Tag: Environmental Strategist

  • What you need to know about UST’s

    environmental Strategist, between the lines:  Below is a You Tube video that does an excellent job of explaining how an underground storage tank (UST) operates.  Under Federal law, regulated UST’s must evidence financial assurance should there be a release from the UST system.

    The problem facing UST owners today is the age of their tanks.  Back in the 1990’s the Federal Government established financial assurance requirements but never consulted with the insurance industry to find out what the insurability of a 20 or 30 year old tank system would be.  Now we have an aging UST’s in the United States and for the most part, tank owners have not budgeted to replace their systems and find themselves caught

    If you have insureds with tanks over 20 years old you need to coach them up on replacing their tanks.  Once a tank reaches 25 years old there are just a couple of insurance carriers that will offer coverage and the premiums and deductibles go up drastically and retro dates are shortened.  For tanks over 30 years old it is a crap shoot if any insurance carrier will offer coverage.

    As your environmental team member, ERMI is ready to assist you and your insureds with their UST financial assurance needs.

    video on underground storage tanks  

  • environmental Strategist™ Has Partnered With ABEN To Offer 4 Hours Of Online CE For Insurance Professionals

    environmental Strategist (eS) is pleased to announce we have partnered with ABEN so insurance professionals can earn 4 hours of CE and upon completing an optional online test can also earn their eS certification.  Certified eS will gain access to www.estrategist.com and all of the environmental resources designed to drive your sales while better protecting your E&O exposure.

    Professional eS assist business to manage and transfer their environmental exposures in order to better compete in today’s business environment.  The reason eS services are becoming part of “Best Practices” for insurance professionals is because every business is impacted by environmental exposures.

    Copy the following link to your search engine to learn more:  https://abentv.wordpress.com/

    Roughly 37 states work with ABEN for online CE.

    For eS online CE we have confirmation from the following states they will be offering eS to their members:  Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Utah.

    We are still waiting to hear from the following states if they will be offering eS online for CE for their members:  California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Metropolitan Washington AIIA, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina,  Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming.

    We will keep contacting the states we have not heard back from.  If you would like to become a certified eS and we have not heard back from your state, give your state IIABA a call and let them know you would like them to offer this valuable CE class.

    Please contact me with any questions.

    Thank you

    Chris Bunbury, eS
    Environmental Risk Managers, Inc.
    Email: chris@estrategist.com
    Phone: 231-218-1041
    Fax: 231-256-2123
    Mobile: 231-218-1041

  • ‘New normal’: No one escapes pain in drought areas

    environmental Strategist, between the lines: Everything that exists on our planet is impacted by environmental exposures as the article below points out.  According to the report below “drought now covers about 38 percent of the lower 48 states”, so people living in drought areas are getting a real life experience just how precious a resource water is.

    We can’t control our environment but we can do a better job of utilizing the resources we need to live.  Since 99% + of species that have inhabited earth are extinct the odds say we better wake up or we won’t be smelling any roses.

    Our environment is creating demand for environmental Strategist™ much like computers created demand for IT professionals.  The big difference being one you can live without and one you can’t.  For a better life www.estrategist.com.

    Mark Koba | @MarkKobaCNBC , 5-20-14:

    The dry conditions in the western U.S. are so bad that even many of the companies that are thriving in the drought feel economic pain.

    Case in point—Limoneira, of Santa Paula, California, and one of the largest U.S. growers of lemons and avocados: It reached record revenue of $100 million this year thanks to higher prices brought on by a freeze in South America, said president and CEO Harold Edwards.

    Despite the higher sales, however, getting through the drought is costly, said Edwards, who noted that his firm constantly monitors its underground wells so as not to overuse them.

    “We have to do more water pumping, invest in sprinkler systems, and every extra irrigation costs us,” said Edwards, whose company has some 11,000 acres in agricultural production.

    eS factoid:  80% of the worlds fresh water is used for Agriculture.

    Analysts say that no matter what, farmers, businesses and consumers are going to feel the effects of the drought, and survival will mean shared pain through conditions that show no sign of letting up.

    “This is the new normal,” said Lori Anne Dolqueist, a partner at the law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips and an expert in California water regulations. “In terms of the drought, we can’t just expect to wait it out and pray for rain. We have to do a lot more through education on how we use water, stricter laws on water use and other means to get a handle on it,” she said. “And that means a tough conversation for everyone about water.”

    Severity of drought

    The current drought is not a new one. Various states have been in drought conditions for the last three to four years. But the severity of what’s happening now is alarming to many observers.

