Latest version of proposed regulation changes on hydrofracking expected this week

It’s no secret that hydraulic fracturing, or hydrofracking, has been a popular topic for debate in recent years. Another occurrence revolving around this that has garnered support from some, and opposition from others, is Texas’ oil and gas regulatory agency, the Railroad Commission, updating its rules to address all aspects of the drilling process.

The latest version of the proposed rule changes is expected this week, and will be the largest revamping of Texas well construction regulations since the 1970s. These rules are important to ensure that toxic, fracking-related fluids do not leak into aquifers due to poor construction of oil and gas wells. These regulations will require examinations of things such as the quality of the protective cement placed between layers of pipe in a well, and a pressure test for the pipes themselves.

Keeping with the controversial theme around hydrofracking, some say the rule changes are too restrictive, and others say they aren’t enough. But most agree that hydrofracking does have the potential to contaminate groundwater if not performed correctly.

The contamination of groundwater can occur from faulty drilling or well completion. For the natural gas industry to ensure this doesn’t happen and to stay in compliance with these new regulations, it must keep up with an ongoing monitoring of site conditions and air emissions, management of production water, and the remediation of adverse environmental impacts: all of which involve the collection and analysis of large quantities of complex data.

Owners of hydrofracking sites and drilling companies need to take advantage of existing software tools to better organize their hydrofracking waste and water quality data. By using SaaS based software like Locus’ EIM to organize, manage, validate, visualize, store, and report this information, they can effectively demonstrate that this drilling can be done safely and transparently.

Locus Featured in 12 Environmental Management Software Developers to Watch

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.

Despite Sandy’s Wrath, Nuclear Energy Facilities Stand Strong

This past week, the East Coast experienced the strongest Atlantic tropical storm on record. Despite the chaos and devastation Hurricane Sandy brought with it, nuclear energy facilities in the northeast seem to have stood strong.

Due to strategic planning and preparation beforehand, such as securing equipment, making sure doors were weather-tight and emergency backup diesel generators were ready to go, 24 out of 34 facilities from South Carolina to Vermont continued to generate electricity during the storm. Even though not all facilities remained in operation, all 34 responded well. Of the 10 that were shut down only three closed because of storm conditions, and the remaining seven were already closed due to refueling or inspection.

This successful response was largely due to the actions of reactor operators and emergency response personnel. These workers ensured the power plants and areas around the facilities remained safe throughout the storm.

“Hurricane Sandy once again demonstrates the robust construction of nuclear energy facilities, which are built to withstand extreme flooding and hurricane-force winds that are beyond that historically reported for each area,” said Marvin S. Fertel, president and chief executive officer at the Nuclear Energy Institute.

This preparation for the unknown certainly paid off in the battle against Sandy. In addition, many of those reactors have installed Locus’ Cloud-based EIM system to manage their environmental data. Consequently, their access to key data, or ability to add new data, has been unaffected by the storm.

It is during tragic natural disasters like this that the value a Cloud-based system brings to critical infrastructure environmental information management is truly proven.  The last location that an environmental information management system should be running from is within the plant itself. Both Fukushima and the BP Gulf spill disaster have shown that no critical software should run at the facility itself; that software and data could be destroyed (or become inaccessible )along with the facility, and the data that would have helped determine the cause of the disaster would be lost for all practical purposes. For these and other reasons, a Cloud-based alternative for environmental information management is the preferred way of managing such data. In the case of a disaster these Cloud-based systems can also be accessed from any location with Internet access, so data can be instantly accessible up until the disaster onset, and can continue to be remotely collected during and after the event.

Locus’ CEO to present Cloud Solution for Environmental Information Management for Railroad Industry at the Railroad Environmental Conference at University of Urbana-Champaign.

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.

Corporate Control of Radioactive Effluent and Environmental Monitoring Programs and Data

For utilities operating nuclear power plants, deploying a centralized environmental management system in the Cloud and housing all of their data in it is offering unprecedented opportunities for better monitoring, real-time analysis, and aggregating and reporting of data.

2012 EPRI Groundwater Protection Workshop Wrap-Up

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.

