Environmental management system

USEPA, the Water Environment Federation (WEF) and the Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies (AMSA) formed the National Biosolids Partnership (NBP) in 1997 to promote environmentally safe biosolids management. A top priority of NBP is to develop a voluntary environmental management system (EMS) for biosolids.

The EMS is a set of standard procedures or steps that organizations producing biosolids can utilize to demonstrate that biosolids management is a key component of the organization's overall policies. In October 1999, WEP volunteered to participate in a pilot gap analysis—the first phase of NBP's EMS initiative.

Development/implementation of the EMS will allow the Department to conduct a comprehensive review of its biosolids program and will result in increased public awareness and acceptance of biosolids management practices.

Gap analysis

The pilot gap analysis analyzed WEP's biosolids management program against NBP's prototype EMS. WEP was one of fourteen municipalities nationwide to participate in the demonstration exercise.

The framework for the prototype EMS is similar to the ISO 14001 EMS and contains five elements:

Biosolids management policy
Biosolids management planning
Biosolids program implementation
Measurement and corrective action
Management review.

WEP and NBP are participating in a voluntary Charter Demonstration Project. By participating, WEP is committed to establishing an EMS based on NBP's blueprint. WEP is among twenty-nine wastewater agencies throughout the country participating in the Demonstration Project. However, NBP is in the process of expanding the Demonstration Project and an additional thirteen agencies signed up. Furthermore, NBP has funding in the 2002 budget for twenty more new agencies (for a total of thirty-three new agencies).

Objectives of the Demonstration Program are:

To assist organizations in establishing an EMS based on the "blueprint" developed by NBP
To evaluate the components of the blueprint
To gather information about EMS implementation from the Charter Demonstration Organizations that will allow NBP to expand the EMS program to full-scale implementation.

The blueprint has five components:

Code of good practice a requirement for independent, third-party verification audit

Elements of an EMS for biosolids the seventeen EMS Elements to assure conformance with the Code of good practice

Biosolids EMS guidance manual step-by-step guidance document on how to develop and implement an EMS

National manual of good practices guidance on identification of critical control points and selection of management practices

Third-party verification program independent auditing of EMSs by a qualified and impartial party using a standardized protocol.

Implementation at WEP

To begin developing an EMS, WEP formed an EMS Team composed of representatives of the Department as well as the Onondaga County Office of the Environment.

To achieve the goal of establishing an EMS, the EMS Team began working on several of the EMS elements utilizing the step-by-step process outlined in the EMS Guidance Manual. During 2001, the Team developed a draft of several components of some EMS elements:

Draft vision, mission and policy statements
Critical control points (for example wastewater pretreatment, collection, treatment and solids generation, solids thickening) and operational controls (for example, sewer use ordinance, pollution prevention, operating procedures, regulations) throughout the biosolids value chain and responsible individuals
Applicable legal and other requirements
Goals and objectives for several of the critical control point categories and responsible individuals
Draft public participation plan
List of emergency preparedness and response procedures
Draft list and development of some of the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) instrumental to ensuring production of quality biosolids.