Category: News

environmental Strategist, between the lines:  If you have ever been to one of the Disney parks you have seen and experienced firsthand what meticulous detail is given to every aspect of their business model including risk management.  If something as obvious as an aging air conditioning system can slip past Disney’s meticulous attention to detail, what chance do your typical American businesses stand in addressing their environmental expousres?

Whether Disney is at fault or not they are still going to have expenses for legal fees, hiring environmental engineers, drillers, laboratory analysis, claims management, public relations.  Don’t forget the reputational risk factor.  My observation is that reputational risk is very critical in the Disney business model and Mickey or Donald or Goofy or Bambi or Dumbo or Snow White…. being polluters is not good PR.

Since every business is impacted by environmental exposures, today’s Best Practices means businesses must have an environmental Management Strategy (eMS) in order to eliminate or reduce their exposure to the Disney syndrome.  I call it the Disney syndrome because the majority of businesses believe environmental liabilities only happen in fairy tales.  To learn how to deliver Best Practices environmental risk management while becoming a certified environmental Strategist™ go to www.estrategist.com.

Disney May be A Source of Groundwater Pollution

Source: AP

A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency consultant says a vintage air conditioning system at the Walt Disney Studios may be a source of Burbank groundwater contamination.

The Los Angeles Times says the studio is among a list of facilities being investigated as possible sources of chromium 6 contamination. The cancer-causing heavy metal is widely used in aerospace manufacturing and other industries.

California health officials tested soil two years ago in a nearby park that had received discharges from Disney’s cooling system. It was reported that chromium 6 levels were not a public health threat.

Lockheed Martin Corp. paid $60 million in 1996 to settle claims by residents who said exposure to chromium 6 and other toxins at its former Burbank aircraft plant left them with cancer and other maladies.

environmental Strategist, between the lines:  How many times have you been driving your car and had something spray onto your vehicle by a commercial truck?  That type of loss scenario takes place every day, thousands of times, all across the country.  Do you have any transportation client’s that haul material that could be released to the environment and cause an environmental loss?

Do you have clients using third party transporters to transport their goods?  If a third party transporter causes an environmental loss with your client’s goods, ultimately the owner of the goods, your client, will be held accountable for any resulting environmental damage including but not limited to cleanup, defense costs, third party bodily injury, third party property damage, third party business income, claims management….

The environmental Strategist™ definition of a pollutant is a material, substance or product that gets introduced into an environment for other than its intended use or purpose.  environmental Strategist has claims examples where fresh water, cheese and milk have been classified as pollutants.  Can your clients afford to self insure their transportation exposure or should they transfer their exposure via a contract or insurance policy?

How do your client’s receive their raw materials, FOB point of Shipment or FOB point of delivery?

environmental Strategist, between the lines:  Illegal disposal of waste in the United States is a tens of billions of dollars a year industry.  The medical industry generates huge amounts of regulated wastes.

A favorite place to illegally dispose of waste is on vacant land.  Do you have any client’s that own vacant land?  Under Federal law, property owners are responsible for the environmental condition of their property.

In some cases people / businesses are not aware they are illegally disposing of waste.  For example fluorescent light bulbs.  When fluorescent light bulbs burn out they are supposed to be disposed of as hazardous waste due to the mercury in the lights.  My experience is fluorescent lights are more often than not disposed of in the dumpster versus being properly disposed of as hazardous waste.

New Hampshire Hospital Pays $200,000 Fine for Hazardous Waste Violations

Thu, 2012-05-31 18:27

Waste Age

Allan Gerlat

Concord (N.H.) Hospital Inc. has agreed to pay a fine of $205,000 for hazardous waste violations.

The New Hampshire Department of Justice said in a news release that the Merrimack County Superior Court approved a settlement between the state and Capital Regional Health Care Corp. New Hampshire alleged that Concord Hospital failed to identify certain pharmaceutical wastes as hazardous wastes. Concord Hospital shipped the hazardous waste pharmaceuticals to facilities that were not authorized to accept the waste material.

The state during an inspection discovered these violations, as well as the hospital’s failure to identify hazardous waste alcohols, solvents and used oil for recycling, and follow certain hazardous waste management requirements. The hospital quickly corrected the problems once they were identified by the state.

environmental Strategist, between the lines:  There are a few critical points I want to make on the EPA release below.

