Term Defined
Quite often we are asked, “So what is environmental engineering? Do you pick up litter?” To which you probably know the answer to the second question is a definite “NO!!!”, but may not so definitely know the answer to the first question. According to Britannica (https://www.britannica.com), environmental engineering is “the development of processes and infrastructure for the supply of water, the disposal of waste, and the control of pollution of all kinds. These endeavours protect public health by preventing disease transmission, and they preserve the quality of the environment by averting the contamination and degradation of air, water, and land resources.”
According to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org), “Environmental engineering is a professional engineering discipline that takes from broad scientific topics like chemistry, biology, ecology, geology, hydraulics, hydrology, microbiology, and mathematics to create solutions that will protect and also improve the health of living organisms and improve the quality of the environment.” This definition is very similar to the one above. And both accurately define environmental engineering.
But Really, What is Environmental Engineering?
That is the million dollar question. But the history of the discipline will help answer it. For years and years, environmental engineering was known as sanitary engineering and was part of the civil engineering field. However, it came into its own being in the mid-1960’s with the recognition of pollution on our planet and the outcries to clean it up. Scientists and engineers came to the forefront to assist. Technical expertise was needed with water pollution, air pollution, and land pollution. Landmark federal laws were passed – the Clean Water Act (1972), the Clean Air Act (1970), and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, & Liability Act (1980).Don’t worry, this is not a boring paper on detailed regulations! Those federal laws were only mentioned to identify the three main areas of environmental engineering and to demonstrate how loud the outcry was to clean up the environment. It is extremely impressive that the U.S. Congress passed these laws so quickly! And what they did was create the need for environmental regulations, permits, and agencies to accomplish the mission.
Agencies, you ask? Let’s start at the top – the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (https://www.epa.gov) came out of Reorganization Plan No. 3 calling for the establishment of that agency. That was an executive order which President Richard M. Nixon signed on July 9, 1970. The EPA began operation on December 2, 1970. Wow, things seemed to move quickly fifty years ago!
Once the EPA began publishing regulations to clean up the environment, they worked in cooperation with states to form departments or to use existing departments to implement the regulations. And so state environmental departments formed to clean up the environment across each state. Pollution control departments and divisions were formed at county and city levels.
Existing health departments were tapped. Funding came down from EPA and it was often tied to the construction of wastewater treatment plants which are a huge expense that no county or city can afford on its own. If the states did not enforce the mandated environmental regulations, EPA would cut funding. And that meant jobs, worsening pollution, and outcries from the public. So there were incentives to comply.
Birth of the Environmental Engineer
Formerly known as civil or sanitary engineers, environmental engineers came to the forefront to assist the various governmental entities and the private sector with implementation of and compliance with the environmental regulations.
Environmental scientists and engineers began working together both in the government and private sectors. Their job? Ultimately, their job was to clean up the environment through the design of processes, equipment, and testing in the areas of water, air, and land. And they are still at it today!
Further Assistance
If you need any help, Environmental Safety Consultants (www.escflorida.com) is here. We are a Florida licensed environmental engineering company with a Florida licensed Professional Engineer and Environmental Scientists on staff. We have been completing environmental engineering and science projects since 1986. We have the credentials and experience to help you complete your Environmental Site Assessment project.
We are just a telephone call (800-226-1735) or an e-mail away (escinc@verizon.net). Contact us today!
Forget the bank! As the buyer, you exercise your due diligence to check out other aspects of the property – title, back taxes, infringements, rights-of-way, utilities, building systems, structural integrity of the building, and probably many more things. But you don’t want to know if there is a solvent plume under the building? Something like that can sicken occupants from what is known as vapor intrusion. But, you say, “The building is in great condition and in good repair, that vapor intrusion situation is highly unlikely.” On the contraire, it is highly likely. There are always cracks, crevices, and breaches that vapors can follow into the building. And how about that expensive addition you are going to make? It may get much more expensive or become impossible when you attempt to deal with the contamination beneath the building.
Let’s use the gas station example. A gas station today is not necessarily a gas station yesterday. In the 1950’s to mid-1970’s, a gas station was normally a full service station, not the convenience store that sells gasoline and diesel fuel today. Not only did they sell fuel from underground storage tanks, but they quite often dumped used oil, chlorinated carburetor cleaner, and other petroleum based wastes into a used underground storage tank. And, yes, those tanks leaked just like the fuel tanks. At the end of the day, they often hosed down the floor of the repair shop and squeegeed it out the door onto the pavement, grass, dirt, road, and storm drains. Oh, by the way, they also had hydraulic oil tanks underground for the lifts, which also leaked.
first and as a last resort personal protective equipment (PPE). Why is PPE considered a last resort? Because it is the last line of defense. If it fails, your workers may be ex-posed to hazardous airborne concentrations. Therefore, OSHA prefers that the hazard be eliminated or reduced to a level that is either nonhazardous or is as low as reasonably achievable.
Assuming that you are in charge of Safety, you need to control the selection and must make sure that the players understand the objective. You want to be clear and concise. For example, you may advise the players that our objective is to determine if our painters applying the primer and finish coats are being overexposed to methylene chloride. They spray the paints off and on for a total of six hours during their eight hour shift five days a week. We have exhaust ventilation in the paint spray booths and they wear full facepiece air purifying respirators equipped with organic vapor filters piggybacked with particulate filters. Assuming the respirators have the proper protection factor, what are they exposed to if the respirator fails or they do not don it properly? We want to know what the airborne methylene chloride concentration is on an eight hour time weighted average (TWA) basis and on a fifteen to thirty minute short-term basis. Does it exceed the limits of OSHA (
The specific industrial hygiene testing depends on the source of the hazard and the operation. In general, the first step is to define the objective of the testing. For example, the objective may be to determine if there is an oxygen deficient atmosphere in a chemical vat during a cleanout operation. Details are needed on the operation to establish the testing approach. For the vat example, the operation may involve two maintenance employees who clean out the vat during a four hour period once a week. The vat is emptied and dried out on Friday. On Monday, the two employees are lowered down into the vat after donning personal protective equipment. They use absorbent cleaning towels and an innocuous cleaner. The next step is to determine how the objective will be met.
Another option for an operation that is established and being used is to monitor the complaints or adverse health conditions. Then those are compared to potential health impairments identified on the Safety Data Sheet. This may actually tell you what the constituent of most concern is. Take note that we are not recommending this approach since it can put workers at unacceptable risk. However, we have had enough years in the field that tell us processes are often established and used regularly without the proper evaluation.
Let’s say the operation is spray painting a finished metal part before shipping. The part comes into the paint spray booth already deburred and sanded. It is ready to paint. The operation involves the following tasks:
The application of the term recognition in the industrial hygiene field is the identification of a hazard. It may be one that is obvious and you are familiar with or it may be hidden and unknown to you. An example of a known obvious hazard would be a dust cloud surrounding a worker dry sawing concrete. Most people would recognize the dust as being a potential respiratory hazard and many would take it a step further and recognize that the silica most likely in the dust can cause silicosis. On the other hand, a hidden hazard may be an oxygen deficient atmosphere in a confined space. You cannot see the oxygen deficiency and you may not be aware that it is a potential hazard. However, the atmosphere could result in asphyxiation and death.