About $10 billion = The 2014 Corporate EHS Non-compliance and Fines Cost

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its annual enforcement and compliance results revealing both the cleanup improvements as well as compliance fines industries have made in 2014. In this report, the agency focused on large, high impact enforcement cases. Environmental Cleanup Improvements:

  • Reductions of an estimated 141 million pounds of air pollutants, including 6.7 million pounds of air toxics.
  • Reductions of approximately 337 million pounds of water pollutants.
  • Clean up of an estimated 856 million cubic yards of contaminated water/aquifers.

Investment and Fines
Enforcement guidelines this year required companies to invest more than $9.7 billion in actions and equipment to control pollution as well as clean up contaminated sites. EPA’s non-compliant cases resulted in $163 million in combined federal administrative, civil judicial penalties, and criminal fines. EPA holds criminal violators accountable that threaten the health and safety of American residents.

“Despite challenges posed by budget cuts and a government shutdown, we secured major settlements in key industry sectors and brought criminal violators to justice. This work resulted in critical investments in advanced technologies and innovative approaches to reduce pollution and improve compliance,” said Cynthia Giles, Assistant Administrator for EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance.
Companies can reduce their non-compliance risks and lower their monitoring and reporting costs by implementing enterprise EHS and Sustainability software to automate information management, compliance, and monitoring for exceedances for a fraction of what potential fines could cost them. Once a non-compliance fine is imposed the cost of brand damage could be even worse and incalculable.

US-China Deal on Carbon Emissions to Potentially Impact Climate Talks

In 1997, the world’s first climate change treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, failed to stop the rise of plant-warming pollution. Nearly two decades later, there is new hope for the impending climate change negations that are to occur in Paris next year.

Earlier this month, Obama and Xi Jinping, China’s president, came to an agreement to commit to lowering their nations’ carbon emissions. The ramifications of such a commitment from two of the world’s largest emitters has many environmentalists excited for a shift in global politics.

As David B. Sandalow, Obama’s former assistant secretary for energy policy and international affairs, comments, “For the world’s biggest emitters to be coming together and announcing concrete numbers, serious numbers, sends a signal to the world.” One of the many reasons the Kyoto Protocol is not considered a success is due to a standoff between the two nations who refused to sign the deal in 1997.

The Kyoto plan was meant to force developed countries, such as the United States, to cut fossil fuel emissions, while developing countries like China were exempt. Due to these conditions, the United States refused to ratify the treaty. Since 1997, China has grown to become one of the world’s largest carbon polluters. The standoff between two of the world’s superpowers caused many other governments to refuse to cut emissions as well.

Despite these negotiations, many experts claim that these emissions reductions are not enough to reduce the global atmospheric temperatures. Scientists expect the atmospheric temperature to increase by at least 2 degrees Celsius, tipping the planet into a trend of dangerous warming. Such conditions will result in the loss of large areas of arable land, melting Arctic sea ice and rapidly increasing sea levels, among many other dreadful climate changes.

These Scientists have concluded that in order to avoid such catastrophic conditions, the world’s largest economies must commit to a much more extreme plan of emission reduction, in a much shorter amount of time. Additionally, many Paris deal-negotiating experts claim that in order for significant change to occur, the final deal must include a tax on industries for their carbon emissions.

Although many are hopeful for the upcoming Paris negotiations, others are taking a more pragmatic stance. Laurence Tubiana, France’s climate change ambassador to the United Nations, states that she does not believe the Paris deal will result in a traditional treaty. Tubiana envisions a “Paris Alliance” which she anticipated will resemble a collection of targets pledge by individual countries, as well as governmental pledges to follow through with domestic action.

The opinions on how the Paris deal will pan out are varied; many are not convinced how the agreement between the United States and China will influence other major emitters. Despite these concerns, negotiators can all agree that if the treaty fails to stave off a 2-degree temperature increase, the 2015 deal must include provisions to assist poor countries deal with the resulting climate change.  Rich countries will meet in Berlin to formally announce their pledges for such provisions, with hopes of reaching their $100 billion goal.

