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EPA and Narragansett Bay Commission sign innovative agreement

Release Date: 09/25/2000
Contact Information: Amy Miller, EPA Press Office (617-918-1042) Jim McCaughey, Narragansett Bay Commission (401-222-6680 Ext. 352)

BOSTON - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the R.I. Department of Environmental Management (DEM) and The Narragansett Bay Commission (NBC), which manages wastewater treatment for the Providence area, today signed an innovative agreement which will benefit NBC, the metal finishing industry and environment. NBC is one of five public treatment plants across the country that will be part of EPA's XL program, in which facilities are given flexibility in EPA's regulations in return for meeting a higher level of environmental performance.

Under the agreement, 10 NBC metal finishing facilities that have demonstrated excellent compliance track records over the past several years will be inspected every other year rather than yearly, and will be required to submit fewer monitoring reports. In addition, these facilities will no longer have to sample their wastewater for chemicals that have historically been demonstrated to not be used within their operations. The cost and time savings realized from this flexibility will be redirected to 10 metal finishing companies with compliance problems. NBC will perform inspections more frequently, and NBC's Pollution Prevention Team will provide special help to these facilities.

"We are glad the Narragansett Bay Commission will be taking part in EPA New England's aggressive innovations program," said Sam Silverman, acting director of the Office of Environmental Stewardship at EPA New England. "We've listened to our customers and found that they have some ideas which hold a lot of promise. Change for its own sake makes very little sense, but allowing change where the payoff is improved environmental protection makes a great deal of sense. "

"For us, Project XL offers the opportunity to add even more focus to our pollution prevention efforts," said Paul Pinault, NBC Executive Director of NBC. "The NBC has a history of achieving great results with our larger users. We have believed for a long time that we could improve overall compliance results if we didn't have to keep inspecting the very best facilities, just because they're large, and concentrate more efforts on some smaller facilities, many of which have had a history of compliance problems. Now we have a chance to test that theory."

"The acceptance of this project by EPA is a mark of high praise for NBC's strong record to date and its continued commitment to innovation to better protect water quality," said Jan Reitsma, commissioner of DEM.

NBC won the EPA Pretreatment Excellence award in 1990 and again in 1998.

Elizabeth Corr, special assistant to EPA Administrator Carol Browner for water projects, was enthusiastic about the potential learning that could come from the five projects.

"There are some excellent and innovative programs among our country's treatment plants," she said, "and we're going to see what they can do given a little flexibility to structure their own projects."

EPA's Project XL is a national pilot program that allows state and local governments and businesses to collaborate with EPA to develop innovative strategies to test better and more cost- effective ways of achieving environmental and public health protection. Under the program, EPA provides participants with regulatory flexibility to achieve better environmental results while assuring that specific XL criteria are met.

To be eligible for the program, companies must meet the following criteria: superior environmental results beyond those that would have been achieved under existing regulations and policies; high potential for transferring the technology to other facilities; a strong history of environmental compliance, and strong support from stakeholder groups.