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Newsletter Q1 2016



Welcome to our summary of the best of the sustainability and environmental compliance news items that appeared on our website www.environet.ie over the past quarter. We now have over 600 Irish environmental professionals subscribing to our service. This is a free service, issued every quarter. If you wish to unsubscribe please click the link at the end of this mail.

CONTENTS

Environet Solutions Opens Cork Office

EPA Enforcement to Develop a National Priority Site List

EPA Issues Draft Updated Guidance on EIA

Online Publication of Keystone Enforcement Documents

ISO 14001:2015 launched

EPA Reports on the Waste Sector

 

 

Environet Solutions Opens Cork Office

 

Environet Solutions, headquartered in Dungarvan, Co. Waterford was founded in 2010.

We are pleased to announce the opening of our new Cork office at Plunkett Chambers, Oliver Plunkett Street, Cork. The office, headed up by Alan Setter, will allow us to better serve our growing client base in the area.

Alan is an award winning Environmental Science & Sustainable Technology graduate of the Cork Institute of Technology. He has previously worked as part of an environmental management team in an EPA licensed facility and has over 10 years’ experience in both construction and manufacturing industries. Alan can be contacted at 021-4248948 or 087-6574295.

March 2016

 

EPA Enforcement to Develop a National Priority Site List

The EPA has recently announced a national priority sites methodology for determining which licenced sites are an enforcement priority. This new reporting/enforcement tool is principally based on a site’s licence compliance and enforcement history.  Priority lists have been used by the Office of Environmental Enforcement (OEE) for a number of years now in order to focus resources on underperforming sites. However it is intended that this list will be published.

It is important to note that this National Priority Site List is not intended to replace the Risk-Based Methodology for Enforcement (RBME), but instead work alongside it. The RBME focuses on fixed attributes such as location, proximity to receptors, class of activity, etc., whereas the Priority List methodology is based on the environmental issues and compliance record of a site.

The priority list is effectively a scoring system for a licensee’s compliance over the previous year. The OEE will re-calculate this score every 3 months on a rolling basis. As such this means that the priority list is dynamic whereby licensees move up and down the list based on their score for the previous 12 months only. The idea behind re-evaluating on a quarterly basis is to ensure that both improvements and deteriorations on sites are reflected on the list.

There are four main “scoring” aspects to the methodology:

  • Compliance Investigations;
  • Incidents received by the Agency from the licensee;
  • Complaints received by the Agency;
  • Non-compliances issued by the Agency.

 

Compliance Investigations

A compliance investigation (CI) is opened when an issue exists that is causing or has potential to cause an environmental effect and the OEE feels it merits further investigation. Each open CI is given a score based on its rating (i.e.; low 3 points, medium 10 points, high 20 points). CIs that are still open are scored higher than ones that have been closed out. Finally the OEE has decided that, in the case of multiple CIs, only the 3 highest scoring CIs will be counted.

 

Incidents reported

There are 5 categories of Incidents:

  • Catastrophic (30 points)
  • Very Serious (20 points)
  • Serious (10 points)
  • Limited (2 points)
  • Minor (0 points)

For each incident the OEE will assign a score based on the severity. Minor incidents will not incur any score as they generally do not have a large environmental impact.

 

Complaints (1 point per complaint)

Complaints will only be counted once they have been validated by the OEE and linked to a Compliance Investigation. The OEE has also set a cap meaning that a maximum of 30 complaints will be counted.

 

Non-compliances (Basic 1 point/Non-notification of an incident 5 points)

All non-compliances issued by the Agency in the previous 12 months are counted.

The National Priority Site List will only include the names of sites that incur a score >30 points.  The OEE plans to contact any licensees on the list in January 2016 and inform them of their score and their position on the list. Sites that have a score >20 but < 30 will also be advised of their score. Although they will not be on the list they will be made aware that they are approaching the limit and may need to implement preventative measures. The Agency plans to make the list available to the public during 2016, although no date has been announced as yet.

January 2016

 

EPA Issues Draft Updated Guidance on EIA

 

 

The EPA is currently in the process of updating the existing guidance documents relating to Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) and the preparation of Environmental Impact Statements (EIS). These draft documents are intended to replace the existing documents; “Guidelines on the information to be contained in Environmental Impact Statements, 2002” and “Advice Notes on Current Practice in the preparation of Environmental Impact Statements, 2003”.

These documents will reflect the changes introduced by the new EIA Directive (2014/52/EU) in April 2014, along with other legislation which has been adopted since 2003.

