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EPA Recognizes New Hampshire Company at Environmental Merit Awards in Boston

Release Date: 04/19/2000
Contact Information: Peyton Fleming, EPA Press Office (617-918-1008)

BOSTON - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today issued an Environmental Merit Special Recognition Award to Environmental Soil Management Inc. in Loudon, N.H. for the company's participation in EPA New England's StarTrack Program, an initiative to encourage companies to voluntarily assess and improve their environmental performance.

In announcing the award at a ceremony at Faneuil Hall in Boston, EPA-NE Regional Administrator Mindy S. Lubber praised the company for its outstanding commitment to become more environmentally efficient.

"Every year, through our Environmental Merit Awards, EPA celebrates the hard work and environmental accomplishments of outstanding individuals and organizations in New England," Lubber said. "We are proud today to recognize Environmental Soil Management for its significant contribution to our regional StarTrack program. The company's hard work in developing and monitoring their own environmental systems has been beneficial for the environment and valuable in helping us find ways to regulate facilities more cost effectively."

Launched in 1996, the StarTrack Program encourages facilities and organizations in New England to voluntarily assess and improve their environmental performance. Participants in StarTrack agree to complete three steps aimed at protecting the environment: audit their environmental management and compliance performance each year; publish an environmental performance report each year; and have their compliance and environmental management system reviewed and certified by an independent third party every three years.

Environmental Soil Management, a permitted solid waste facility for thermal processing/recycling of petroleum/hydrocarbon contaminated soils, is among 14 companies and organizations honored today for their participation in the StarTrack program.

"It was not an easy decision for ESMI to volunteer to put our compliance and environmental management systems under a microscope," said Christine Nardini, director of regulatory affairs at Environmental Soil Management. "However, the result was rewarding both in terms of acknowledgment of our current successes and identification of opportunities for continued environmental improvement. The StarTrack Program was truely an example of government and industry working constructively together to go beyond compliance at ESMI and to improve the environment overall."

Now in its fourth year, EPA New England's StarTrack program is currently being used as one of the models for a national Performance Track Program that is being developed by EPA Headquarters in Washington.

"One of the visions of our StarTrack Program was to create a national program with credibility and significant incentives," Lubber said. "The launching of the national program this year is the fruition of much hard work and innovation on the part of Environmental Soil Management and other StarTrack facilities."