Water Quality

If your facility is near a lake, river, or seasonal tributary, it’s crucial to understand the status of these water bodies. Why? Because handling water runoff from your facility matters.

Here’s how we approach complete water management at Environmental Compliance Professionals (ECP):

Watershed Management: The natural flow of water outside of your facility largely dictates what additional contaminants are transported through a permitted stormwater outfall. Sometimes erosion carves an unintended path that must be immediately addressed.
Outdoor Operations: The presence of outdoor operations or storage of chemicals, raw materials, or finished goods are largely responsible for introducing additional unanticipated contaminants to the stormwater exiting the property.
Process Water: Process water often contains chemicals, pollutants, or residues from industrial activities. When this water interacts with stormwater runoff, it can affect the overall quality of runoff.
Combined Impact: The combination of process water and stormwater runoff can lead to contaminant transport beyond your facility boundaries. Understanding this interaction is essential for responsible environmental management.
Neighboring Facilities: Sometimes, it’s necessary to investigate if a neighboring facility is handling stormwater runoff irresponsibly. Why? Because that water might end up on your property due to the nature of stormwater flow.
Contaminant Fate and Transport Modeling: Should it be required or requested by an agency or for any other reason, we can model exactly how the contaminants are likely to move—their discharge characteristics and likely transport trajectory from your site.

At Environmental Compliance Professionals (ECP), we consider all these factors to ensure comprehensive water management. Feel free to reach out—we’re here to assist! 🌿💧

Stormwater Evaluations

Stormwater runoff is a significant contributor to waterway contamination across the United States. It carries pollutants from various sources, impacting rivers, lakes, and other water bodies. Contaminants can enter waterways through some common exposure pathways such as:

Spills and Leaks: Accidental releases during operations.
Containment Failures: When storage systems or containment structures fail.
Erosion: Unaddressed erosion can transport soil and pollutants.
Improper Storage: Incorrect storage of finished goods or raw materials.
Waste Disposal: Inadequate handling of waste materials.

If any aspect of your facility operates outdoors, NPDES permits are often necessary. These permits regulate discharges into water bodies. They require additional programs such as:

SWPPP (Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan): A strategic plan to minimize stormwater pollution and defining critical objectives. These objectives include:
- Annual Training: Ensuring staff understand compliance requirements and propelling an environmentally responsible culture forward.
- Regular Inspections: Monitoring and maintaining compliance with respect to factors like erosion control and visible presence of oily sheens in water or on the ground.
- Ongoing Sampling, Monitoring, and Analysis: Every state agency has different requirements for each of these. Some require frequent inspections and official lab analysis while some only require an infrequent visual inspection and assessment.
- Benchmark Sampling and Analysis: This analysis intends to identify preexisting contaminants and conditions that are impactful to your stormwater quality.

At Environmental Compliance Professionals (ECP), we evaluate site conditions and operational needs. Our goal is to implement the least financially-impactful solutions while meeting all best management practice requirements set by the EPA and state regulatory agencies.

Wastewater (Process Water) Evaluations

Wastewater, often referred to as “process water,” is the byproduct generated during various stages of manufacturing, refining, mining, cleaning, and cooling within your facility. It encompasses any water used throughout the production process.

It may be necessary to implement treatment options if the presence of contaminants exceed parameters set forth by the EPA or your State Agency.

Treatment may involve individual treatment methods or combine multiple processes:

Pre-Treatment: In specific cases, wastewater requires pre-treatment before it exits the facility. This pre-treatment ensures that the discharged water meets regulatory standards. The methods for pre-treatment can vary significantly.
Retention Ponds (Settling Basins): These are simple physical treatment systems. Water is allowed to settle, and solids are removed.
Vegetative Swales: This is a primarily physical treatment that has potential to be somewhat chemical depending on contaminants of concern.
Wastewater Treatment Plants: For more complex scenarios, facilities may employ full-fledged wastewater treatment plants. These plants combine chemical and physical processes to treat the water effectively.

In lieu of expensive on-site treatment of runoff through traditional outfalls, it is sometimes possible to leverage existing infrastructure to manage your runoff. This is done through utilizing city-owned or privately-owned wastewater treatment plants instead of allowing contaminants off-site through stormwater outfalls. Municipal Separate Storm Sewer Systems (MS4s) and Construction Site Stormwater (CSS) programs are evaluated based on geographical factors.

Limits are set forth by programs such as:

Safe Drinking Water Act
Clean Water Act (CWA) 303(d): Addresses impaired waters and Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs).
Other specific treatment parameters monitored by the relevant MS4 or CSS.

At Environmental Compliance Professionals (ECP), we navigate these complexities to ensure responsible water management.

Water Sampling Services

All our sampling follows the latest EPA protocols. This includes precise methodologies, proper equipment usage, and meticulous handling, storage, and transport. We document every step, ensuring transparency and reliability. We also ensure our laboratory partners are well-versed in meeting the stringent EPA requirements. You can trust that your water samples are in capable hands.

ECP’s Comprehensive Water Sampling Services:

Initial Stormwater Outfall Sampling:
- When setting up a stormwater management plan, we conduct initial sampling at outfall points. This helps establish baseline data and ensures compliance with regulatory standards.
Ongoing Facility Compliance Efforts:
- Compliance requires consistent monitoring. Our team conducts regular water sampling to ensure your facility adheres to environmental regulations.
Proactive or Strategic Groundwater Well Sampling:
- Groundwater quality is critical for both environmental protection and human health. We proactively sample groundwater wells to monitor any changes over time.
Defensive Sampling for Litigation Preparedness:
- In cases where water quality becomes a legal concern, we perform defensive sampling. This data can be used as data-based evidence in litigation related to watershed management.

At Environmental Compliance Professionals (ECP), we take water quality sampling seriously.

Monitoring, Reporting, and Training

The EPA and state regulatory agencies mandate ongoing measurement of compliance efforts throughout your facility’s coverage term.

Various factors impact inspection requirements:

Location and presence of potential contaminants on site.
Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plans (SWPPPs): These plans outline strategies to prevent stormwater pollution.
Permit Modifications: Changes in permits due to operational adjustments.
Location, Methods, and Equipment Changes: Alterations that affect water quality management.

Inspection Timing:

Sometimes, inspections and reporting align. However, more often, these requirements occur at irregular intervals.
Reporting is typically done online through specific regulatory agency portals.
- Common reporting frequencies include monthly, quarterly, or annually.

We can guide you through the process and help you understand the intricacies of your site-specific monitoring and reporting requirements. Alternatively, you can leave it entirely to us—we’ll handle compliance seamlessly.

Remember, annual SWPPP training is also essential to compliance and environmental stewardship. All current and future employees must receive this training. We offer both in-person (preferred) and online (make-up and onboarding) training options to meet your environmental training needs.