EPA Temporary Ease of Enforcement
March 30, 2020The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a statement last week outlining a new temporary policy that eases enforcement related to federal environmental permits, regulations, and statutes due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The full statement can be viewed here.
As related to routine compliance monitoring and reporting by regulated entities the EPA states:
“The consequences of the pandemic may constrain the ability of regulated entities to perform routine compliance monitoring, integrity testing, sampling, laboratory analysis, training, and reporting or certification.”
This temporary policy makes clear that while there is an ease of enforcement, the standards are still in place, and the industries impacted should be making every effort to comply. Potentially impacted compliance monitoring and reporting include CEMS, tank integrity testing, wastewater effluent, air emissions, cooling tower testing, amongst others. Compliance in drinking water is still being held to the highest standard.
Remote monitoring is one way that the team at Neal Systems is continuing to assist our nations essential services continue to monitor and record at regulatory levels. Our latest remote monitoring technology allows for our engineers to securely VPN into cloud connected equipment. This enables for more services to be performed remotely than ever before. Our preferred cloud-based technology allows for the highest level of monitoring and reporting possible, without having to physically access the sites.
The ease of current enforcement has opened a window for companies not currently using remote monitoring technologies to implement the use now in order to stay as compliant in their reporting and monitoring as possible.