Breitling Excerpts: February 2013
During a recent staff meeting we were discussing the evolution of the environmental compliance profession from the perspective of our engineer, a 25-year veteran; me, a nearly 15-year practitioner; and our two new recent college graduates. Twenty-five years ago CERCLA and EPCRA were still new, manufacturing facilities were just beginning to create chemical inventories, environmental degrees were scarce, and most environmental positions were filled by recruits from a variety of disparate backgrounds.
In 1998 when I began my first environmental internship, the original ASTM E1527 Standard Practice for Environmental Site Assessments had just been issued and industrial facilities were still struggling to comply with the CAA Amendments, many new promulgated NESHAP and NSPS regulations, and a variety of pollution prevention standards. When I obtained an Environmental Science degree along with a handful of classmates in 2000, many of our courses were pre-med and not remotely geared towards the jobs we were about to undertake.
It is refreshing to see that new environmental grads are actually going through environmental science programs with an emphasis on professional practice as well as more exposure to regulations than just Environmental Law 101, and our clients today are more knowledgeable than ever before on the plethora of environmental regulations that they must face. Our biggest challenge moving forward will be keeping in step with the steady release of new regulations and technological advances.
—Amanda Breitling