Portable Sanitation Association International

93 2019 INDUSTRY RESOURCE DIRECTORY EPA and Portable Sanitation • by states, each state tends to also create rules for implementation that are left intentionally vague to allow for inventiveness. How rules are mandated locally will greatly depend on what suits local job sites, companies, weather conditions, and regions of interest—both EPA and state legislation understand this. To react confidently in conversations about EPA and the law, you will need to be well versed on what is actually required in your area and who requires it. • Know about SWPPPs and BMPs. Because of the intentional room for interpretation, much of the responsibility for an up-to-code job site falls on the contractor. Under EPA's CWA, contractors are required to create and submit a Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan (SWPPP) to their state- level agency when they apply for a Construction General Permit. In this document, the contractor must identify the sources of pollutants that will create contaminated storm water runoff at the construction site. Along with the SWPPP, they must also develop a plan or handbook entitled "Best Management Practices (BMPs)," which highlights a schedule of activities, prohibition of practices, maintenance procedures, and other management processes that are intended to prevent or reduce the possibility of water pollution at the job site. And considering that OSHA requires portable restrooms on construction sites, your portable units will factor into a contractor's SWPPP and BMP. When a contractor is creating these documents, specifically focusing on the section of the BMP handbook entitled, "Sanitary/Septic Waste Management," they must follow their state and local laws when dictating the specific guidelines for their site's portable toilets. Yet when you factor in different contractors in different states and regions, with differentiating job site topography, no SWPPP or BMP will be exactly the same. This is precisely why PROs suddenly face new requirements from customers that seem to come from EPA. The truth is that EPA mandates pollution limits and provides guidance on how to create BMPs that fulfill the intent of the CWA—but the content of the BMPs is driven by state and local pollution limits (which may be more stringent than federal EPA limits), as well as by the practices and risk management strategies of the general contractor. • Prepare. Considering that there is no "cookbook" for creating a BMP—only an approval process when applying for a Construction General Permit—there are going to be plenty of variations. However, the PSAI has found that the following "unusual" criteria for portable restrooms are fairly common when the local environmental limits or tolerance for risk are low. These rules often require 1) units be staked down, 2) plastic liners be placed under the toilets, 3) sandbag berms be placed around the plastic-under-lined units, 4) units sit within secondary containment trays to contain wash-down water, 5) industrial absorbent mats be placed under the units, 6) absorbent berms be placed around the units, and 7) on rare occasion, waivers for exemption that are restricted to specific regulated areas such as tribal lands. Again, these are only some of the requirements PROs face. While there are often deliberate reasons for these requirements, as a contractor takes into account the site's topography, proximity to bodies of water, current degree of water contamination, population, regional office Because of the intentional room for interpretation, much of the responsibility for an up-to-code job site falls on the contractor. Under EPA's CWA, contractors are required to create and submit a Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan (SWPPP). Better worksites. Better weekends. Better world. EXCLUSIVE MEMBERS-ONLY CONTENT REDACTED Join us now at www.psai.org for access to this valuable information.

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