M7.4 Blog about your local environmental services

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After exploring the city of San Leandro's website, I found four types of environmental health services available. According to the website, I also found out that San Leandro is a CUPA site or Certified Unified Program Agency. CUPA cities are recognized and certified by the California Secretary of Environmental Protection and manage regulatory standards that protect the health of Californians. CUPA sites manage six state mandated program:
  • Hazardous Materials Business Plan (HMBP)
  • Hazardous Waste Generator Program
  • California Accidental Release Program (CalARP)
  • Aboveground Petroleum Storage Tank Program (APSA)
  • Underground Storage Tank Program
  • Tiered Permitting (CE,CA, PBR) for on-site hazardous waste treatment
It turns out, there a only a few cities like San Leandro in California who are CUPA. I would have expected that all cities would have been CUPA certified so it was surprising to see that this was not the case.

The environmental services in particular that I found under San Leandro were the following:

1. Hazardous Materials Services: Businesses, especially industrial, must register, get annual clearance, and permits from San Leandro CUPA if they generate, handle, store or discharge hazardous waste. They must re-certify annually and pass inspections, I liked the level of accountability in this city service.

2. Pretreatment Services: EPA approved waste water management program that regulates industrial waste and sanitary sewers, provides inspections and monitoring of industrial discharges and requires several different permits. I found it interesting that there are different classes of permits available for non-household users such as businesses to apply for, it is great to see such level of regulation.

3. Storm Water Services: Enforces water quality regulations, tracks illegal dumping, requires permits and monitors discharges into storm drains. This service really responds to reports of illegal dumping and provides information on allowable discharges that are safe to release.

4. California Accidental Release Prevention Program (CalARP): Under CUPA, San Leandro handles toxic and flammable substances with a focus on release prevention or risk management. This program pushes facilities to create and submit a risk management plan to the city, which is in my opinion an excellent prevention measure.

https://www.sanleandro.org/depts/pw/env/default.asp


Comments

  1. Sintia ShahbazOctober 13, 2018 at 9:55 PM

    Hello,
    It is so interesting to read that even though I live in a much smaller city, the responsibilities seem to still be the same!! I would assume they would have more responsibilities that are different due to the size of the city, but that seems to not be true.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousOctober 14, 2018 at 6:37 PM

    Really interesting to learn about San Leandro ‘s CUPA status. I wonder what other cities, if any, are CUPA sites in the Bay Area? With such high levels of maritime traffic and ports as busy as those of Oakland and San Francisco, it seems like having just one site for such a populous metropolitan area wouldn’t be sufficient.

    ReplyDelete

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