GEMI Survey Water Use, Issues

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GEMI SurveyWater Use, Issues Management

• March 2001

Carl Wirdak Occidental Petroleum Corporation
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Outline

• Survey Recap
• Background
• Sources and uses of water
• Discharges compliance
• Commitment
• RD, people and planning
• Issues
• Awareness Impact
• Advocacy
• Key Themes

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Survey Overview

• Intended to cover all activities
• manufacturing, transportation/distribution,
  product formulation and use, etc.
• Survey response rate 80
• 27 companies responded to the survey
• Not all companies completed all questions
• Broad industry coverage
• Chemicals, semiconductor, oil/gas, consumer
  products, pharmaceuticals, food/beverage, forest
  products, energy, steel, transportation, etc.

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Source
50 rely on public/private water systems
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Water Discharges
Wastewater Receptors

• One-half of the water discharged is treated
  on-site
• 10 (primarily cooling water) is discharged
  untreated
• Significant amount is treated in POTWs

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Usage
40 of usage is related to heat transfer
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Key Theme

• Water, water everywhere, but barely a drop for
  drinking

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Measurement Reporting

• Measurement appears driven by operational or
  compliance requirements
• Public reporting varies
• What does the publicly reported data mean?

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Discharge Monitoring
Parameters include BOD, pH, TSS, COD, Solids,
Oil Grease, Ammonia, TOC, Oxygen, Fecal
coliform, Toxic Organics, Flow, Metals, BTEX,
Temperature, Cyanide, TOC, Whole Effluent
Toxicity, ...
Monitoring represents a significant burden
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Compliance
16 GEMI companies
Mismanagement has consequences
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Key Theme

• Compliance can be slippery when wet

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Research Development

• About half of GEMI companies are involved in
  water / wastewater RD
• Common areas of investigation
• minimization, recycling processing
• ultra-pure technology
• cooling water treatment
• re-injection (oil gas)
• contaminant fate effect studies
• wastewater treatment technology
• membrane filtration
• odor control

• metals removal
• biological treatment

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Water Specialty Personnel
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Key Theme

• The budget allocated to water is a drop in the
  bucket for most companies

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Water Policy and Planning

• Over one-half have water-related policy
• 55 consider water in business planning, most at
  business unit level or higher
• 75 have some form of explicit policy or plan
  addressing water
• Over 25 are in the No - No category

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Awareness of Water Issues

• EHS staff personnel broadly perceive importance
  of water issues
• Outside of EHS staff, companies with some form of
  explicit water policy or consider water in
  business planning have 50 higher average
  awareness than those companies that dont

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Key Theme

• Without a policy or plan, awareness often goes
  down the drain

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Current Issues

• Operations appear more broadly impacted than
  markets
• Treatment and disposal of wastewater and storm
  water remain a key operations issue
• Supply-related issues are present
• Is there a potential gap on managements radar
  screen?

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Issue Impact
Emerging Issues Envelope

• Median impact of issue ranges from 2.5 to 7 years
• The most common pressing issue is the treatment
  and disposal of wastewater and storm water
• Supply-related issues have longer latency

Cumulative Frequency
Years to Impact
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Key Theme

• Water issues are fluid

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Advocacy

• gt50 of U.S. water issues have minor business
  impact
• Perceived understanding of issue generally high,
  but...
• Wide variation among GEMI members
• Water issues are on the advocacy agenda, but
  generally ranked at middle level

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Hot Advocacy Issues

• Disposal
• Cost of treatment/disposal
• Effluent guidelines
• Mixing zones
• Pharmaceuticals in water
• Remediation
• Site discharge standards
• Storm water
• TMDL
• UIC

• Supply Other
• Endangered species
• Wetlands
• WQ standards
• Cooling water intake structures
• Supply availability
• Supply pricing
• Treatment of supply

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Key Theme

• Advocacy efforts go with the flow

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Key Themes

• Water, water everywhere, but barely a drop for
  drinking
• Compliance can be slippery when wet
• The budget allocated to water is a drop in the
  bucket for most companies
• Without a policy or plan, awareness often goes
  down the drain
• Water issues are fluid
• Advocacy efforts go with the flow