Director's Corner

Managing environmental priorities

During times of difficult financial challenges – more than at any other time – the most important approach with Virginia’s natural resources is to have a laser focus on the goal. In Virginia, that goal is clearly stated in the state constitution. Article 11 protects our natural resources from pollution and requires us to work for clean water, clean air and healthy lands.

The Department of Environmental Quality historically has had a number of roles in the state’s efforts to protect the environment, including monitoring the air, surface water and ground water; issuing environmental permits, ensuring compliance with laws and regulations; environmental education; assistance for construction of wastewater treatment plants; and response to environmental emergencies.

So the question of declining budgets at the state level is the same as what we face with a budget crunch at home. We must ask several tough questions and be prepared to take some difficult actions. For example, what can we do without? What can we do less of? Is there a way to stretch our money farther? What can we do differently or better?

An interesting aspect of this process is that as our resources become increasingly restricted our goals become clearer. At home, the question at first may be whether to cut back on piano lessons or a vacation at the beach. Next, we may reduce our trips to the theater or restaurants. Then the meals we prepare may get simpler. And unfortunately, for some people the question may become whether to forgo certain medications. So the process can be one of progressing from our most optional goals to our most basic goals.

Within this context the overriding question for government and for DEQ is, what are we able to do that contributes the most to our basic goals of ensuring clean water, clean air and healthy lands?

What are our priorities?
For state government, money and people are very important. But functioning in challenging financial times is not primarily about money. 

In the past at DEQ and its predecessor agencies, we have identified three tiers of activities that help us keep our eyes on the environmental goals. These tiers are:

Meeting legal requirements is straightforward. For example, by law DEQ is required only to investigate fish kills. But if an emergency occurs, such as a broken oil pipeline, no one would disagree that it is important for DEQ to be there. The final tier, what is nice to do, may involve DEQ’s work of visiting local schools to help students understand environmental stewardship.

These tiers are a helpful guide, but I would add a top layer to consider: What contributes most to our basic goals? Some actions that are not required by law may contribute as much or more as actions that are required.

After various operating reductions are made, the organization must be able to continue to function well. The elimination of positions simply because they are vacant fails to address the underlying questions of how goals will best be met going forward.

What is going on in the states?
State environmental priorities are complicated by the state/federal partnership. As much as 75 percent of what state environmental agencies do is a delegated function from the federal government. The graphs noted below help illustrate this point.

• Graph 1 – expectations are growing. Most state environmental agencies get their funds from three sources: taxes, fees and federal grants. In Virginia, federal grants are targeted to carry out federal programs.
• Graph 2 – the trend of EPA funding to states. The importance of this graph is the direction of the trends.
• Graph 3 – the trend of rising expectations. This does not pass judgment on the value of the rules in contributing to the basic goals. However, there rarely is a robust evaluation of the cost of rising expectations.

What have we done in Virginia?
At DEQ we have tried to focus on goals by using the philosophy of what needs to be done, how can we do it better and how can we do it with less. For example, we have undertaken several efficiency efforts in the past several years that already are bearing some fruit.

In 2004 we conducted a permit efficiency study to determine how we can improve the process of issuing environmental permits. In the past few years we also have launched technology efforts that improve efficiency in key areas – electronic discharge monitoring reports and enterprise content management.

The electronic DMRs enable participating facilities to submit their complex monthly discharge reports electronically. This saves them time and money, and it avoids the need for DEQ to re-enter the information into our computer system once it is received. Enterprise content management is an ongoing effort to digitize agency records. This will eliminate the need for much of DEQ’s paper storage records and will make it easier for the public to access DEQ records.

DEQ also has eliminated management positions and asked more of managers. The executive team has been reduced by 25 percent, and several top-level managers do extra duty by performing the responsibilities of two positions. DEQ also consolidated two regional offices into a single region with one management structure.

In addition, we have eliminated or reduced some programs. Though the moves were controversial, we eliminated the Office of Wastewater Engineering and toxics analysis for fish tissue. We have reduced water quality monitoring, cleanup of tire piles, recycling efforts at the state level and some Chesapeake Bay monitoring.

The goal is to have a well-functioning agency that does important work well and de-emphasizes the less important tasks.

Challenges to government agencies
Despite our efforts to set priorities and focus on the basic goals, not everyone agrees on what is a priority. Different Virginians or organizations differ on what is important to them. The expectations of Virginians never really decrease. We see this every day in a variety of issues: landfill odors, homeowners’ leaking underground storage tanks, facility construction schedules, land cleanups.

Each person’s chief concern is the most important thing that state government should be doing for him or her. This is understandable, but it is very difficult to achieve. It means addressing the popular belief that government never is really lean – it is always too big and it is never doing enough.

There are two keys to making progress on our basic environmental goals.

First, focus on results, on outcomes vs. outputs. Government is notoriously married to “process,” and it needs to get away from process simply for the sake of process. Instead, we need to focus on creativity and innovation, with a clear focus on outcomes. We have tried to do this at DEQ, and I believe we are succeeding with programs such as the Virginia Environmental Excellence Program. With less concern about who gets credit for a particular action, and more focus on problem solving, we can overcome the everyday obstacles to meeting our goals.

Second is partnership – the pubic and stakeholders need to be more involved in everything DEQ does. This ranges from the regulatory advisory panels that help put regulations together to the relationships we foster in our day-to-dealings with the public. DEQ is first and foremost accountable to the public.

Partnership can seem like a worn-out word. But at DEQ it includes efforts like our citizen involvement and environmental excellence programs. But primarily I believe it is characterized by three attributes: mutual respect, mutual trust and mutual accountability. For DEQ, this means telling the truth and keeping our word with Virginians, the regulated community, interest groups, DEQ employees – and anyone else we deal with. If these characteristics of partnership are in place at a number of levels throughout our organization, we can hope to have the right relationships and communication to continue to set, manage and meet our environmental priorities.

This brings us back once again to Article 11, and DEQ’s basic goals and the efforts on which we place the greatest emphasis: clean water, clean air, healthy lands.

This article is adapted from an address by DEQ Director David K. Paylor at the 2010 Environment Virginia Symposium in Lexington.

Graph 1 – expectations are growing. Most state environmental agencies get their funds from three sources: taxes, fees and federal grants. In Virginia, federal grants are targeted to carry out federal programs.

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Graph 2 – the trend of EPA funding to states. The importance of this graph is the direction of the trends.

back to top

Graph 3 – the trend of rising expectations. This does not pass judgment on the value of the rules in contributing to the basic goals. However, there rarely is a robust evaluation of the cost of rising expectations.

back to top 

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