What is THE MOST IMPORTANT environmental issue?
In the environmental “world” including the regulated community, the regulators, and those who provide advice and services, the answer to this question will vary greatly. It will depend on your responsibilities and the individual pressures you face on a daily basis.
Results of Informal Environmental Survey
That was our conclusion from the unscientific survey we conducted while at the CANECT conference in Mississauga, Ontario. The specific question we asked was:
“What is the most important environmental issue facing the regulated community in Ontario or Canada wide?” The general responses are roughly summarized below:
- The most important environmental issue from the standpoint of the regulators: Climate change and compliance.
- The most important environmental issue from the standpoint of the regulated community. The business impact of the carbon tax/global competition and specific compliance issues.
Compliance concerns (of the regulated community) included hazardous and solid waste management, refrigeration leaks, the pace of the permit-approval process (by the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change), indoor and outdoor air issues, and handling surplus soils. One respondent expressed specific concerns about inexperienced personnel on job sites and their inability to make decisions to keep projects moving forward. We have heard this general comment in the past.
The answers were quite varied and no real pattern emerged. Perhaps our sample size wasn’t large enough (we had about 30 respondents).
Vapour Intrusion and Remediation
While this was far from scientific, we were surprised that no one brought up the issue of vapour intrusion. Increasingly, we see this as an important environmental issue in all of the jurisdictions in which we work (Canada and the US). So, in the next few weeks, we are creating a new page on our website where we will summarize provincial vapour-intrusion standards.
One of the other answers that we didn’t hear was remediation of soil or groundwater. Since the late 1980s, peer reviews of groundwater “problems” (assessment, remediation, and litigation) has been consistently and frequently requested by those reaching out to Dragun. This has been a consistent “high-pain issue” for the regulated community.
Can we share any epiphanies that resulted from this survey? Not really, other than to say, like everything else in life, what’s most important is a matter of perspective. If you have any questions or comments, or if there are some environmental issues with which you need assistance, feel free to contact me (cpare@dragun.com) at 519-979-7300, ext 114.