    For the first time in this century, the entire state of California is in a severe drought or worse, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

    Drought conditions in Oklahoma have farmers there expecting only 20 percent of their normal wheat yield this spring. States like Kansas Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado are also caught in the grasp of extremely dry conditions.

    And a dearth of rain over the past four years in Texas has climatologists saying the state is suffering the worst drought conditions of the past 500 years. Dozens of Texas communities, especially in the southern part, are said to have less than 90 days of water, putting lives at risk.

    California’s drought will deal a severe blow to Central Valley irrigated agriculture and farm communities this year, and could cost the industry $1.7 billion and cause more than 14,500 workers to lose their jobs, according to preliminary results of a new study by the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences.

    Consumers are taking a hit as well: Prices for meat, eggs, fresh fruits and vegetables and other foods are on the rise, in large part because of the drought that has seized western states.

    The drought has an economic trickle-down effect that could leave some towns and communities devastated, said Umar Sheikh, an industry sector credit analyst at insurance firm Euler Hermes.

    “Without water, there are no crops, and you have an exodus of people moving out of the areas,” argued Sheikh. “That means less kids in schools, less tax money for the towns and more dependence on government assistance.”

    With weather conditions as they are, a whole new way of thinking about water use is necessary, said Wayne Tucker, founder of BIO S.I. Technology, which makes microbial soil that helps increase water nutrients and efficiency for agriculture.

    “Instead of planting 5,000 acres of a crop that could use thousands of gallons of water, we need to reduce crop planting to something like 2,000 acres, ” argued Tucker. “We’re not getting the sufficient rainfall we need to keep doing what we have been doing.”

    Lynn Wilson, academic chair at Kaplan University and an environmental researcher said it will take more than just shorter showers to help the situation.

    “We have to look at all kinds of methods to save and produce water, like desalination as expensive as that is, and reusing waste water,” she said.

    Preparation for drought conditions is key, said Euler Hermes’ Sheikh.That means bigger reservoirs for storing water when it rains so there’s enough to go around during dry spells, he said.

    An online wine-selling outlet, NakedWines.com, said it’s helping wine growers in California with its own relief efforts. CEO Rowan Gormley explained that NakedWines, which uses crowd funding from its customers to invest in wineries, allows those wineries to switch to producing other wines that aren’t threatened by the drought.

    The online outlet has also invested in wineries that have their own water sources. But the company’s efforts don’t help everyone—Gromley noted that it’s primarily premium wines whose growers have sufficient water, whereas the drought is a bigger concern for “entry-level wines sourced out of the Central Valley of California.” NakedWines doesn’t focus on those areas.

    ‘Share the burden’

    According to the most recent outlook, drought now covers about 38 percent of the lower 48 states. Most of the Texas and Oklahoma Panhandles, northeastern New Mexico, and southwestern Kansas received only a few tenths of an inch of rain from mid-April to mid-May, when precipitation is usually on the increase in this region.

    And drought persistence is highly probable along the West Coast and in the mountain areas of states such as Colorado, where summer is a relatively dry time of year and both surface and subsoil moisture almost always decline.

    Experts say even if there were huge amounts of rainfall in the months ahead, the drought won’t go away, and it’s time to look for new ideas.

    “Whole civilizations in the past have disappeared because of lack of water,” said Kaplan University’s Wilson. “We’re going to be fighting over resources like water and it’s time we looked at them as having limits.”

    —By CNBC’s Mark Koba.

  • Trawling: destructive fishing method is turning sea floors to ‘deserts’

     environmental Strategist™, between the lines:  Agriculture uses 80% of the worlds fresh water supply and it accounts for 70% of the contamination in our waterways.  Should we stop agriculture?

    The fact that each ones of us eats food means we support agriculture, therefore, each an everyone of us is a polluter.  The challenge we face is how can we pollute in a way that has the least amount of impact on human health and the environment?

    We can’t begin to answer that question until we are environmentally educated.  For businesses and business professionals, www.estrategist.com is your first step as a polluter to have the least amount of impact upon human health and the environment.

