPA will consider standards based on demonstrated, economically achievable technologies, for shale gas wastewater that must be met before going to a treatment facility.