1 / 25

Thomas W. Easterly, P.E., BCEE, Commissioner Indiana Department of Environmental Management

IDEM’s Plan for The Road from Good to Great Elkhart Chamber’s 18 th Annual Environmental & Safety Conference. November 6, 2013. Thomas W. Easterly, P.E., BCEE, Commissioner Indiana Department of Environmental Management. Good to Great Background.

raleigh
Download Presentation

Thomas W. Easterly, P.E., BCEE, Commissioner Indiana Department of Environmental Management

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. IDEM’s Plan forThe Road from Good to Great Elkhart Chamber’s 18th AnnualEnvironmental & Safety Conference November 6, 2013 Thomas W. Easterly, P.E., BCEE, Commissioner Indiana Department of Environmental Management

  2. Good to Great Background • Good to Great is a 2001 book by Jim Collins • about very successful companies. • The Hedgehog Concept • - Focus on few simple goals • The Doom Loop • - Reactive decision making • - Follow short lived trends • Brutal Facts • - Critical analysis of what you are doing and • the reality of its impacts or ineffectiveness.

  3. IDEM’s MissionBefore Good to Great Protecting Hoosiers and Our Environment IDEM’s mission is to implement federal and state regulations to protect human health and the environment while allowing the environmentally sound operations of industrial, agricultural, commercial and government activities vital to a prosperous economy.

  4. How Does IDEM Protect Hoosiers and Our Environment? • Develop regulations and issue permits to restrict discharges to environmentally safe levels. • Inspect and monitor permitted facilities to ensure compliance with the permits.

  5. How Does IDEM Protect Hoosiers and Our Environment? • Use compliance assistance and/or enforcement when people exceed their permit levels or violate regulations. • Educate people on their environmental responsibilities. • Clean up contaminated sites to eliminate public exposure to toxics and return properties to productive use.

  6. Performance Metrics June 2005

  7. Performance Metrics September 2013

  8. Permits--Percent of Statutory Days

  9. Best in NPDES Permitting

  10. Water Quality Indiana Combined Sewer Overflow Status

  11. Where do we go from here?The Roadmap for Indiana and IDEM IDEM’s Plan for The Road from Good to Great addresses three goals of the Roadmap for Indiana: • Increasing private sector employment (Goal 1) • Attracting new investment in Indiana (Goal 2) • Improving the health, safety, and well-being of Hoosier families, especially children (Goal 3) • Clean Air • Abundant Clean Water • Protect Water and Land from both new and historical pollution

  12. Achieving our Goals:Challenges • Different media – air, land, and water • Different sources of pollution • Different pollutant behavior or migration • Different laws and oversight • Different tools

  13. IDEM’s Hedgehog Concept Our Updated Mission “Protecting Hoosiers and our environment while becoming the most customer-friendly environmental agency.”

  14. IDEM’s Hedgehog Concept Implementing the Hedgehog concept requires excellent customer service, a business-friendly agency, and a transparent, responsible regulatory process that: • Minimizes restrictions on economic and human activities to create a business friendly environment. • Establishes and expands partnerships. • Meets all federal requirements. • Is understandable and predictable. • Results in speedy and permanent approvals for proposed activities.

  15. The Road from Good to Great Planned actions: • Establish a one-stop water permitting portal • Pursue flexibility in allocating resources • Master our message • Concentrate on core functions • Increase efficiencies • Extract ourselves from programs that add little value

  16. The Road from Good to Great Establish a one-stop water permitting portal: • Water management currently scattered in five state and three federal agencies • Potential action items: • Improve coordination and/or consolidate state programs. • Obtain delegation of the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers wetlands permitting program (404). • Develop an “in-lieu” fee program for wetlands impacts. • Obtain delegation for the Underground Injection Control program for all well classes (DNR currently does wells associated with oil and gas extraction).

  17. The Road from Good to Great Pursue flexibility in allocating resources segregated by fund: • IDEM currently has 12 legally restricted dedicated funds. • Some of these funds have income in excess of needs, others can not fully fund the intended activities. • Restrictions on ability to use taxpayer contributed funds. • Flexibility would allow IDEM to shift resources according to need. • Increases IDEM’s ability to be responsive.

  18. The Road from Good to Great Master our message: • Improve communication with appropriate legislative and agency heads. • Increase our direct engagement with the public, editorial boards, and the media.

  19. The Road from Good to Great Concentrate on core functions: • Historically (pre-2005), IDEM often embarked on initiatives promoted by small U.S. EPA grants that did not significantly improve the environment. • IDEM will avoid this “doom loop” by evaluating every initiative against our Hedgehog Concept.

  20. The Road from Good to Great Concentrate on core functions (cont.): • Permitting • Compliance • Remediation • Air quality • Land quality • Water quality • Environmental stewardship

  21. The Road from Good to Great Increase efficiencies: • Lean and Kaizen • Work to employ appropriate technology accelerators: • Share Point • Virtual File Cabinet • Digital Inspector • TEMPO 360 data management system

  22. The Road from Good to Great Extract ourselves from programs that add little value: • IDEM and IDHS are working to consolidate into IDHS a number of activities related to hazardous materials: • Inventory reporting (Tier 2) • Fee collection • Local Emergency Planning Commission management • Reevaluate non-regulatory programs.

  23. The Brutal Facts Three broad based issues identified: • The level and allocation of resources, including personnel. • Laws and requirements outside of our control. • Lack of success in communicating issues and perspectives inside and outside of our organization.

  24. The Road from Good to Great Planned actions—summary: • Establish one-stop water permitting portal • Pursue flexibility in allocating resources • Master our message • Concentrate on core functions • Increase efficiencies • Extract ourselves from programs that add little value

  25. Questions? Tom Easterly Commissioner Indiana Department of Environmental Management 317-232-8611 teasterly@idem.in.gov

More Related