    From: Morgan Erickson-Davis, MONGABAY.COM,  Published May 29, 2014 01:30 PM :  Bottom trawling is a practice used by commercial fisheries around the world in which a large, heavy net is dragged along the ocean floor to scoop up everything in its path. Previous research has linked trawling to significant environmental impacts, such as the harvest of large numbers of non-target species, collectively termed “by catch,” as well as destruction of shallow seabeds. Now, a new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds this method is also resulting in long-term, far-reaching consequences in the deeper ocean and beyond.

    diagram courtesy of FRDC Australia

    Trawling dates back to the 1300s, and it became widespread in coastal areas around the world after the industrialization of commercial fishing in the late-1800s. Bottom trawling targets commercially valuable species that live near the sea floor, such as cod, rockfish, and various kinds of squid and shrimp. Gear varies depending on the fishing outfit, but nets can be nearly as large as a city block and scoop thousands of fish and other marine animals in a single drag.

    Bottom trawling has one of the highest bycatch rates of all commercial fishing practices. In the North Pacific, the practice accounts for 18 percent of annual groundfish harvests, and 82 percent of the region’s discarded by-catch. At times, bycatch accounts for upwards of 90 percent of a net’s total catch.

    In addition to directly killing many fish and other marine species, studies have shown that bottom trawling is very destructive to the seabed. It dislodges sediment, which destroys the habitat of ground-dwelling organisms, makes the water more opaque and unsuitable for many species, and releases pollutants and carbon that had been trapped below the seafloor.

    As populations of many fish species dwindle due to intensive commercial fishing effort, bottom trawling outfits are searching for new fishing grounds in ever-deeper regions of oceans around the world. However, this new study indicates that deeper ocean bottoms are also being affected by trawling, as the nets destroy delicate seafloor ecosystems at a level akin to desertification.

    “Cumulatively, the impacts of trawling on the sediment structure, the benthic biodiversity, and the most basic of all of the nutritional resources in these deep-sea sedimentary ecosystems resemble the catastrophic effects caused by man-accelerated soil erosion on land, and the general environmental deterioration of abandoned agriculture fields exposed to high levels of human impact,” write the researchers, from various institutions in Italy and Spain.

    Continue reading at ENN affiliate, MONGABAY.COM.

  • Report backs Chinese drywall health complaints

    environmental Strategist™, between the lines:  Who are you doing business with?  This is the first question a business answers as they develop and execute their environmental Management Strategy (eMS).  The article below is an excellent example of why it’s critical to find out who you are doing business with.

    An eMS is the first step a business takes on their sustainable path.  An eMS is designed to identify your environmental foot print to drive growth and profits in today’s business environment.

    The four footings of an eMS are:

    1. What’s coming in your front door? (Who are you doing business with?)
    2. What goes on inside your corporate walls
    3. What goes out your back door
    4. Who are your neighbors

    For more on developing and executing your eMS go to www.estrategist.com.

     

    Report backs Chinese drywall health complaints

    Elizabeth Weise, USATODAY1:04 a.m. EDT May 2, 2014

    Chinese-made drywall used in more than 20,000 homes in the United States could have caused nosebleeds, headaches, difficulty breathing and asthma attacks in tens of thousands of Americans exposed to it, the federal government said in a long-awaited report released Friday.

    The drywall was installed in mostly Southern homes since 2005, and it has been the subject of multiple lawsuits. In addition to health-related complaints, homeowners have also alleged sulfur dioxide and other chemicals found in the drywall caused foul odors and corroded pipes and wiring. There have been five settlements totaling more than $1 billion, but it’s not clear how much of the drywall was replaced.

    “The bottom line is that this modeling data suggests that levels of sulfur dioxide and other sulfur compounds found in the Chinese manufactured drywall were sufficiently high to result in the health effects people have been reporting,” said Vikas Kapil, chief medical officer with the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    The health research began in 2011 but was not finished until now because of the work necessary to create scientifically valid models that allowed researchers to estimate what the sulfur emissions from the drywall samples “might mean for people in a room in a house” containing that drywall, Kapil said.

    As of Jan. 20, owners of 20,244 properties had registered for compensation in a multistate settlement program overseen by the New Orleans federal court where all the lawsuits were consolidated. Claims have been filed by homeowners, home builders, contractors and construction material distributors.

    The homes smelled like rotten eggs, many reported. Appliances and electronics failed as their wiring corroded and metal in the homes tarnished and pitted.

    The only way to deal with the problem is to rip out and replace the faulty wallboard.

    The drywall, sometimes called wallboard, was imported from China beginning in 2005, after the record-breaking hurricane seasons of 2004 and 2005 created a shortage of U.S.-made wallboard.

    Drywall is made of gypsum plaster pressed between two thick sheets of paper, and is used to make interior walls and ceilings.

    The U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry sent staff to China, where they obtained samples of wallboard manufactured there in 2005, 2006 and 2009.