1. 1.       Who are your neighbors and what if they have contamination coming onto your property but they do not have the financial where with all to pay for the environmental damages, you are now the owner of a piece of contaminated land.  Environmental insurance can protect an insured if third parties contaminate their property.  The EPA information below points out “there are an estimated 450,000 abandoned and contaminated waste sites in America.  Environmental Strategist research estimates the number of Brownfield sites in the United States to be in the multi millions.
2. 2.      The web sites listed at the bottom of the EPA release in conjunction with your local Brownfield Redevelopment Authority websites can deliver enough information and generate enough leads to make any insurance professionals career very, very successful.  With Brownfields there are four stages where insurance professionals can make money.  The four stages are Acquisition, Cleanup, Redevelopment and End use (ACRE).  They are not making any more land, we have obviously done a great job of contaminating what we have so now in order to better protect human health and the environment we need to clean it up and you can profit on each and every ACRE.

Why are there so many incentives for Brownfields?  They are economic multipliers that better protect human health and the environment while creating more jobs and increasing tax revenue.  As the article points out, “Since its inception EPA’s brownfields investments have leveraged more than $18.3 billion in cleanup and redevelopment funding from a variety of public and private sources and have resulted in approximately 75,500 jobs. More than 18,000 properties have been assessed, and over 700 properties have been cleaned up.”

From: U.S. EPA

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 24, 2012

EPA Announces $69.3 Million to Clean Up Contaminated Sites and Revitalize Communities

Investment will protect people’s health and the environment, create jobs and promote economic redevelopment nationwide

WASHINGTON – Today the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced $69.3 million in grants for new investments to provide communities with funding necessary to clean and redevelop contaminated properties, boost local economies and create jobs while protecting public health.

“Restored Brownfield properties can serve as cornerstones for rebuilding struggling communities. These grants will be the first step in getting pollution out and putting jobs back into neighborhoods across the country,” said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. “Clean, healthy communities are places where people want to live, work and start businesses. We’re providing targeted resources to help local partners transform blighted, contaminated areas into centers of economic growth.”

Highlights of the projects planned by grant recipients:

• DeKalb County, Ga. plans to clean up and redevelop major industrial areas served by transit and infrastructure in community areas, in addition to expanding greenspace and community-based development. One important revitalization effort is targeted for the General Motors Assembly Plant (closed in 2008), which sits at the convergence of two major corridors and the Doraville MARTA Station. Upon redevelopment, the project will reduce blight and increase the local tax base.
 

• Toledo, Ohio (Coalition) will use the awarded assessment grant funding to revitalize under-served neighborhoods and create local jobs at two proposed projects. The Coalition will investigate properties in the Cherry Street Corridor/Summit Street Redevelopment area to allow for the expansion of St. Vincent’s Hospital and Central Catholic High School. Secondly, the Fernwood Growing Center Area, located in an underserved, low income neighborhood, will be expanded by at least two additional sites for the use of urban agriculture.
• Paul Cuffee School, a maritime charter school for Providence public school children in Rhode Island, is receiving two EPA cleanup grants to clean and redevelop adjacent properties for a new parking lot and athletic field for students.
• Land-of-Sky, a local government planning and development organization located in N.C., will use grant funds awarded to rehabilitate the Chatham Site, a former manufacturing plant, a mill and a Western electric plant into approximately 150 multifamily rental units. The project may result in leveraging additional funding, including New Markets Tax Credits, construction permanent loans, Federal Historic Tax Credit equity, NC Mill Rehab Tax Credit equity and deferred development fees. Assessments have been completed and the project is ready to begin redevelopment.

• Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources will provide a loan from its Revolving Loan Fund to the city of Kenosha for the cleanup of the Kenosha Engine Plant Cleaning site, a former Chrysler/American Motors plant. The site, once the pride of southeastern Wisconsin, will provide the community the opportunity to market the site to private investors that could bring jobs and tax revenue to the community.

There are an estimated 450,000 abandoned and contaminated waste sites in America. In 2011, EPA’s brownfields program leveraged 6,447 jobs and $2.14 billion in cleanup and redevelopment funds. Since its inception EPA’s brownfields investments have leveraged more than $18.3 billion in cleanup and redevelopment funding from a variety of public and private sources and have resulted in approximately 75,500 jobs. More than 18,000 properties have been assessed, and over 700 properties have been cleaned up. Brownfields grants also target under-served and low income neighborhoods – places where environmental cleanups and new jobs are most needed.

See list of all awarded brownfields grants by state: http://cfpub.epa.gov/bf_factsheets/

More information on EPA’s brownfields program: http://www.epa.gov/brownfields/

More information on brownfields success stories: http://www.epa.gov/brownfields/success/index.htm

Seven people were hurt in the 2009 explosion at a ConAgra Foods Inc., factory in Garner, N.C., and last month’s $14.6 million verdict in a 2009 Slim Jim factory explosion raises a host of issues for risk managers.

