NEWSGOVERNMENT States try out "pollution prevention permits" Pollution prevention and swifter introduction of innovative environmental technologies are key goals of a demonstration project getting under way in New Jersey. Because of a state law, regulators will issue 18 companies facilitywide "pollution prevention permits," rather than separate, media-specific operating permits, according to Jeanne Herb, director of the New Jersey Office of Pollution Prevention. Along with maximizing opportunities for pollution prevention and source reduction, Herb says, the program also helps companies by streamlining the permitting process because one permit will be issued instead of a halfdozen or more. With the pollution prevention focus, the program moves manufacturers toward process changes and away from traditional end-of-pipe controls, Herb stresses. EPA is also looking into tying permitting to pollution prevention, but the lead is up to the states, says Lance Miller, executive director of an EPA permit improvement team and a former New Jersey environmental official. After holding meetings around the country last year on general permitting problems, EPA learned that "stakeholders" thought there were plenty of other things to fix before the Agency embarked on a multimedia, facility-wide permitting program, Miller says. Nonetheless, Miller embraces the approach as a spur to encourage better technologies. "Pollution prevention and innovative technologies are almost two sides of the same coin," he says. In New Jersey, Herb says, new facility-wide permits look like a book with a chapter for each production process in the manufacturing chain and a pollution prevention analysis and material accounting matrix for each chapter. An emissions limit is set for each process, but the company is left to find ways to meet those limits and comply with regulations. "As long as companies don't
exceed those limits, they have a lot of operational flexibility to make business decisions and do whatever they want," she adds. So far, a pharmaceutical manufacturer in Kenilworth, owned by Schering-Plough, Corp., has been issued a permit, and three others are expected to be permitted in April. A final report on the program will be issued to the legislature in 1996. In the course of doing the analysis for the permit, Schering phased out a production process that used the hazardous solvent trichloroethane and replaced it with a water-based solvent. Company engineers also installed a closed loop recycling system to reuse Freon, reducing use of the ozone-depleting chemical by 140,000 lb a year. Schering saved $300,000 a year by these changes, according to the state. "We are starting to see new technologies," Herb says, "but not technologies in terms of slapping on a new piece of equipment. Rather, we are seeing operational changes and equipment modifications that cut hazardous materials and combine pollution prevention and efficiency." Other states have looked into similar programs, but none is as far along as New Jersey. Last year Washington state passed legislation calling for facility-wide permitting on a demonstration basis, and Weyerhaeuser, Corp., and two aluminum manufacturers are considering the program, says Hugh O'Neill, an official with the state's Department of Ecology. Massachusetts has looked into the value of facility-wide permits but recently backed away. Instead, as part of a reorganization of the environmental office, the state is encouraging a multimedia permitting approach by requiring state environmental regulators responsible for specific media to "at least talk to each other" when issuing permits, according to Deborah Gallagher of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection. The state is holding training sessions to help
Janet Griffin, Schering's manager of environmental affairs, contrasts the file drawers of paperwork for traditional environmental permits with New Jersey's new, single, facility-wide permit.
staff understand how permitting requirements can sometimes block innovative technologies. The state of Oregon, EPA, and Intel, Corp., have developed a permit that encourages the company to conduct pollution prevention analyses in return for the state's acceptance of minor air permit modifications. The plant makes literally daily production changes that affect air emissions and normally might lead to a lengthy regulatory permit review, says Phil Berry, small business advocate and pollution prevention coordinator for the state. So an agreement was struck in which Intel can make production changes without modifying its permit as long as actual emissions are not increased. In return, Intel agreed to a pollution prevention program, including training and the requirement that equipment vendors and chemical suppliers develop low-polluting technologies for Intel. The program is voluntary, Berry notes, which is one of the biggest difficulties in pollution prevention solutions. "We searched throughout the Clean Air Act and there is no pollution prevention requirement in the law where we could hang the program." —JEFF JOHNSON
VOL. 29, NO. 3, 1995 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY • 1 1 7 A
