Environmental Progress - Winter 1999

Off-Site Planning Session Looks At Accomplishments, Goals

Across-the-board work groups identified targets and achievements

The subject matter was serious but Bureau of Land participants found some lighter moments during the discussions.

In a daylong off-site planning session held last fall at the Springfield campus of the University of Illinois, staff from the Illinois EPA's administrative offices, bureaus and divisions worked to identify significant accomplishments of their particular sections in the last four years. During the pull-out sessions, they also identified goals which they felt merited immediate consideration by an incoming state administration as well as other areas that should be considered within a year or within four years.

Many of the accomplishments involved expediting or simplifying procedures that involve the public, such as the Bureau of Air's lifetime permits for small sources and the Bureau of Land's more efficient handling of leaking underground storage tank sites, with more than 7,000 completed to date.

The Bureau of Land identified as other major accomplishments:

• preventive programs that reduced potential threats to human health and the environment from current waste management activities,
• a series of remediation programs to reduce risks to human health and the environment from past contaminant releases to land and groundwater,
• creation of opportunities for substantial growth through "recycling" programs at Brownfield sites, and
• communication enhancements and efficiency improvements that have resulted in improved relationships among bureau staff, regulated entities, communities and other stakeholders.

The Division of Laboratories improved work processes to increase efficiency, eliminated the night shift, developed a cost allocation system allowing better management decisions and identified more than $2 million in cost reductions, and earned recognition as one of the top laboratories in the nation, based on productivity and size.

The Division of Legal Counsel selected as its major accomplishments both in-house and outside efforts dealing with enforcement, legislative support including legislative outreach and bill reviews, regulatory/program development and in-house counsel activities.

Small businesses benefitted with toll-free help lines, plain language guides

Small businesses benefitted from programs under the Associate Director's Office, with establishment of a toll-free help line, plain language regulatory guides and completion of the initial stages of the Clean Break amnesty program. The community relations section saw the Waukegan Citizen Action Group recognized as a national model, participated in a massive methyl parathion project in Chicago and aided in making Illinois the first state in the nation to develop public involvement guidelines adopted by the chemical industry. Other accomplishments included improved public outreach programs relating to hog farm issues and expansion of environmental education activities.

The Bureau of Air identified as achievements state and national outreach efforts including:

• expediting rulemaking, the Clean Air Forum, and leadership in the Ozone Transport Assessment Group;
• development and implementation of significant and complex new programs;
• enhancing and streamlining existing programs;
• innovative approaches such as the Partners for Clean Air public outreach program;
• air quality improvements that saw attainments of all pollutant limits except ozone; and
• significant reductions in emissions.

The Bureau of Water, which includes both the division of water pollution control and the division of public water supplies, pointed to overall continuing water quality improvements, improved compliance with regulations, better inter-agency coordination and expanded financial assistance as major accomplishments. The enhanced financial assistance resulted from speedy implementation of a new revolving loan fund to provide public water supplies with funding to improve their ability to distribute adequate amounts of safe drinking water to consumers.

Goals for future priority issues were developed for both short and long terms

The Bureau of Air identified as still unresolved issues needing policy attention the question of open burning, incineration, diesel emissions and fuels programs, and within the next four years hopes to develop new programs for ozone, particulate matter, haze, and toxics.

In the Bureau of Land, legislation-dependent new initiatives included the Southeast Chicago initiative (Paxton landfill), creation of an orphan landfill remediation program, recycling programs, expansion of the federal facility program and proportional share liability.

Bureau of Land programs with inadequate staffing or funding include some solid waste programs, the leaking underground storage tank program that will collapse in 2003 without increased funding or new legislation, the site remediation program, and noise pollution control.

Priority items identified by the Bureau of Water for action within the next year included livestock regulatory development, enhancement of the nonpoint source control programs, and compliance initiatives including unsewered communities and evolving federal regulations for radium in drinking water.