DEVELOPING AN ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FOR IMPROVED PUBLIC UTILITY PERFORMANCE

The Camden County Municipal Authority (CCMUA) operates an 80-million-gallon perday secondary wastewater treatment plant located in Camden City, New Jersey. The CCMUA has undertaken an extensive effort to optimize the performance of its plant, improve its odor control performance and reduce its operating costs. As part of these efforts, the CCMUA has implemented an Environmental Management System (EMS) in conformance with the USEPA National Enforcement Investigations Center (NEIC) Compliance-Focused Environmental Management System-Enforcement Agreement Guidance. The EMS provides an organized, structured approach to managing environmental affairs. The system includes the staff, processes and principles that accomplish CCMUA's business objectives and environmental mission. The major steps involved in the EMS development activities included a gap analysis, team chartering, awareness training, EMS manual development, and sustained implementation. CCMUA's EMS conforms to the 12 key NEIC elements and has as its cornerstone an environmental policy that addresses the organization's public commitment to environmental compliance, continual improvement, and general environmental performance. Since initiation of the EMS, and other optimization efforts, the CCMUA has attained performance improvement in a number of areas including operations and maintenance cost, wet weather bypass control, sludge removal, odor control and community involvement. The CCMUA's EMS provides a framework in which identify new ways to improve performance. The EMS benefits the environment, employees, ratepayers and the local community.