Locus Awarded GSA Contract Under IT Schedule 70

Locus acquires GSA contract to offer Cloud-based environmental and energy software to federal customers

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., 7 May 2012 — Locus Technologies (Locus), the industry leader in Cloud-computing enterprise software for environmental, energy, air, water, and compliance management, has been awarded the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) General Purpose Commercial Information Technology Equipment, Software, and Services Schedule 70 Contract Number GS-35F-0370Y. Locus acquired the GSA contract to offer its award-winning EIM and ePortal software through a simplified acquisition channel to federal, state, and local government agencies across the country.

The GSA is responsible for improving the government’s workplace by managing assets, delivering maximum value in acquisitions, preserving historic property, and implementing technology solutions. The U.S. government has an urgent need for a centralized system to manage environmental data at its own sites (at agencies like the Department of Defense, Department of Energy, OSHA, or NRC), or to manage large environmental, sustainability, and compliance data streams submitted by private industry to regulating agencies such as the EPA, NRC, or DOT. Most environmental data are not submitted electronically under the legacy system, mostly due to technical limitations of the current platforms. Locus’ Environmental Information Management (EIM) will serve to help disparate government agencies to receive more data electronically and to manage and organize those huge environmental datasets that are currently scattered among many different systems.

Legacy systems have prevented government agencies from realizing cost savings through more efficient technologies; however, many governmental agencies, such as the EPA, DOE, and DOD, should see immediate benefits from implementing the Cloud-based software.

Locus environmental information management platforms have been deployed for more than 15 years by some of the world’s largest companies. Several DOE sites already use Locus software to manage their environmental data and have tested the scalability of the software within agency systems. Governmental agencies now can use the same system that has offered significant cost savings to organizations in the private sector by automating processes of data acquisition, management, and reporting. With the Locus system, governmental agencies will be able to focus time on actually reviewing incoming information for exceedances rather than on the laborious process of data input and analysis of spreadsheets and custom-built applications.

“Locus has been providing high-quality software solutions to the private sector for more than a decade, and has a demonstrated history of efficient and accurate software, excellent customer service, and a fair and transparent pricing structure. The time has come for governmental agencies to embrace Cloud computing and benefit from a centralized enterprise system,” said Neno Duplan, President and CEO of Locus. “Locus ePortal and EIM, offered in a multi-tenant government instance, will allow U.S. federal, state, and local agencies to rapidly deploy the latest environmental and energy management software.”

Locus will be presenting at the 2012 EPRI Groundwater Protection Workshop on June 27-29, 2012 in Orlando, FL

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.

Locus Verifiers Accredited Under New California GHG Reporting Rule

Locus among the first to be accredited by California Air Resources Board

SAN FRANCISCO 19 April 2012 — Locus Technologies (Locus), the industry leader in web-based environmental compliance and information management software, has been accredited by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to provide greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions verification services. Locus is one of a select few companies to obtain this accreditation.

Locus has provided verification services since 2010 for dozens of reporting entities. Recent amendments to the CARB regulation have prompted the regulators to retest and recertify all verifiers to ensure thorough understanding of the new regulations. Locus verifiers passed the first round of re-certification, in which less than half of previously certified verifiers were re-certified. Locus verifiers were also re-approved to complete verifications under all three specialty sectors, including transactions, oil and gas, and process emissions. Locus is approved to begin the verification process immediately for the 2011 reporting year. Verification of that data is due 1 September 2012.

The GHG verification services cover facilities in California that are regulated by the California Air Resources Board. Locus is accredited as a verification body through CARB and has lead verifiers certified in all reporting sectors. While verification is a requirement this year through AB 32, companies are also using third-party verification to promote their brands and the accuracy of their emissions information.

“We are very pleased to receive this confirmation that our verification staff are among the top experts in the field of greenhouse gases. Locus continues to expand its carbon practice at a rapid pace. Coupled with our carbon software services and domain expertise in all three key AB 32 reporting sectors in California, Locus is becoming a partner of choice for all companies wishing to be credible in their carbon reporting practices,” said Neno Duplan, President and CEO of Locus.