Internet of Things and the Climate Change

The future of climate change management lies in the ability to use a holistic approach to environmental data and monitoring information. This merging of technological advances, such as real-time sensors, big data technologies, and Internet of Things (IoT), gives industries and governments the ability to effectively predict and manage climate change.

In any industry, when all incoming data is connected and centrally accessible through a SaaS application, the flow of information is much more efficient and effective. For example, instead of having a separate file and procedure for energy management, waste management, environmental compliance and incident management, a company can have all emissions-related records environmental and H&S compliance data in one system. From this single system, they would have the ability to manage compliance activity, data monitoring, and resource management at the same time. Adopting such a structure offers any entity the ability to converge all incoming sources of information to create a much more integrated enterprise platform for EH&S+S management.

At the crux of this method of centralized information is the Internet of Things. The IoT is the interconnection of uniquely identifiable embedded computing devices within the existing internet infrastructure. The proliferation of IoT is expected to usher in an age of automation in the environmental field, while enabling advanced applications like a smart grid or real time water quality measurement and management. IoT is able to offer connectivity beyond machine-to-machine communications and cover a variety of protocols, domains and applications.

In relation to environmental management, a “Thing” in the IoT could refer to flow monitoring sensors, a groundwater monitoring well, emission monitoring stations, Gas Chromatography (GC) instruments  used in analytical chemistry for  testing the purity of a particular substance, or separating the different components of a mixture or  identifying a compound. Ultimately, any natural or man-made object that can be assigned an IP address and provided with the ability to transfer data over a network can become a thing in the IoT. The expanded use of this system is expected to create a plethora of new areas of application for internet connected automation. And, in turn, the IoT is also expected to generate a large amount of data from a huge variety of environmental monitoring devices, thereby increasing the need for better indexing, processing, and storing of incoming data.

The IoT is considered one of the fastest growing trends in technology. When applied to the environmental monitoring industry, there will be an overwhelming influx of information that will have to be dealt with. Many companies are concerned that the sheer volume of data will render the information useless. Environmental companies must invest in smart software and intelligent databases to deal with this new trend, hopefully changing the face of the environmental monitoring industry.

California’s Water Shortage

A new paper published in Nature Climate Change, by NASA water scientist James Famiglietti, presents the chilling reality of California’s ongoing drought crisis. “The Global Groundwater Crisis,” uses satellite data to measure the depletion of the world’s aquifers, and summarizes the effects this has on the environment.

These aquifers contain groundwater that more than 2 billion individuals rely on as their primary source of water. Groundwater is also essential, as it is one of the main sources we rely on to irrigate food crops. In times of drought, the lack of rain and snow results in less surface water (the water that settles in lakes, streams, and rivers). Thus, farmers must rely on available groundwater to irrigate their crops, leading to rapid depletion in areas of high farming concentration.

California’s Central Valley has been one of the most effected regions in the state. The map below depicts groundwater withdrawals in California during the first three years of the state’s ongoing drought.

According to James Famiglietti, “California’s Sacramento and San Joaquin river basins have lost roughly 15 cubic kilometers of total water per year since 2011.”  That means “more water than all 38 million Californians use for domestic and municipal supplies annually—over half of which is due to groundwater pumping in the Central Valley.”

As more water is pumped from the aquifers, things can only get worse. As this trend continues, wells will have to be dug deeper, resulting in increased pumping costs. This, in turn, will lead to a higher salt contents, which inhibits crop yields and can eventually cause soil to lose productivity altogether. Over time, Famiglietti writes, “inequity issues arise because only the relatively wealthy can bear the expense of digging deeper wells, paying greater energy costs to pump groundwater from increased depths and treating the lower-quality water that is often found deeper within aquifers.” This problem is already apparent in California’s Central Valley.  Some low-income residents are forced to let their wells go dry, while many other farmers are forced to irrigate with salty water pumped from deep in the aquifer.

