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Time and again
our companion publications, Stormwater and Erosion Control,
present horror stories of installations gone wrong—horribly
awry—and would you care to know who gets to eat the cost
of replacing these failures? The general contractor? Rarely.
The developer? Sometimes, but only when nature has outdone
herself and loosed biblical torrents of rain. No, folks, more
often than not it’s the installer who takes the hit,
and you know who that is.
We hear a lot about the fines various
agencies dole out, and yes, they can be company-busting, but
generally they’re reserved for genuine bad actors who
choose to flaunt regulations without making any real effort
to comply. A more likely situation involves the failure of
an installation where you have to stop what you’re doing—maybe
even break camp on a completely different job—to go back
and clean, replace, or perhaps create from scratch a system
or practice you thought was out of your life for good.
It needn’t
be anything monumental like the slump of a hillside or undermining
of a roadway to suck the profit out of what should have been
a good project. Even something as simple as having to go back
and flush out a storm drain that has become clogged with construction
debris after you’ve moved your crew offsite can cause
damage not only to your bank account, but to your reputation
as well.
Living With
Change
In my last Editor’s Comments I reported on the EPA’s
novel approach to regulatory compliance in targeting large
developers such as Wal-Mart, and how that retailing giant
had chosen to respond to a consent decree regarding its stormwater
and erosion control activities in site development. If you
recall, Wal-Mart requires all earthmoving contractors to take
its training course and become (and remain) certified prior
to being allowed even to bid on its jobs.
Now you might think
to yourself, “Who cares? I don’t plan to work for
Wal-Mart (or other large developers with similar conditions).”
Well, you might want to think again, because what’s happening—as
the EPA had in mind when it traded in its “beat on the
head with a stick” approach for a smoother but no less
diabolical “subvert from within” strategy—those
Wal-Mart-certified contractors will soon be bidding against
you (if they are not already), and they are now “on the
side of the angels” from the regulators’ standpoint.
How’s that?
Contractors who
have availed themselves of regulatory compliance training
programs and achieved recognized certifications (1) have an
advantage over those who haven’t regardless of whose
project they’re bidding on (put yourself in the shoes
of any developer and see who you would choose to work on your
project) and (2) once certified can’t then claim ignorance
of regulatory requirements. Think of it as the reverse of
the stick-and-carrot approach where you are given the carrot
first but you get to carry around the stick to beat yourself
with if you foul up … pretty sneaky regulating when you
think about it.
Side With the
Angels
I’d like to think that if you (or people working
for you) don’t already hold stormwater or erosion control
certifications, you’re wondering, “How do I go about
getting certified?”
As you know by
now, Wal-Mart and other large developers have created their
own programs, but you have other choices as well, including
your local regulatory agencies. But I would like to suggest
that you stop right now and arrange for your free subscriptions
to Stormwater and Erosion Control, both of which can be accomplished
through our Internet portal at www.forester.net.
Simply click on “Subscribe” in the upper left corner
and then follow the instructions. Both magazines are filled
cover-to-cover with valuable information on their respective
subject areas and educational and certification opportunities,
and their Web sites—accessible via the same portal—maintain
libraries of prior issues.
Oh, yes. If you
are not currently a Grading & Excavation Contractor subscriber
or if there’s someone else you’d like to see getting
the magazine, by all means take
Send
John an Email
GEC
- September/October 2005
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