Introduction to Prevention, Information Clearinghouse, Information Transfer, University Outreach, and Technical Assistance
Coordination with other organizations that work to promote pollution prevention is a cornerstone of the Department's strategy to foster the ethic within the Commonwealth. As noted previously in the Introduction, the Department has been charged with a broad mission: to "establish a voluntary pollution prevention assistance program designed to assist all persons in promoting pollution prevention measures in the Commonwealth" (emphasis added). In order to begin meeting that goal, it is absolutely necessary for the Department to take advantage of pollution prevention research, policies, training and informational materials developed by other organizations.
To avoid duplication of effort, OPP works closely with other state pollution prevention programs on issues related to pollution prevention training and informational materials. Two mechanisms for networking with other states have been established: the National Pollution Prevention Roundtable, and the EPA Region III Roundtable.
National Pollution Prevention Roundtable. The National Pollution Prevention Roundtable is an organization of local, state and federal government, industry, and non-government representatives who are interested in advancing the knowledge and practice of pollution prevention. Conferences, which feature policy discussions, training, and innovative programs, are held each spring and fall. The Roundtable, the largest membership organization in the nation dedicated solely to pollution prevention, provides a national forum for promoting the development, implementation and evaluation of efforts to avoid, eliminate or reduce pollution at the source.
The Roundtable's voting membership is comprised of state and local government pollution prevention programs; the Department has been a voting member since 1993. Affiliate members include federal agencies, non-profit groups and private sector interests. Public sector members, located in eighty program offices and in nearly every state, operate programs that provide pollution prevention information and technical assistance to thousands of industrial, commercial and agricultural facilities each year. The information provided helps many of these facilities to reduce their costs of production as well as their expenditures related to environmental compliance, which translates into improved competitiveness and economic growth.
EPA Region III Roundtable. Meetings of the EPA Region III Roundtable, held in the summer and winter, provide the five states and the District of Columbia within EPA Region III the opportunity to exchange information among themselves and with EPA. EPA regional policies, such as mechanisms for grant fund distribution, also are discussed. In addition, the regional meetings are an opportunity for states to discuss cooperative projects and common outreach efforts.
OPP has worked cooperatively with other states and governmental organizations on pollution prevention projects in the past. For instance, OPP's poster highlighting pollution prevention techniques for vehicle maintenance operations (discussed in Section III-C) was produced in cooperation with the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) and the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (MWCOG). OPP staff developed the concept and design for the poster; however, printing was done as a joint effort in order to reduce the cost per poster. MDE and MWCOG were responsible for the printing and distribution costs for their shares of the posters. The poster, which credits DEQ, eventually was distributed to approximately 10,000 vehicle maintenance shops in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia. A representative of EPA Region I, which includes the New England states, has recently inquired about its reproducing the poster for distribution to potentially 50,000 vehicle maintenance facilities in the region. In addition to working cooperatively on the vehicle maintenance poster, OPP has served as a reviewer for MWCOG's ongoing reports on pollution prevention in vehicle maintenance.
In 1990, four military installations in southeastern Virginia initiated a cooperative project that was designed to accelerate the implementation of pollution prevention technologies. The goal of the Tidewater Interagency Pollution Prevention Project (TIPPP) has been to improve the Chesapeake Bay by preventing pollution in its watershed and by reducing environmental management costs. TIPPP uniquely demonstrates how pollution prevention can provide the forum for previously unconnected organizations to work together for their mutual benefit. OPP has participated in TIPPP since 1991. Since that time, TIPPP has expanded to include representatives from nine federal facilities in the Bay watershed.
Participation in this project has led to additional OPP cooperation and interaction with environmental managers at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Langley Research Center, Langley Air Force Base, Fort Eustis, Yorktown Naval Weapons Station and DOE's Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF) in Newport News. TIPPP has been developing metrics for use in measuring pollution prevention success that will be valuable as OPP considers measurement options in the future. Additionally, OPP hopes to use the success of TIPPP to motivate other federal facilities within the Commonwealth to pursue pollution prevention.
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Last Updated: October 11, 1995