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Multimedia Enforcement
 Multi-Statute
and Multi-Facility Enforcement
The multimedia approach is a comprehensive approach to case
development that can be employed in the context of three basic
types of enforcement actions:
- Against single facilities, where entire industrial processes
at a facility may be examined as a whole to determine compliance
with all environmental statutes;
- Against entire companies, where violations of different statutes
occur at various facilities indicating ineffectual corporate-wide
management of environmental compliance; and
- Geographically based enforcement efforts arising from a comprehensive
multimedia analysis of the environmental problem(s) in a given
area.
Environmental contamination is, by nature, unconstrained by
statutory boundaries. Removal of artificial and occasional bureaucratic
boundaries can result in:
- Improved detection and resolution of environmental compliance
problems. Cross- statutory targeting, inspections, and analysis
of violations afford the most effective method of identifying
the extent of environmental problems. This leads to comprehensive
enforcement activities.
- Achievement of optimal enforcement results. Multimedia enforcement
actions raise the possibility of significantly broader environmental
benefits as a part of settlement. This is in addition to penalties
which more accurately reflect the full extent of the gravity
of harm and economic benefit gained by noncompliance. Increasing
the penalty amount available for offsetting and widening the
scope of violations resolved also provide an increased opportunity
for SEP proposals.
- More effective enforcement. Targeting facilities or companies
with significant, pervasive violations can eliminate the root
cause of an environmental problem. This may not be possible
through an enforcement action brought pursuant to one statutory
authority.
- More efficient use of resources. Multimedia actions reduce
and streamline the resource burden otherwise required by the
numerous single-statute cases brought to resolve a complex
environmental problem.
- Fundamentally change the regulated community's perceptions
and behavior regarding environmental compliance. Broad-based
actions and subsequent results can only assist the regulated
community's meaningful implementation of environmental management
systems. Furthermore, publicity of far-reaching multimedia
cases can only assist in general deterrence.
Multimedia Investigations
Many of the EPA Regional Offices
and states are now using the multimedia approach and conducting
multimedia investigations of facilties. In 1989 EPA's National
Enforcemement Investigations Center and the EPA Regional Offices
developed a Multimedia Investigation Manual as guidance for these
investigations at facilities that discharge, emit prepare, manage,
store, or dispose of pollutants controlled by federal, state,
or local environmental laws and regulations. The manual was revised
in March 1992, and although dated, this revised manual is a valuable
supplement to the various media-specific investigation and inspection
guides that are currently used.
Multimedia
Investigation Manual (Revised 03/92) (EPA-330/9-89-003-R)
(PDF, 518.8KB, 234 pages)
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