Vapor intrusion is a “hot topic” across the country these days when it comes to environmental, health and safety. There are definitely times when indoor air quality is severely affected by this issue. But, we’ve also found instances where it’s all too easy to just declare there is vapor intrusion causing an indoor air issue and then initiate costly mitigation… when there may be another cause if you dig deeper.
I was recently undergoing some continuing education training at Rutgers University, when a comment the instructor made in passing caught my attention. He’s an old pro, a veteran of a public utility. He said that contamination and releases are “lazy.” The rest of the group kind of looked at him strangely. But I caught on right away.
So why do so many facilities lack strong EH&S programs, even at facilities that have the required regulatory knowledge and resources, and understand the importance of having such a program in place? Two contributing factors are lack of buy-in from management and lack of participation from employees.
As the facility or plant manager, you’re caught right in the middle—and as you try to put your EH&S plan into action, you have to consider that you need to communicate in very different ways to these two populations for them to understand and act on your program.
