If you’re a Texas manufacturer or industrial facility, big or small; there’s a long list of environmental and hazardous materials regulations that you have to comply with. In case you’re not aware , here are some of the more common regulations:
- Storm water
- Air emissions
- Hazardous waste management
- And the list goes on and on…
To complicate matters, these regulations are complex, hard to understand and even tougher to comply with, requiring customized written programs, permit applications, routine inspections, employee training, reporting and the list goes on…
It’s much easier said than done. But the problem is, if you don’t and the EPA or TCEQ walks in the front door, they can literally issue fines and penalties that can run into the tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.
But it’s not all bad news.
TCEQ (or the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality) has a fantastic incentive program called The Texas Environmental Health and Safety Audit Privilege Act that’s designed to help non-compliant companies achieve compliance without fear of fines and penalties – even if they’ve been operating out of compliance for many years.
There’s three main components that are involved in the Audit Privilege Act. If you follow these three components, you can achieve compliance and not get fined and penalized.
- The first step is what is called the Notice of Audit. You draft a simple, one-page letter that tells TCEQ who your company is, where you’re located, and when you’re going to conduct the audit. You then send that off to them via certified mail. Once they receive it, they’ll put you into the program.
- Once you begin the audit, you actually have six months to complete it. During that audit, as you’re finding non-compliances, you create what’s called a Disclosure of Violations. You will then send this information to TCEQ as well.
- The third component is simple. You have to fix everything within a reasonable period of time – typically three to six months, however extensions are available for valid reasons.
Follow these steps, and you’re home free….
We’ve helped many small companies navigate this process, and we’d love to help yours too.
Checkout this free webinar which goes into great detail on how the program works.
Click here or call 512-457-0374 to schedule a free consultation to learn more about this fantastic program.
