Playing by new rules: tougher environmental rules are in the offing, but a new state law will help owners of contaminated property.

• Author: Skertic, Mark
• Position: Environment

Environmental regulation is getting such that even the experts can't always predict what the government will do next, or when. What business and industry need to do is pay close attention as the rules of the game change.

A host of industries, for example, will need to comply with new storm-water runoff regulations by this fall; these rules have been made relatively clear by the Environmental Protection Agency. Less clear are the air-quality regulations that the EPA is supposed to issue as part of the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act. Again, many industries are likely to be affected, but with President Bush and Vice President Dan Quayle currently campaigning against new regulations, no one dares to predict just when these regulations will take effect, or what they'll eventually look like. Meanwhile, a new state program is taking shape to help property owners who go to the trouble to clean up environmental problems on their land, though some of its details are still on the drawing board as well. Needless to say, it's a good time to have an expert on hand.

Though it's difficult to make generalizations about things so complex and diverse, Vasiliki Keramida can make at least one. The president of Ontario Environmental Inc. in Indianapolis says the underlying philosophy of today's newer environmental laws has shifted. "With the majority of regulations now, the bottom line is to try to reduce the materials and sources that cause pollution, rather than treat pollution in the end. That's the big difference." Take the new storm-water runoff regulations, for example. "Each industry or business that's affected will have to submit at some point a prevention plan. That's really a big, big difference."

The first of October is the big day on the storm-water front. By then, affected industries will have to submit to the Indiana Department of Environmental Management--which will implement the federal program in the Hoosier state--permit applications that include general details about facilities and manufacturing activities as well as specific details about what runs off the property when it rains. Environmental consultants this summer will be keeping a close eye on the weather forecast, so that they may have their testing equipment set up when a real gully-washer hits.

"They're specifically trying to regulate point-source discharges from industrial facilities," explains Ray Kent, vice president and chief engineer for Farlow Environmental Engineers in Indianapolis. Point-source discharges are different from, say, the herbicides that may run off a farmer's field, which has been treated over hundreds of acres. A point-source discharge, he says, "is something you can measure from a point," such as a drain or a drum of some chemical. In theory, a point-source discharge should be easier to control.

The government basically wants industries to get a handle on what substances are leaving their property through storm sewers and drainage ditches. It wants to know what the sources of those substances are. And it wants industries to try to prevent the substances from getting into the storm water in the future.

There are three types of storm-water runoff permits that will be available, reports Anne Slaughter Andrew, an environmental law specialist and partner with the firm of Baker & Daniels, which has offices in Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, South Bend and Washington, D.C. According to Andrew, "general permits typically cover a wide range...