Assessing Your Firm's Environmental Exposure.

• Author: SWAGEL, WILL

Is your business in compliance with environmental regulations mandated by the state? You many need to hire a consultant or check out the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation Web site to find out.

Complying with environmental regulations has become a regular cost of doing business in the last decade or so--and even the smallest firms are well advised to make a mental audit of the environmental conditions they present to customers, and especially workers.

Firms that routinely handle chemicals--from petroleum giants to family run dry cleaners and service stations--are likely to have already considered their environmental practices. But experts in the field say even the most paper-pushing, white-collar office managers should also take note.

For instance, what was going on in the building the firm is using prior to its present use? What about the property as a whole? What about adjoining properties?

The building and property is the area of most concern for liability for most Alaska-sized firms, says Jim Clare, a civil engineer based in Sitka who specializes in environmental projects. "Not only for the people coming and going, the short-term, but also for the people who work there. They get the longest exposure. You want to protect your employees. If you haven't and it can be shown that you haven't, you're going to be in financial trouble."

Up To Snuff

Greg Horner is the Anchorage manager for Ecology and Environment Inc., an environmental engineering firm with two dozen offices in the U.S. and more than 20 overseas. In 1973, the U.S. Department of Interior hired E&E to provide environmental oversight of the construction of the trans-Alaska oil pipeline.

Personally providing environmental audits for firms of various sizes, Homer has learned that circumstances, as much as the size of the business, will define how broad or narrow an environmental audit will be.

Nearly all official contact made with small- to medium-sized businesses in Alaska will be made by the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, rather than the federal Environmental Protection Agency. State environmental laws must be at least as tough as federal law, and are sometimes tougher.

In Alaska, a lot of times getting an environmental audit is just as mundane as identifying where an underground fuel storage tank is on somebody's property, says Horner.

Audit topics could include waste handling, the handling of hazardous materials, employee training, assessing...