    The samples were tested by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif. Results from those samples were then used to estimate how much of the chemicals would be present in the air of a home with the defective wallboard.

    High levels of sulfur dioxide were found in the samples of Chinese wallboard, as well as hydrogen sulfide, carbon disulfide, methyl mercaptan, dimethyl sulfide, carbonyl sulfide and ethyl mercaptan.

    Samples of U.S.-made wallboard had very low or undetectable amounts of those chemicals.

    The samples gave off the highest amounts of chemicals when they were exposed to hot, humid conditions — much like those found in Florida and Louisiana, two states with the largest number of cases linked to the wallboard.

    Tainted Chinese drywall is no longer sold in the United States since the 2012 passage of the Drywall Safety Act, which set chemical standards for domestic and imported drywall.

  • Gasoline gets into southeast Kentucky cave system

    environmental Strategist™, between the lines:  The majority of the time when you ask a business how they purchase their raw materials they will tell you they buy them FOB (Freight On board) point of shipment.  Why, because it’s cheaper.  The story below is a simple example of the dangers a business can experience buying their raw materials FOB point of shipment.

    Before you say it, let me, “This is a loss that could never Happen.”  Environmental liabilities for businesses generally are not a frequency problem but a severity problem.

    Gasoline gets into southeast Kentucky cave system – February 3, 2014 

    Kentucky Department of Environmental Protection crews are working with cavers after a fuel spill late last week.

    Early on the morning of January 30th 2014, a gasoline tanker truck left the pavement of US Highway 27 and rolled down an embankment just south of Burnside in southern Pulaski County.

    Due to a considerable delay between the time of the accident and when it was finally reported, most if not all 8,200 gallons of gasoline had already leaked out of the tanker by the time emergency personnel arrived on the scene.

    The fuel had flowed overland to a gully and several hundred feet over frozen ground to a swallow hole, believed to be connected to the Sloan’s Valley Cave system.

    Efforts to clean up the fuel remaining on the surface are underway, but the majority is thought to now be in the cave and groundwater.

    Although six cave entrances were checked and no fumes were detected, dangerous conditions inside the cave could exist inside. Several sumps exist along the base level stream passage and the gasoline is expected to be trapped on top of the water for a significant period of time.

    Fuel vapors may make self-contained breathing apparatus a necessity to enter the cave and there is also the potential for an explosion.

    Signs have been posted at the entrances warning of the potential hazardous conditions.

    In the future, before caving in Sloan’s or Neely’s Creek please obtain the latest information from the Kentucky Division of Water.

    [via Jared Snyder] & Gasoline gets into southeast Kentucky cave system [courier-journal.com]

     

    eS Risk Management Strategy:  environmental Strategist™ (eS) understand that sustainability is just another word for environmental risk management.  Through environmental risk management, eS offer four simple risk management strategies a business can implement to reduce their environmental liability exposures in receiving their raw materials.

    1.  Stop buying your raw materials FOB point of shipment, purchase them FOB point of delivery.

    2.  Working with your attorney team member, have then draw up a contract that transfers the transportation liability to the transporter until your raw materials are delivered and off loaded.

    3.  Only deal with transporters that carry transportation pollution liability coverage.

    4.  Businesses can purchase an insurance policy that protects them while third parties are transporting their goods.

    Business owner, what would you like to do?

    Through environmental risk management eS offer businesses options on managing and transferring their environmental exposures to increase profits in today’s business environment.  For more go to www.estrategist.com.

  • Chemical spill a blow to W.Va. capital’s economy

    environmental Strategist™, between the lines:  This environmental loss below is a very simple real life example of why environmental Strategist state that every business is impacted by environmental exposures.  While the company that caused the spill is probably toast, how are the impacted third party businesses going to be compensated for being forced to shut down?  What about defense cost, third party property damage, third party business income…?  What about employees not getting paid because their employer was forced to shut down?  This means bills are going to be paid late so other business are also going to be impacted.  And so on and so on…

    Environmental losses can cut deep and wide with those they impact.  Since every business is impacted by environmental exposures, common sense tells us businesses must have an environmental Management Strategy (eMS) that shows how to manage and transfer their environmental exposures.  Why has an eMS become part of “Best Practices” for business?  Because common sense tells us without our environment nothing else really matters because we’re toast.

    For more on developing and executing an eMS go to www.estrategist.com.

