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“Everyone takes their jobs very seriously here,” Donna Koehler will tell you, when asked about her work at the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE). As a sanitarian for MDE’s Air and Radiation Management Administration, Koehler is one of the relatively few MDE employees with the duty of keeping tabs on approximately 300,000 places of potentially harmful environmental impacts. Once permits are issued, inspectors and sanitarians analyze facility self-monitoring reports, follow-up on citizen complaints, and monitor of emissions and discharges. Koehler, who is responsible for Baltimore County enforcement and compliance, takes pride in her work and the program at MDE, which has proven beneficial to both facility operators and the surrounding public. After all, when this job is done right, everybody wins. The key? “Getting there on a regular basis - that’s the big thing,” says Koehler.
On this particular June day, Koehler was conducting a typical site inspection of an asphalt plant in Baltimore County. Her duty to assess smokestack emissions as she visually evaluates the air quality based on the evidence of any hint of blue, which would indicate hydrocarbon pollutant emissions from this plant. Another site found her following up on record keeping from one of many dry cleaning facilities that the state monitors for emissions from solvents used in the process.
Consistent Communication Builds Compliance
Koehler and her co-workers have instilled a better understanding of the regulations and inspections procedure in facility personnel. Consistent communication has improved the quality of working relationships between MDE representatives and facility operators. It has lead to improved record keeping at numerous facilities, making the whole process run more smoothly for everyone involved. Owners and managers are often very responsive to a push in the right direction, and appreciative of positive feedback on good record keeping and operating procedures. Of course, visits may be less than pleasant if lack of compliance or poor record keeping is addressed, but as Koehler says matter-of-factly, “We’re there to enforce regulations. Sometimes they’re respectful of that. Sometimes they’re not.”
Balancing Companies and Citizenry
MDE employees walk the balance beam of diplomacy just as stringently as they know the laws that they enforce. They mediate between complainants and potential offenders, ensuring that companies avoid large fines from causing unnecessary pollution, while keeping the surrounding citizenry satisfied that they are safe. It is not an easy job, especially when dealing with particularly persistent complainants and the occasional unnecessary complaint. But such instances are largely outnumbered by success stories from satisfied customers, improved facility operations, and construction projects that are monitored from ground level to completion. These successes are the result of day-to-day efforts of people willing to do the behind the scenes work to make air quality regulations worthwhile. “It happens on a small scale,” says Koehler, “but you put it all together and it does work.”
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