HAVING YOUR BIOSOLIDS MANAGEMENT PROGRAM AUDITED: IS IT WORTH IT?

When an organization signs up to be one of the demonstration agencies with the National Biosolids Partneship (NBP) Environmental Management System (EMS) program, they are excited and ready to develop and implement the program. Depending on the size of the agency, it may take one to two years to develop the EMS manual and another year to implement it. After the implementation phase and the agency is confident to have the program audited, an independent third party comes to verify if the program is working and conforming to the requirements of the NBP. After three years of development and implementation, the City of Los Angeles (City) became the second agency to be certified and admitted to the NBP EMS program. The 8-day audit process was tedious and stressful to most of the staff involved. However, the results of the audit were very promising and offer a lot of benefits to the program, staff and the public. Having an independent audit, the gaps were identified, and corrective action plans were developed and completed in a timely manner.This paper will focus on the City of Los Angeles' perspective on the audit process, recommendations on how to avoid the pains associated with an audit and the lessons learned.