    Chemical spill a blow to W.Va. capital’s economy

    Brendan Farrington and Jonathan Mattise , AP Business Writers, 7:59 a.m. EST January 12, 2014

    CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — On the third day without clean tap water, business owners with empty dining rooms and quiet aisles of merchandise around West Virginia’s capital were left to wonder how much of an economic hit they’ll take from a chemical spill.

    Most visitors have cleared out of Charleston while locals are either staying home or driving out of the area to find somewhere they can get a hot meal or take a hot shower. Orders not to use tap water for much other than flushing toilets mean that the spill is an emergency not just for the environment but also for local businesses.

    A water company executive said Saturday that it could be days before uncontaminated water is flowing again for about 300,000 people in nine West Virginia counties. The uncertainty means it’s impossible to estimate the economic impact of the spill yet, said the leader of the local chamber of commerce.

    Virtually every restaurant was dark Saturday, unable to use water to prepare food, wash dishes or clean employees’ hands. Meanwhile, hotels had emptied and foot traffic was down at many retail stores.

    “I haven’t been able to cook anything at home and was hoping they were open,” Bill Rogers, 52, said outside a closed Tudor’s Biscuit World in Marmet, just east of Charleston. “It seems like every place is closed. It’s frustrating. Really frustrating.”

    In downtown Charleston, the Capitol Street row of restaurants and bars were locked up. Amid them, The Consignment Shop was open, but business was miserable. The second-hand shop’s owner said she relies on customers who come downtown to eat and drink.

    “It’s like a ghost town,” Tammy Krepshaw said. “I feel really bad for all my neighbors. It’s sad.”

    The person she doesn’t feel bad for is Freedom Industries President Gary Southern, who told reporters the day before that he was having a long day and quickly wrapped up a news conference on the chemical spill so he could fly out of the area.

    “People want answers. They deserve answers,” Krepshaw said.

    The emergency began Thursday, when complaints came in to West Virginia American Water about a licorice-type odor in the tap water. The source: the chemical 4-methylcyclohexane methanol that leaked out of a 40,000 gallon tank at a Freedom Industries facility along the Elk River. State officials believe about 7,500 gallons leaked from the tank, some of which was contained before flowing into the river. It’s not clear exactly how much entered the water supply.

    Thirty-two people sought treatment at area hospitals for symptoms such as nausea. Of those, four people were admitted to the Charleston Area Medical Center but their conditions weren’t available Saturday.

    Federal authorities, including the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, opened an investigation into Thursday’s spill.

    By Saturday morning, FEMA said it had delivered about 50 truckloads of water, or a million liters, to West Virginia for distribution at sites including fire departments.

    There’s no question businesses have been hurt — particularly restaurants and hotels, said Matt Ballard, president of the Charleston Area Alliance, the state’s largest regional chamber of commerce.

    “I don’t know that it can be quantified at this point because we don’t know how long it will last,” Ballard said. “I’m hoping a solution by early next week so business can get back to normal.”

    While restaurants are having the most trouble, the effect ripples to other businesses, Ballard said. When people go out to dinner, they also shop. And restaurant workers who miss paychecks aren’t spending as much money.

    During the emergency, many people are just staying home, and some of those who aren’t are leaving the region and staying with family and friends who have a water supply. Ballard said that includes one of his employees who is staying in Ohio for the weekend.

    “It’s smart, but it certainly has a negative impact on what would be a normal business weekend,” Ballard said.

    The Alliance is urging businesses owners to check their insurance policies to see if they can make claims over lost business. It plans to hold workshops to assist businesses with those issues, Ballard said.

    In downtown, the store Taylor Books usually fills the 40 seats in its cafe. But the cafe was shut down by the state Department of Health on Friday because it said employees had no way to safely wash their hands before serving customers. On Saturday only three people sat in the bookstore using the wireless Internet. Manager Dan Carlisle said he canceled a musician scheduled to play that night and the store was going to close five hours early.

    “It’s pretty annoying,” Carlisle said about Freedom Industries’ response to the spill. “I feel like you should just be honest with people immediately.”

    Some bars have remained open, but they’ve seen a large drop in business. State officials were working Saturday on alternative sources of water that may allow restaurants to reopen.

    “We will work around the clock, 24-7, and try to open … as many businesses as possible in the next couple of days,” said Dr. Rahul Gupta, health officer for the Kanawha-Charleston and Putnam County boards of health.

    Several businesses that had arranged other sources of water were inspected Saturday. Gupta said health officials considered the closures’ impact on workers when they decided to allow businesses to reopen if they have potable water.

    “This is not only the businesses but also the folks that work in those businesses,” he said.