The lesson we can learn from Famiglietti’s research is that “Groundwater is being pumped at far greater rates than it can be naturally replenished, so that many of the largest aquifers on most continents are being mined, their precious contents never to be returned.”  This problem of diminishing groundwater is perpetuated, due the lack of forethought, regulation, or research concerning this water source. Famiglietti contends that if current trends hold, “groundwater supplies in some major aquifers will be depleted in a matter of decades.”

Without any change of practices, we can expect steeper droughts and more demand for water. Famiglietti suggests that if we ever plan on getting the situation under control, we must start carefully measuring groundwater and treat it like the precious resource that it is. However, if the globe continues on this path without any adjustment, it will most likely result in civil uprising and international violent conflict in the water-stressed regions of the world.

UN report: Irreversible climate change deadline

The latest United Nations’ world climate report states that greenhouse gas emissions will need to stop by 2100 or the world will face irreversible change.

The final report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) includes the findings from the three previous reports, and includes more than 30,000 independent studies about climate. The bottom line conclusion is a 95 percent accurate assessment that climate change is both real and almost entirely man-made. It also states that if greenhouse gas emissions continue unabated, the results will be irreversible. Effects will include even hotter years than the recent record setting ones, rising sea levels, agricultural disruption, and even potential changes in the male-female population ratios.

The physical changes outlined in the report won’t be the limit to the secondary societal changes. Famine and drought have already exasperated issues in parts of Africa, and rising human migration from areas affected by climate change will cause even more conflicts between nation states. The rise in heat will also cause increases in health issues.

2014 may be the hottest year on record, and if the heat trends continue, growing regions will change, causing untold potential economic disruption to traditional agricultural areas. Coastal towns and resort communities could find themselves underwater and forced to move inland to higher elevations or forcing never-ending construction of offshore breakwaters.

The primary conclusion from the IPCC report is that all countries will need to reduce, and eventually halt, use of fossil fuels and move to renewable and environmentally friendly sources of energy. And while twenty-eight European nations have agreed to reduce emissions to almost half of their 1990 levels in the next fifteen years, the United States still hasn’t even come to a political agreement between Republican and Democrats if climate change is even real.

Decisions made in the next couple of decades by politicians and citizens around the world will determine if this “irreversible” deadline in going to be met with change or if we’ll be walking into 2100 different world than we are now.

3E Company and Locus Technologies Announce Strategic Collaboration

3E Company, a leading provider of environmental health and safety compliance and information management services, and Locus Technologies (Locus), a leading provider of cloud-based environmental compliance and EHS management software, announced a strategic collaboration today.

Link to Original Press Release

Alliance Combines 3E’s Product Safety Data and Global Regulatory Content with Locus Technologies’ Platform for Enhanced EHS Regulatory Compliance and Risk Management

Carlsbad, Calif., Oct 30, 2014 – (ACN Newswire) – 3E Company, a leading provider of environmental health and safety (EHS) compliance and information management services, and Locus Technologies (Locus), a leading provider of cloud-based environmental compliance and EHS management software, announced a strategic collaboration today. 3E Company is a Verisk Analytics (Nasdaq:VRSK) business.

The alliance brings together 3E’s substance-level global regulatory content and product-level safety data sheet (SDS) data and Locus’s compliance and EHS software platform. The combined offering provides companies with a comprehensive, efficient, and affordable solution set for hazardous communication and workplace safety that can reduce risk and help streamline conformance with EHS regulations.

The collaboration highlights both companies’ respective strengths. These assets include 3E’s unique ability to research, source, aggregate, enrich, and maintain EHS compliance-related data and information and make it available in a customer-specific and easy-to-use format and Locus’s proven capability to build and maintain flexible, user-friendly software systems. Integrating 3E’s critical data with Locus’s software enables joint customers to manage EHS management and compliance obligations within a comprehensive cloud platform.

