NPDES inspection accountability is one of the biggest problems facing the construction and development industry. As federal, state and local regulations are enforced at an increasing rate and fines are on the increase, it becomes mission critical for individuals and companies that are disturbing land to be able to comply with the permit.

Primary permit holders should be aware that without 100-percent accountability in the inspection process they are increasing risk as opposed to mitigating risk in the area of NPDES inspections and records management.

One of the most difficult problems facing the development industry today is compliance and cost associated with maintaining compliance on the jobsite. In the past few years many have sat idly as fines and assessments have been handed out on thousands of jobsites across every state.

The days of $500 and $1000 dollar fines are long gone. Check out your local paper’s environmental section, and watch as the dollar amounts on construction-related violations soar to an all-time record high. It is no longer uncommon for developers, construction companies, and even general contractors to be stuck with penalties in excess of $100,000. Not only are the fines on the incline, but the rate at which they are being served is rapidly increasing as well.

Risk Mitigation
For companies with multiple sites the best way to mitigate risk in the area of NPDES inspections and records management is to implement an Internet-based technology solution. It’s simple. Instead of third-party inspection contractors using their own data-capture tool, they use yours.

In the past, builders and developers have relied on NPDES inspection ­companies to perform NPDES site inspections, distribute those inspection documents and maintain the records. The problem with this process has been created by the focus on the Stormwater Prevention and Pollution Plan (SWPPP) and management and training programs for field personnel.

These new processes are a huge improvement but fall short in some key areas. Companies in the past have reached a settlement with the Department of Justice and the Environmental Protection Agency for stormwater violations. The settlement agreement requires these companies to put specific business processes in place to comply with the settlement agreement.

One of the quickest ways to incur a violation on your jobsite is to let your records management process fall to the wayside, or, ignore it all together. The first thing that federal and state inspectors are trained to look for on a jobsite is the field-records book and, most of the time, this is where the first violation occurs.

Four major issues must be addressed to mitigate risk and to satisfy the inspection: Who created the inspection? What type of report was created? When did the inspection occur? And where was the inspection created?

NPDES data and information is fragmented with multiple stakeholders.

Here is an example:

The director of construction said that the general contractors that are building their restaurants are responsible for erosion control and NPDES inspections and that the engineering firms are responsible for creating and updating the SWPPP. As a follow up on behalf of the director of construction the consultant met with the engineering firm and one of the general contractors. The meeting with the engineering firm revealed that the general contractor was required to notify the engineer of any changes to the SWPPP and to send copies of NPDES inspections to the engineer.

The Engineer - The engineer was receiving some reports by fax, email and mail but the most frustrating thing was that the reports were in different formats, on different forms and most cases vague and incomplete.

The General Contractor - The consultant met with the president of one of the general contracting firms that were building thirty-percent of the projects for the national chain and he assured the consultant that his site project managers hire a local third-party inspector or ­inspection company to perform the NPDES inspections and enter the ­documents into a field records book at the site.
Here would be their exchange:

• Consultant: “How do you know for sure the inspections are being done?”
• General Contractor: “It is a job requirement of the site manager to make sure they get completed.”
• Consultant: “Do you have a quality control process in place to verify that the NPDES inspections are being done?”
• General Contractor: “Yes, our regional manager during a site visit will inspect the field records book.
• Consultant: “How many different inspection companies do you use to perform inspections?”
• General Contractor: “We have projects in 12 different states and in many different areas of each state and we use 14 different inspection companies.”

A Solution - This scenario is common across the country. National chains, big-box ­retailers, national builders and many others are relying on general contractors to hire local NPDES inspectors or, in some cases, they use their own project managers to perform inspections.

This would not be a problem if the general contractor or national company had an Internet-based NPDES technology platform in place that provides accountability of who captured the inspection data, what information was captured, when was it captured, and where was it captured. More important is who owns the data.

The following should be taken into ­consideration when ­choosing an ­Internet-based ­reporting system:

• Report Customization
•     Header, Company Logo, Questions, ­Signature Footer, Electronic ­Signature
• Management Tools
•     Track Inspectors
•         Who, What, When and Where
•             In real time track who ­captured the ­inspection data
•             View data instantly through a web browser
•             Generate a management ­report of exactly when the ­inspection data was ­captured
•             Track the GPS location of where the ­inspector was when they captured the ­inspection
•     Alerts
•         7 day, 14 day, Open Items
•             Select parameters for ­specific alerts
•             System notifications of ­reports that are overdue
•             System notifications of open items that have been ­documented but not ­completed
•         Reporting
•             Custom, Standard
• Data Capture
•     Broadband Access
•     True Internet
• Report Distribution
•     Distribute reports in manual or ­automatic mode
• Customer Management
•     Customers instant access to ­inspection data
• Records Retention
•     Records backup in a secure data ­center
• 
  

With the expansion of cellular ­technologies, Internet-based applications are becoming the standard for mobile-based applications. In order to manage critical data across field operations the software solution-of-choice needs to be simple to use and provide management with a comprehensive view across the ­enterprise.

When considering a solution it needs to be 100-percent Internet based and it should not allow information to be stored on any internal or external computer device in the field. The reason for this is simple. To reach a high level of control of information captured in the field, no one should be allowed to store information on a device that the primary permit holder does not control.

NPDES inspection data is critical to your overall business process. Do not trust it to a company or individual that does not follow stringent technology and records management processes. The safest way to mitigate risk is to purchase an inspection and records management platform and require third-party inspectors and internal projects managers to input inspection data into your platform. By adopting this process you will be able to manage all of your data from any true Internet device from anywhere in the world. SLDT