Some of the key changes to the EIA process are as follows:

 

Fundamental Principles

Key aspects of the EIA have been revised in order to make the process more straightforward and adaptable. It is anticipated that by sharing more information more freely about the environment, problems can be foreseen and largely prevented during the design and consent stages. It is hoped that this will lead to greater protection of the environment through more informed decision-making. The proposed principles which should now be followed when preparing an EIS are:

  • Anticipating, avoiding and reducing significant effects;
  • Assessing and mitigating effects;
  • Maintaining objectivity;
  • Ensuring clarity and quality;
  • Providing relevant information to decision makers;
  • Facilitating better consultation.

 

Topic Headings

The new guidance has updated the list of potential topics to be addressed in an EIS:

  • Population and Human Health (formerly human beings);
  • Biodiversity (formerly flora & fauna);
  • Land & Soils (formerly soils);
  • Water;
  • Air;
  • Climate;
  • Material Assets;
  • Cultural Heritage;
  • The Landscape.

 

Although the new EIA Directive (2014/52/EU) replaces the term environmental impact statement (or EIS) with the term environmental impact assessment report, the new Guidelines continue to use the term EIS as this is the established term and the term used in the current regulations.

 

Screening

The screening phase of the EIA has been amended in light of the new EIA Directive (2014/52/EU) and now includes; demolition works in the scope of the project, the inclusion of a formal screening procedure for all Annex II projects, and the requirement to justify all negative screening decisions.

 

EIA Quality

There is now a mandatory obligation on the developer to assess the alternative projects as part of the EIS. There is also a greater emphases on quality control in the preparation and review of the EIS which is believed will result in a higher level of protection for the environment through a more informed decision-making processes.

 

Mitigation Monitoring

Another key change to the process is the post-EIA mitigation and monitoring programme. The relevant authority will now assess the effectiveness of the proposed mitigation plans through a monitoring programme and will take action in the event of a non-compliance. It is important therefore that mitigation measures are correctly costed and are achievable as failure to fully or effectively implement mitigation measures could lead to enforcement proceedings.

 

Competency of Experts

The new Directive requires that the developer shall ensure that “the environmental impact assessment report is prepared by competent experts”, however stops short of defining what would be considered competent expertise. Although this may change in the near future, for now this remains at the discretion of the competent authority. The new guidelines also require the inclusion of a list of experts in the EIS that have contributed to the EIA process, stating the topics to which they have contributed and their qualifications, experience and any other relevant credentials.

The two draft documents available are linked below:

 

Revised Guidelines on the Information to be contained in Environmental Impact Statements Draft September 2015

Advice Notes for Preparing Environmental Impact Statements Draft September 2015

December 2015

 

Online Publication of Keystone Enforcement Documents

From January 2016, the EPA will be increasing the range of enforcement documents available to the public. These changes have been implemented as part of the Access to Information on the Environment (AIE) Directive 2003/4/EC, which was transposed into Irish law by the Access to Information on the Environment Regulations 2007 – 2014. From now on a number of key enforcement and self-monitoring documents will be made available to the public via the EPA website, along with those already published online such as the Annual Environmental Report (AER).

The specific Keystone Enforcement Documents that will now be published online are as follows:

  • EPA Site Visit Reports;
  • Licensee Public Responses;
  • Routine Self-Monitoring Reports (i.e. as per Licence Schedule);
  • Special Sectoral Reports;
  • Site Closure Reports and related documentation (already available to the public since January 2014).

As previously, all licensee correspondence with the EPA is carried out via the Licence Management Application (LMA) Portal on the EDEN network. As a result of these new regulatory requirements, Keystone Enforcement Documents will now appear online 60 days after issue or receipt. These documents will now be available via each licensees Details Page under the heading “Licence Enforcement Documents”.

 

Licensee Public Responses (LPR)

The Licensee Public Response is a new feature that has been introduced by the EPA which will give licensees the opportunity to respond to specific findings of an EPA Inspection. This affords licensees the opportunity to inform their neighbours and the wider public about forthcoming actions and/or responses, and associated timescales proposed to address issues specified in the EPA Site Visit Report. The EPA requires however that Licensee Public Responses are submitted within 45 calendar days following the issue of a Site Visit Report. In order to facilitate this, the EPA has published a template document which can be accessed here:

Licensee Public Response Template

 

Submitting a Licensee Public Response is not mandatory and it is at the licensee’s discretion to decide whether or not a response is warranted in relation to a particular Site Visit Report. Once uploaded, a Licensee Public Response will be published along with the EPA Site Visit Report 60 Days after the initial date of issue of the Site Visit Report. It should be noted that LPR’s will be subject to EPA assessment of suitability for online publication. While the EPA will not dictate the content of a Licensee Public Response, it reserves the right not to publish any submission it considers inappropriate. The grounds by which the EPA may decide not to publish a LPR are as follows:

  • Discrepancy between content of LPR and other licensee submissions;
  • Defamatory, exasperating or misleading content;
  • Data protection issues.