By JONATHAN BERR,

Investigation found that the explosion was due to the improper purging of air lines.

Four people died in the 2009 incident, and the court in June will rule on punitive damages in connection with the Garner explosion. The Slim Jim accident highlights the poor job many food companies do in managing contractors.

Jacobs Engineering, the company blamed for the blast at the now-shuttered plant, also may get hit with punitive damages, said David Stradley, the attorney representing the workers. ConAgra declined to comment on the case and Jacobs Engineering didn’t respond to inquiries.

In a 2009 Associated Press dispatch, ConAgra was quoted as saying that since the accident it has “worked closely and fully cooperated” with authorities. ConAgra, however, declined to discuss the 26 citations and $134,773 in fines leveled by safety inspectors nearly three years ago.

Investigators from the U.S. Chemical Safety Board determined that the accident occurred after contractors at the plant purged or removed air-in lines before gas flows through them without taking adequate safety precautions.

Purging lines is supposed to prevent explosive mixtures of gas and air from forming, and safety advocates have argued for years that it was too dangerous to purge gas lines indoors after the practice was blamed for several prior explosions.

Federal investigators were harsh in their criticism regarding what took place at the Slim Jim plant during the purging — which was occurring while a new water heater was being installed. Workers relied on their sense of smell instead of gas detection equipment to know when the piping had been purged.

More than 200 people were in the building when the explosion occurred.

Copyright 2012© LRP Publications

Press Release 5/15/12:  www.estrategist.com

For business professionals looking to leverage their business model in today’s transparent / sustainable business environment, www.estrategist.com is the game changer.

Certified environmental Strategist™ (eS) assist businesses in managing and transferring their environmental exposures.  Since every business is impacted by environmental exposures, today’s transparent / sustainable business environment is driving demand for eS professionals, just as the computer industry drove demand for IT professionals.

Chris Bunbury, President of environmental Strategist, Inc. (eSI) said “eStrategist Online has been created to meet three primary functions necessary for any business professional to proactively address environmental exposures.”

1.  Educate business professionals how to manage and transfer environmental exposures utilizing strategies that have been developed and field tested for more than two decades by eSI.  Business professionals can earn their eS certification by participating in the eS Online training and completing the eS certification test.
2. Be a competitive environmental intelligence resource and business network for professionals working under the strategy of assisting client’s to leverage growth in today’s sustainable / transparent business environment.  Once a business professional earns their eS certification more than two decades of competitive environmental intelligence is at their finger tips with eStrategist Online.
3. Assist certified eS, their client’s and team members 24/7 to be on the same page in addressing the environmental exposures impacting their operations via the internet.  eS online offers certified eS a platform to collaborate, coordinate and manage their client’s environmental exposures.

eStrategist Online is designed to benefit insurance professionals, attorney’s, bankers, accountants, realtors, environmental engineers, clean up contractors, business owners, managers, risk managers….  eS Online is an excellent platform to provide a competitive edge in today’s business environment and with more than two decades of development it is the game changer for business professionals that strive to be industry leaders.

Bunbury shared a few example of how eS online can assist business professionals.

Environmental engineers struggling to grow beyond traditional storage tank work, environmental site assessments… will learn how eS drive demand for a broad spectrum of their professional environmental services.

For attorney’s, what good are the traditional environmental indemnifications in contracts if there is no financial assurance mechanism in place to meet the indemnification?  Certified eS know how to fill this critical contractual gap.

Every commercial insured an insurance professional works with, is impacted by environmental exposures.  As Bunbury points out, “insurance professionals not discussing environmental exposures with client’s may find themselves in an E&O suit when a client experiences an environmental liability.”

Earning your eS certification is a commitment (6 hours of online training and certification test), so to make it more convenient the online training has been developed so each participants can take it at their own pace.

As Bunbury stated, “of course there is a charge to earn your eS certification but we are only looking for business professionals that understand this will add value to their business model and paying a nominal fee to add value is part of doing business.”  The eS business strategy allows business transactions to naturally move forward while solving problems, growing profits, improving product quality, services….

Certified eS are able to use the environmental Strategist name and logo on business cards, letter head and advertisements identifying them as an environmental professional and industry leader.

In closing Bunbury said, “a certified eS not only distinguishes themselves as an industry leader but they are able to build upon their current knowledge so they can better contribute in pro-actively addressing the most critical issue impacting the planet earth, human beings and the global economy, our environment.”

Contact: environmentalstrategist@gmail.com or call 231-218-1041 for questions or more information.