IDEM’s Plan for

The Road from Good to Great Elkhart Chamber’s 18th Annual

Environmental & Safety Conference

Thomas W. Easterly, P.E., BCEE, Commissioner

Indiana Department of Environmental Management

November 6, 2013

Good to Great Background

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• Good to Great is a 2001 book by Jim Collins about very successful companies.• The Hedgehog Concept - Focus on few simple goals• The Doom Loop - Reactive decision making - Follow short lived trends• Brutal Facts - Critical analysis of what you are doing and the reality of its impacts or ineffectiveness.

IDEM’s MissionBefore Good to Great

Protecting Hoosiers and Our Environment

IDEM’s mission is to implement federal and state regulations to protect human health and the environment while allowing the environmentally sound operations of industrial, agricultural, commercial and government activities vital to a prosperous economy.

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How Does IDEM Protect Hoosiers and Our Environment?

• Develop regulations and issue permits to restrict discharges to environmentally safe levels.

• Inspect and monitor permitted facilities to ensure compliance with the permits.

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How Does IDEM Protect Hoosiers and Our Environment?

• Use compliance assistance and/or enforcement when people exceed their permit levels or violate regulations.

• Educate people on their environmental responsibilities.

• Clean up contaminated sites to eliminate public exposure to toxics and return properties to productive use.

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Performance Metrics June 2005Quality of Hoosiers' Environment Result Target Comments

% of Hoosiers in counties meeting air quality standards 61% 100% 80%

12 counties & 2,408,571 of 6,195,643 above standard

% of CSO Communities with approved programs to prevent the release of untreated sewage

4% 100% 20% 75% by 2007 is goal

Permitting Efficiency Total calendar days accumulated in issuing environmental permits, as determined by state statute*

Land 100,013 66,565 86,864

Air 511,000 207,000 385,000

Water 301,000 48,000 200,000

* Places emphasis on back logged permits

Compliance Total percentage of compliance observations from regulated customers within acceptable compliance standards*

Inspections 95.46% 97% 75%

Self reporting 97.11% 99% 95%

Continuous monitoring (COM) 99.19% 99.90% 98.95%

* Tracks observations and not just inspections

Organizational Transformation Budgetary agency dollars spent on key outside contracts for core agency functions.

Dollars spent on outside services per year $6,179,367 $0 $3,447,017 6

Performance Metrics September 2013Result Target Comments

Quality of Hoosiers' Environment

% of Hoosiers that live in counties that meet air quality standards

87.64% 100% 80%

Muncie Lead; Ozone in Clark, Floyd, Greene and LaPorte Counties, Sulfur Dioxide in parts of Daviess, Marion, Morgan, Pike and Vigo Counties

% of CSO Communities with approved programs to prevent the release of untreated sewage

99.07% 100% 90%98+9 (107) out of 99+9 (108). Not Gary

% of Hoosiers that receive water from facilities in full compliance with safe drinking water standards

99.40% 99% 95%  

Permitting EfficiencyTotal calendar days accumulated in issuing environmental permits, as determined by state statute*Land 22,647 31,714 35,445 37,310 statutoryAir 49,179 55,740 62,298 65,577 statutoryWater 32,269 57,859 64,666 68,070 statutory

* Places emphasis on back logged permits

ComplianceTotal percentage of compliance observations from regulated customers within acceptable compliance standards*Inspections 96.77% 97% 75%  Self reporting 97.99% 99% 95%  Continuous monitoring (COM) 99.83% 99.9% 99.0%  

* Tracks observations and not just inspections7

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Permits--Percent of Statutory Days

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50

100

150

200

250

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

Percentage of allowable days

Best in NPDES Permitting

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Water QualityIndiana Combined Sewer Overflow Status

Where do we go from here?The Roadmap for Indiana and IDEM

IDEM’s Plan for The Road from Good to Great addresses three goals of the Roadmap for Indiana:• Increasing private sector employment (Goal 1)• Attracting new investment in Indiana (Goal 2)• Improving the health, safety, and well-being of Hoosier

families, especially children (Goal 3)– Clean Air– Abundant Clean Water– Protect Water and Land from both new and historical

pollution

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Achieving our Goals:Challenges

• Different media – air, land, and water

• Different sources of pollution

• Different pollutant behavior or migration

• Different laws and oversight

• Different tools

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IDEM’s Hedgehog Concept Our Updated Mission

“Protecting Hoosiers and our environment while becoming the most customer-friendly

environmental agency.”

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IDEM’s Hedgehog Concept

Implementing the Hedgehog concept requires excellent customer service, a business-friendly agency, and a transparent, responsible regulatory process that:• Minimizes restrictions on economic and human activities to create a

business friendly environment.

• Establishes and expands partnerships.

• Meets all federal requirements.

• Is understandable and predictable.

• Results in speedy and permanent approvals for proposed activities.

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The Road from Good to Great

Planned actions:•Establish a one-stop water permitting portal

•Pursue flexibility in allocating resources

•Master our message

•Concentrate on core functions

•Increase efficiencies

•Extract ourselves from programs that add little value

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Establish a one-stop water permitting portal:• Water management currently scattered in

five state and three federal agencies• Potential action items:

− Improve coordination and/or consolidate state programs.− Obtain delegation of the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers

wetlands permitting program (404).− Develop an “in-lieu” fee program for wetlands impacts.− Obtain delegation for the Underground Injection Control

program for all well classes (DNR currently does wells associated with oil and gas extraction).

The Road from Good to Great

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Pursue flexibility in allocating resources segregated by fund:• IDEM currently has 12 legally restricted dedicated funds.

• Some of these funds have income in excess of needs, others can not fully fund the intended activities.

• Restrictions on ability to use taxpayer contributed funds.

• Flexibility would allow IDEM to shift resources according to need.

• Increases IDEM’s ability to be responsive.

The Road from Good to Great

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Master our message:

• Improve communication with appropriate legislative and agency heads.

• Increase our direct engagement with the public, editorial boards, and the media.

The Road from Good to Great

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The Road from Good to Great

Concentrate on core functions:

• Historically (pre-2005), IDEM often embarked on initiatives promoted by small U.S. EPA grants that did not significantly improve the environment.

• IDEM will avoid this “doom loop” by evaluating every initiative against our Hedgehog Concept.

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The Road from Good to Great

Concentrate on core functions (cont.):

• Permitting

• Compliance

• Remediation

• Air quality

• Land quality

• Water quality

• Environmental stewardship

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The Road from Good to Great

Increase efficiencies:

• Lean and Kaizen

• Work to employ appropriate technology accelerators:

– Share Point

– Virtual File Cabinet

– Digital Inspector

– TEMPO 360 data management system

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Extract ourselves from programs that add little value:

• IDEM and IDHS are working to consolidate into IDHS a number of activities related to hazardous materials:

− Inventory reporting (Tier 2)

− Fee collection

− Local Emergency Planning Commission management

• Reevaluate non-regulatory programs.

The Road from Good to Great

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The Brutal Facts

Three broad based issues identified:

• The level and allocation of resources, including personnel.

• Laws and requirements outside of our control.

• Lack of success in communicating issues and perspectives inside and outside of our organization.

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The Road from Good to Great

Planned actions—summary: • Establish one-stop water permitting portal

• Pursue flexibility in allocating resources

• Master our message

• Concentrate on core functions

• Increase efficiencies

• Extract ourselves from programs that add little value

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Questions?

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Tom EasterlyCommissioner

Indiana Department of Environmental Management317-232-8611

teasterly@idem.in.gov