 

It is advisable to draft the Licensee Public Response with due regard to the publication criteria mentioned above as licensees will only have one opportunity to submit a LPR. The EPA also advises that the LPR is NOT an appropriate forum for debating a finding of an EPA Site Visit Report and that any clarification of findings should be raised during closing meetings or in the period directly following the site visit.

 

Self-Monitoring and Special Sectoral Reports

Self-monitoring refers to routine, periodic monitoring reports which are specified in the licence, and not to once-off investigative reports. Special Sectoral Reports are those that apply only to certain licensees such as Waste Incineration and Co-Incineration Plants performance reports; Solvent emissions monitoring reports; Solvent management plans.

The existing process by which these reports are uploaded, i.e. as a Licensee Return, remains the same. These will be published automatically to the Licence Details page 60 calendar days following receipt of a report by the EPA. There will be no change to the frequency of reporting and licensees should continue with the reporting schedule agreed with the EPA.

A new column in the “Licensee Returns” Table of the LMA dashboard indicates the date reports where received by the EPA and the date on which each report will be published.  As always, these reports are a formal legal declaration to the EPA and to the public, and as such the contents must be accurate and reliable.

Licensees also remain obliged to report as an incident any non-compliance through the “Report an Incident” button on the LMA dashboard.

As and from 01 January 2016, all “Keystone Enforcement Documents” must be uploaded to the LMA Portal in PDF format. More information and a Stepwise Procedure for submitting Online-Publishable Licensee Reports is available on the link below.

Online Publication of Keystone Enforcement Documents on the EPA website

February 2016

 

ISO 14001:2015 Launched

 

The ISO 14001 standard for environmental management has been undergoing revision since early 2012. The newly revised version, which came into effect in September 2015, will eventually replace the 2004 version as well as the 2009 amendments.

While ISO 14001:2015 covers essentially the same topics as the 2004 version, there are some important differences.

 

Structure of the Standard

The revised standard now follows the common structure (Annex SL) which has the same definitions and terms used in other management standards such as ISO 9001. ISO intends for all management standards to eventually follow this structure as it is thought that it is more user friendly, especially for companies that use multiple standards.

 

Context of the Organisation

The new standard requires companies to evaluate all external environmental factors and stakeholders which could potentially have an effect on, or be affected by, your company. The Environmental Management System (EMS) should give consideration to all “interested parties” that may impact on its performance.

 

Leadership

An important change in the new standards, management representatives must now take on more responsibility for the effectiveness of the EMS and integrate environmental management into business processes. The company’s environmental policy is also now required to include a commitment from management to protect the environment beyond the corporate boundaries. A management representative is no longer explicitly required, but adequate responsibilities and authorities must be assigned within the organisation.

 

Life-cycle Planning

The existing requirement for companies to consider the environmental impacts of activities, products and services has been restructured.  The revised standards now require companies to manage environmental impacts “from a life cycle perspective”.  Although it should be noted that there is no explicit requirement for companies to perform a life-cycle analysis of activities, products and services, instead companies are simply asked to adopt a life cycle perspective to identify environmental aspects and associated environmental impacts. There is also an increased emphasis on environmental management within the organisation's strategic planning processes.

There is a new concept introduced in the planning section of the new standard. This will require an organisation to ascertain the effect of uncertainty (“risk”) associated with its environmental context and take action to prevent or reduce undesired effects.

 

“Documented information”

The new standard has disregarded the traditional distinction between records and documents in favour of a common term “documented information”. Where the standard uses the phrase ‘retain documented information as evidence of', it is referring to what were previously known as records, and where the phrase 'maintain documented information' is used it is referring to what were previously called documents.

The term “Compliance obligations” also replaces the more cumbersome phrase ‘legal requirements and other requirements to which the organization subscribes”.

 

Preventative Action

The new standard has removed the clause containing specific requirements for preventative action in favour of new, more detailed, corrective action requirements.   The thinking behind this is that ‘preventative action’ is the role of the EMS in its entirety, as opposed to a specific subsection of it.