“As the industry-leading provider of EHS regulatory information and compliance management services, 3E has a diverse network of trusted companies with which we collaborate,” said Uday Virkud, president and CEO, 3E Company. “Our alliances with these companies enable our joint customers to better meet their regulatory and safety obligations. We’re delighted to collaborate with Locus and are confident that our customers will benefit from having seamless access to 3E’s data through Locus’s platforms.”

“We’re excited to offer our customers access to 3E data and to use the flexibility of our software platform to create an integrated solution with the industry’s most comprehensive and up-to-date data and content offering. This alliance stems out of Locus’s commitment to providing our customers with the most extensive tool set available to better manage their compliance and EHS requirements,” said Neno Duplan, president and CEO, Locus Technologies. “Collaborating with 3E offers our joint customers streamlined access to valuable data that can positively affect their compliance management strategies – improving their operations and data quality while reducing risk and associated costs.”

About 3E Company
3E Company, a Verisk Analytics (Nasdaq:VRSK) business, offers a comprehensive suite of data and solutions for environmental health and safety (EHS) compliance management. This solutions suite addresses the entire chemical life cycle and includes regulatory research; SDS authoring, distribution, and management; transportation; emergency response; training; regulatory reporting; and hazardous waste management. 3E provides an industry-leading combination of a 24/7/365 EHS mission-control call center and the world’s premier hazardous substance database of global regulatory and compliance information. 3E was founded in 1988 and is headquartered in Carlsbad, California, with additional operations in Canton, Ohio; Bethesda, Maryland; Kingsport, Tennessee; Montreal, Quebec; and Copenhagen, Denmark. For more information on 3E Company, visit www.3ecompany.com.

Locus Technologies Introduces Locus Mobile for Data Access and Input On the Go

Locus Mobile is designed for easy and accurate data collection on the go.

Locus Mobile on the go…  Locus Mobile works both online and offline to ensure continuous access and interaction, and takes advantage of the most advanced technology to provide a variety of options for ad hoc sampling, additional field data checks, dynamic forms, and effective mapping tools. Locus Mobile users can easily configure business-specific data collection needs, enter data offline and upload on-demand, and synchronize data back to Locus’ systems for final review, storing, managing, and reporting.

We are seeing growing customer interest in adding mobility to our full-line of environmental and sustainability information management applications to more efficiently centralize remotely collected information for executive decision-support reporting. Locus Mobile allows users to push information the other way so that remote personnel are empowered with the information and instructions they need to take appropriate preventative and remedial action on the ground, perform real-time data validation, and spot exceedances. As a result of this more frictionless two-way data flow, Locus mobile will completely transform the way enterprises address their environmental and sustainability challenges and achieve positive outcomes for the environment, brand protection, and their shareholders and customers.

Locus Mobile is offered as a downloadable app from the Apple App Store to work with Locus’ cloud software systems.

Download it here: Locus Mobile App Store

Locus Technologies Introduces Locus Mobile for Data Access and Input On the Go

Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) leverages new mobile app for its environmental data collection processes

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., 27 October 2014 — Locus Technologies (Locus), the leader in cloud-based environmental compliance and information management software, has announced the launch of a new mobile application Locus Mobile, designed for easy and accurate data collection on the go.

Locus Mobile works both online and offline to ensure continuous access and interaction, and takes advantage of the most advanced technology to provide a variety of options for ad hoc sampling, additional field data checks, dynamic forms, and effective mapping tools. Locus Mobile users can easily configure business-specific data collection needs, enter data offline and upload on-demand, and synchronize data back to Locus’ systems for final review, storing, managing, and reporting.

Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) has awarded a contract to Locus for the new Locus Mobile app, through which users can upload data directly from the field to their data management and compliance system, EIM. By taking advantage of configurable planned sampling and monitoring events, real-time data validation in the field, GPS mapping capabilities, and a complete audit trail of who, what, when and where, LANL expects that it will operate with a significantly higher degree of confidence that its environmental reporting and decision making are based off of the most accurate information possible in real time.

