Small businesses in Ohio can now access an updated online tool to help identify if they need environmental permits, licenses or registrations. The Agency’s improved and updated Permit Wizard can help new businesses get started on the right track with proper permits; existing businesses also may use the Permit Wizard anonymously as a way to check on whether they still have the right permits for their operations.

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Site Assistance & Brownfield Revitalization (SABR) Newsletter November 2015 Issue

Do environmental terms sometimes sound like a foreign language to you? If so, you’re not alone. Many businesses and communities have difficulty keeping up with the latest environmental lingo. This feature will cover some common environmental terms you may encounter.

Drinking water project nominations and Ohio EPA Recycling Grants

We are currently setting our 2016 webinar schedule and will release it soon.

Do you want to follow Ohio EPA actions in your area? Is there a public meeting or comment period about a local project? Did Ohio EPA issue a permit for a local business expansion? Finding this information on Ohio EPA’s website is now easier with a new public notice database and webpage launched this spring by the Agency. In addition to making the process simpler for the public to find documentation of Ohio EPA actions, the new site also streamlines the Agency’s internal public notice processing to improve efficiency and reduce costs.

What is Pollution Prevention or P2? It is reducing or eliminating pollution at the source (source reduction) instead of at the end-of-the-pipe or stack. During the mid-1980s, government and business leaders were looking for ways to continue the environmental improvements achieved during previous decades. P2 offered a way to continue environmental improvements without adding more complexity and cost to environmental requirements.

The Village of Christiansburg, located in southwestern Ohio in the Great Miami Watershed, Champaign County, recently finished their final sewer connections. The previously unsewered Village had around 250 households with an annual median household income (MHI) of $34,792. The on-site septic wastewater treatment systems serving local residents were privately owned, with the owners responsible for maintenance, repair and monitoring. Unfortunately, most of the systems did not meet current regulations because of age, small lot size, inadequate soils, or because they discharged directly into storm sewers.

Ohio communities with wastewater treatment plants that have design capacities ranging from 1000 gallons per day up to 5 million gallons a day (MGD) can access free on-site assistance to help address problems at their wastewater treatment plants. DEFA’s Publicly Owned Treatment Works (POTW) Compliance Assistance Unit (CAU) experts work alongside local wastewater treatment staff to help identify factors impacting the plant’s ability to operate in compliance with its discharge permits. For more than 20 years, DEFA CAU staff have traveled the state, helping POTWs identify and create cost-effective, affordable solutions to bring them back into compliance.