 

Communication

There are now more detailed requirements for both internal and external communications. The new standard requires companies to adopt a communication strategy which places equal emphasis on both external and internal communications. This will involve communicating consistent and reliable information, which takes into account the requirements of regulatory agencies and other interested parties. Companies must also establish a mechanism by which people within the company can communicate their recommendations for improving the environmental management system.

 

We are certified to ISO 14001:2004. What does this mean for our organisation?

Organisations are given a three-year period to transition to the new standard, which will expire in September 2018. The transition can be made at any point over this period but it may be worth conducting a gap-analysis to help make the changeover more straightforward down the line.

February 2016

 

EPA Reports on the Waste Sector

Waste is a significant issue for most industries and has the potential to cause significant environmental pollution and reputational damage if not managed properly. Enforcement of the waste sector in Ireland is carried out by a combination of the Office of Environmental Enforcement (OEE) in the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Local Authorities and the National Transfrontier Shipment of Waste (TFS) office in Dublin City Council. Together they regulate waste collection, waste processing and transfer, waste recycling and recovery, waste incineration, export of waste for recovery/disposal and waste disposal by landfilling in Ireland.

The EPA has released its latest report on the enforcement of licensed waste facilities for the year 2013 entitled “EPA Licensed Sites Report on Waste Enforcement“. This report reflects some large changes in the waste sector brought about in recent years by the Waste Framework Directive and other associated legislation. Some of the key finds of the report are as follows:

 

Landfills

There has been a large reduction in number of open landfills, from 25 in 2010 to 9 at the end of 2013. This decrease is a result of Ireland’s commitment to reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill under the targets set by the Landfill Directive. Waste to landfill is now lower than ever before, down from 1 million tonnes in 2012 to 714,000 tonnes in 2013. This reduction in waste to landfill is set to continue and will give rise to an increase in the amount of waste used as Refuse-Derived Fuel (RDF) and Solid Recovered Fuel (SRF).  In Ireland 220,000 tonnes of these waste types was handled at a single municipal waste incinerator and the amount of waste being exported to energy recovery facilities abroad doubled in 2013.

 

Compliance

The waste sector in Ireland accounted for a disproportionate amount of EPA legal actions in 2013. Over 500 complaints were received that year in relation to the 159 EPA regulated facilities. There were over 400 notifications of non-compliance (NONC) issued by the EPA in 2013 resulting in 83 Compliance Investigations being undertaken to tackle issues of non-compliance and underperformance. A compliance investigation is where the EPA takes an issue forward and proactively sets out measures to restore compliance. Consequently, the EPA took legal action against waste operators on 6 separate occasions in 2013, which included the prosecution of Company Directors at two waste companies. Company Directors can be held personally liable for breaches of environmental standards and the EPA, especially in the case of multiple offences, now frequently brings company directors before the courts.

 

Complaints

The EPA received 547 complaints during 2013 in relation to the 159 EPA regulated waste facilities. The majority of these related to landfills and non-hazardous waste transfer stations, which together account for 93% of complaints in the waste sector. The vast majority of complaints received (92%) were related to odour. A relatively small number of sites accounted for the majority of complaints received, with five sites (4 waste transfer stations and 1 landfill) accounting for 66% of all complaints in 2013. Overall the number of complaints received annually is trending downwards, however for now this area remains a priority for the EPA.

 

Incidents

There were over 500 incidents notified in relation to the 159 EPA regulated facilities in 2013. These incidents included having an emergency on site, having an emission which does not comply with the licence or exceeding a trigger level for a pollutant as specified in the licence. The majority of incidents related to landfills (85%) and many of these related to leachate levels in the base of cells exceeding the threshold whereby it should be pumped out and tankered off-site, or exceedances of gas levels in monitoring wells signalling the possible migration of gas off-site. There were 3 fires reported at waste facilities in 2013.

 

Outlook

Aiming to reduce the risk of fire is a major priority for the waste sector. The increased production and storage of RDF / SRF offers significant challenges to waste operators in terms of potential odour nuisances. The securing of financial provision for environmental liabilities at waste facilities will continue to be high on the EPA’s list of priorities, along with the enforcement against non-compliances with current waste legislation and licence conditions.

The full EPA report on waste enforcement at licensed sites can be viewed at the link below:

EPA Licensed Sites Report on Waste Enforcement

 

March 2016