Background

A state’s environmental agency, which manages Tier II Reports for their entire state, suffered from a chronic inability to complete compliance reviews for the thousands of facilities that reported annually and respond to citizen requests in a timely manner. Identified problems included the cumbersome, manual, paper based process, complex business rules, and shortages in resources.

Obstacles

Old Process was Cumbersome for Businesses

•   Large companies storing large chemical inventories usually submitted forms that were hundreds of pages long.
•   Businesses outsourced filing to third party consultants.
•   Forms sent to the state using the Tier 2 Submit disks received from facilities had import problems.
•   Each year, companies would have to go through the same process of entering and verifying their chemical inventories.

Manual Process was Daunting for Compliance Admins

•   One full year of reports was not reviewed.
•   Back year reports were stored in six rolling shelves.
•   On average, it took the program team more than 6 months to complete inventory data entry and review.
•   Inaccurate facility counts, chemical counts, and report results.
•   Information was shared with First Responders only after the review and data entry were complete,making the information more stale for First Responders.
•   A single Citizen Right-to-Know and Freedom of Information Act request processing took one week.

Critical Data sharing to First Responders was Slow

•   Data shared to first responders was at best 6 months old and at worst 18 months old.
•   Data stored on disks or on paper were difficult to retrieve.
•   Reports did not provide first aid or other chemical profile information, requiring Responders to consult several sources.