During the COVID-19 pandemic, more and more employees – in both public and private sectors – are working remotely, meaning there are fewer personnel available to handle onsite duties. This inevitably affects the performance of routine regulatory compliance activities, including inspections and monitoring, integrity testing, sampling and laboratory analyses, training, certification, and reporting. Recognizing these challenges, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) released a memo on March 26, announcing a temporary policy regarding discretionary enforcement of environmental legal obligations during the COVID-19 pandemic.
What does USEPA’s policy mean for your organization’s compliance status? What exactly does it include? Are individual states adopting similar positions on compliance during the COVID-19 pandemic? Register now to learn more!
SPEAKER:
Chris Rua, CHMM, CEA is a Senior Environmental Scientist with Potomac-Hudson Engineering, Inc. with nearly 20 years of environmental consulting experience. He has an extensive background in environmental compliance, remediation, planning, and occupational safety and health. Over the course of his career, he has performed well over 100 environmental compliance evaluations, hazardous materials surveys, site investigations, and prepared contingency plans related to petroleum and hazardous waste management for federal, state and private-sector clients. Chris’ broader expertise includes extensive fieldwork related to soil and groundwater investigations, monitoring well installation and sampling, asbestos surveys and sampling, ASTM Phase I ESAs, wetland delineation, noise monitoring, and NEPA document support. In addition to being a CHMM and CEA, he is an OSHA 40-Hour HAZWOPER Site Supervisor and an SP001-Certified Aboveground Storage Tank Inspector.