“We are seeing growing customer interest in adding mobility to our full-line of environmental and sustainability information management applications to more efficiently centralize remotely collected information for executive decision-support reporting. The next step is to push information the other way so that remote personnel are empowered with the information and instructions they need to take appropriate preventative and remedial action on the ground, perform real-time data validation, and spot exceedances,” said Locus CEO, Neno Duplan. “As a result of this more frictionless two-way data flow, mobile has the potential to completely transform the way enterprises address their environmental and sustainability challenges and achieve positive outcomes for the environment, brand protection, and their shareholders and customers.”

Locus Mobile is offered as a downloadable app from the Apple App Store to work with Locus’ cloud software systems.

NASA now says massive methane cloud over U.S. Southwest is legitimate

Several years ago, NASA scientists discovered a cloud of methane gas over the Four Corners of the American southwest that measured about the size of Delaware. The unusually high readings were dismissed then; however, a new study today confirms that the methane hot spot is legitimate.

“We didn’t focus on it because we weren’t sure if it was a true signal or an instrument error,” said NASA research scientist Christian Frankenberg, who works in NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratories in Pasadena, California.

The Christian Science Monitor website states that a 2,500 square mile methane cloud over the region where Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona connect traps more heat in a 1-year period than all of Sweden’s annual carbon dioxide emissions.

To provide an overview of gases that endanger the Earth’s atmosphere, methane gas is the most powerful of the greenhouse gases. Carbon dioxide is another greenhouse gas, and is more abundant in our atmosphere. However, methane is more effective at trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide.

A new study published 10 October 2014 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters takes a look at the data discovered several years ago and confirms what we now know to be North America’s largest methane hot spot. According to lead author of the study, Eric Kort, a professor of Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Space Sciences at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the source of the methane is from extensive coal mining activity in the San Juan Basin. According to Kort, the Basin is “the most active coalbed methane production area in the country.”

There has been a notable increase in fracking in that region. Both Kort and Frankenberg believe that the earlier coal mining is most likely to blame for the methane cloud.  From 2003 to 2009, the study shows there were 0.59 million metric tons of methane released each year — 3.5 times more than previous estimates.

According to Kort, “The results are indicative that emissions from established fossil fuel harvesting techniques are greater than inventoried. There’s been so much attention on high-volume hydraulic fracturing, but we need to consider the industry as a whole.”

Cities Band Together to Curb Their Greenhouse Gas Emissions

The United Nations is calling this the largest banded effort to decrease cities’ greenhouse gas emissions. On 23 September 2014, the UN launched a Global Compact of Mayors, the world’s largest effort for fighting climate change on the city level. The Compact of Mayors has set goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 454 tonnes by 2020.

During the UN Climate Summit 2014 in NYC, Mayor of the South African city of Johannesburg, Mpho Franklyn Parks Tau said, “In many ways, cities all over the world are leading the way by example: not only setting ambitious emission reduction targets, but [also] working collaboratively to help each other to achieve our respective goals.”

Tao goes on to tell SciDev.Net that this “places a collective responsibility on all of us because we are accountable to each other. As partners, we can also tap into the knowledge and expertise of other cities that have the same objectives.” Tau cites that 15 cities, including Copenhagen, London, and Washington DC, have committed to cut their emissions by more than 70% by 2050.

To pave the way, Johannesburg is now generating, rather than using, electricity while treating their sewage, and they continue expanding their Rea Vaya rapid transport system to reduce the city’s carbon footprint by decreasing the use of personal cars.

The Integrated Program on Sustainable Cities was launched by The Global Environment Facility (GEF) at the summit, which commits $100 million to establish a common platform for cities to access and share solutions on climate change adaptation and mitigation, energy, transport and water. South and South-East Asia cities are leading the way in climate-proofing.