Documenting Pollution Prevention Measures:
New Guidance Supports Collection, Sharing

By Deborah Curtin

A newly released Public Works Technical Bulletin (PWTB) helps installation environmental managers capture details about their pollution prevention (P2) activities for consistent reporting and sharing lessons learned. The PWTB, published by USACE, includes a template that standardizes the data collected at Major Command installations.

The Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 states the national policy as: (1) prevent or reduce pollution at the source whenever feasible; (2) for pollution that cannot be prevented, recycle it in an environmentally safe way when feasible; (3) for pollution that cannot be prevented or recycled, treat it in an environmentally safe manner; and (4) dispose and/or release pollutants to the environment only as a last resort and do so in an environmentally safe way.

Pollution prevention is the Army's preferred approach to complying with environmental laws and regulations. However, successful P2 activities at one installation often are not transferred to another site that could benefit. Further, some of the P2 investments made have not been validated as to their cost-effectiveness.

HQ USACE asked the Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) to develop the template for documenting activities while TRADOC and FORSCOM requested that ERDC collect P2 documentation from their installations and develop guidance. PWTB 200-1-20, "Pollution Prevention: Lessons Learned," is the result. The bulletin includes information from several installations and prescribes an interactive investment template that will be used for all future P2 technology documentation.

For more information, please contact Deborah Curtin at ERDC's Construction Engineering Research Laboratory, 217-398-5567, d-curtin@cecer.army.mil. To download a copy of the PWTB, go the USACE TECHINFO website, http://www.hnd.usace.army.mil/techinfo/CPW/pwtb.htm. Malcolm McLeod, HQ USACE Environmental Division, was technical proponent for this work.

Deborah Curtin is a researcher at ERDC-CERL's Environmental Processes Branch in Champaign, Ill.