Air Quality Projects
CertainTeed-North America. - Environmental / Risk Management System
Zia is developing an environmental compliance system for CertainTeed America,
a major manufacturer of wallboard and ceiling products both in the United States
and world-wide. The software is Internet deployable, allowing for monitoring of
multiple sites.
The development project stems from an initial environmental compliance audit Zia
conducted for the CertainTeed plants in Nashville, AR and Blue Diamond, NV. Upon
completion of the audit, Zia was asked to develop a systematic approach to compliance
reporting and auditing for the different CertainTeed facilities.
Zia designed a permit-centered management program with the following key functions:
- Allow division managers to measure the compliance status of the company
- Afford the environmental and plant managers at each facility a complete set of tools
with which to schedule, record, and monitor compliance
- Allows managers and operators access to the operating conditions and limitation
of their processes and the tools to report the environmental observations assigned.
The environmental compliance program is written with off-the -shelf software, which
allows the deployment of run-time applications without the expense of royalty payments.
The program opens with a map of North America depicting the location of each of
the CertainTeed plants. By selecting a plant site, the program opens a menu for
selecting:
- The permit to inspect (Title V, NPDES, etc)
- The rules and regulations governing the permit
- Individual description of emission units, to include:
- Operation conditions
- Limits or environmental standards to observe
- Methods by which emissions are measured and compliance achieved
- Reporting tools to record the compliance observations
- Procedures to follow in case of non-compliance
- Interactive, email based scheduling of compliance tasks
- Electronic access to compliance reporting forms
The interactive email task scheduler forwards an advisory to the environmental manager
mirroring the permit requirements. The description includes:
- The emission unit to observe
- The emission or measurement to complete
- The required method for the observation
- Permit limits associated with the observation
- Tool for reporting the results
- Steps to take in case of non-conformance.
- The email system reports delivery of the email task
The email scheduler also categorizes the recipients of the email according to the
importance of the task. For operational tasks, the plant compliance manager and
the unit operator receive an email task reminder. For events involving laboratory
testing, an email task remainder is sent to the independent laboratory requesting
the materials required for testing, as well as ordering the services. For events
such as a permit renewal, the scheduler will notify the responsible officials for
initiating the renewal process, such as the responsible official from the corporation,
the plant manager, the environmental manager, and the plant process engineer.
Permits
Presently, the permits and reports covered under the compliance management program
are:
Title V Air Operating Permit
- Annual Emission Reporting
- Semi-annual Emissions Reporting
- Quarterly Emissions Reporting
- Comparisons of year-to-date emissions vs. permit limits
General Air Operating Permits
- Annual Emissions Reporting
NPDES
- Monthly Discharge Monitoring Reports (DMR)
- Quarterly DMR, to include Chronic Bio-monitoring
Multi-Sector General Water Permit
Hazardous Waste Generator
- Quarterly Surveying
- Annual Reporting
SARA Title III Tier 2 Reporting
- Monthly internal reporting
- Yearly Tier 2 Reporting
Solid Waste Generator Permits
The program controls access to compliance management by means of password protection.
Division managers are allowed full access to reporting for all plants. Plant and
environmental managers are allowed specific access to their facility. Lastly, individual
line or unit operators are allowed access only to reporting forms.
The environmental compliance program has a dynamic portion, which uses a database
to generate the permit menus, serves portable document format (PDF) files for permits
and regulations. Furthermore, the database serves the different forms for hours
of operation, materials usage, and other process parameters required by the permit
for compliance reporting. The information gathered by the database is then made
available to the monthly, quarterly, and yearly report modules. The modules generate
the emissions calculations for the individual units and aggregates the results for
a plant-wide report. After review, the documents are available for delivery to the
appropriate environmental department.
The static portion of the compliance program includes the capability of serving
documents such as Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS), regulations, procedures, and
contact information for the plants.