Highlights of 2000

The Small Business Assistance Program facilitated the participation of a local small business owner in Forum 2000: Building Compliances Assistance partnerships. The business owner was also a member of our Compliance Advisory Panel (CAP). The purpose of the conference was to promote dialogue among state and local agencies, tribes, trade associations, community groups and industry and exchange information on: the latest issues affecting compliance assistance development and delivery; review the most innovative approaches to encouraging quality environmental performance, and recruit partners to develop projects for up and coming compliance assistance priorities.

The SBAP presented three workshops on "I am from the Government and I am here to Help" at the request of the Atlanta Dry Cleaners Association, SEFA’ Board members and drycleaners from Albany. The SBAP staff and speakers from the Air Protection Branch and the Hazardous Waste Branch spoke on dry cleaner requirements, hazardous waste requirements, compliance investigations, which programs can help, and other issues. More than 178 people attended these workshops.

The SBAP conducted joint inspections of drycleaners in Savannah and Albany with EPD’s Hazardous Waste Branch as part of a joint Compliance Assistance Initiative.

The SBAP’s partnered with the Pollution Prevention Assistance Division and hosted the Printers’ Flexographic down link on April 27, 2000.

The Georgia SBAP was approached by the Southern Dry Cleaners Show to do a variation of the “I am from the government and I am Here to help” for a 4-state audience in April 2000. Georgia’s SBAP worked very diligently and secured the participation of the SBAPs from South Carolina, Alabama, Florida, and Mississippi. To put this in perspective, the Southern Dry Cleaners show has been held every 2 years since the 1980’s. This is the first time the show has offered environmental information to their attendees. The show had more than 2100 people in attendances. The SBAP distributed 397 documents and made several presentations to the show participants.

Lee Tate and Anita Dorsey-Word attended the annual SBO/SBAP Conference in Missoula, MT. The conference was held on June 17-22. The SBAP moderated four sessions. The sessions moderated included SBAP/SBDC Partnerships--Success Stories and How Tos, Title III Title V Interface, Financial Help for Small Businesses, and General Permits. The SBAP staff attended sessions on permitting, advertising and marketing, and pollution prevention. The conference theme was Helping Small Businesses and the Environment Through Education and Outreach. Anita Dorsey-Word was on the 2000 Planning committee and was responsible for four sessions. The most notable of these sessions was the last general session on The Future of the 507 Programs. In addition, Anita served as a mentor to two first time conference attendees. The Conference was also attended by one of our CAP members, Jimmy Johnston. Jimmy presented on Title Three Title V Interface for the second time. He was requested to present this year because of the success of his session last year.

The SBAP presented at the “Southern States Annual Environmental Show” on Customer Service: How to Assist Small Business on Environmental Concerns on September 26, 2000.

The SBAP staff presented at the SBAP’s Annual Region IV Conference. This year’s conference was in Nashville, TN. Twenty-five people representing all of the Region IV states were present as was the Region IV Small Business Liaison (Annette N. Hill) and the National Small Business Ombudsman (Karen V. Brown). The highlights of the conference included a presentation on North Carolina’s one-stop permitting program and a site visit to Saturn.

We responded to a request from the Albany Regional Office on providing education/outreach materials on water runoff to several small businesses in Lyons, GA.

The SBAP was requested to serve on a small business advisory board for a Business/Govt. Outreach Program at the State University of West Georgia. The Business/Govt. Outreach Program is a multi-state initiative involving businesses and government in Georgia, Pennsylvania Oregon and North Carolina. Georgia’s project is headed by Prof. Stanley M. Caress, State University of West Georgia. The School of Public Affairs and Administration received an EPA grant to provide outreach to small businesses on proposed NESHAP rules for wood coating operations.

One of the duties of the Ombudsman's office is to aid in investigating and resolving complaints and disputes from small businesses. The SBAP was contacted by two businesses requesting assistance with regards to complaints during 2000. A summary of the complaints is listed below.

The USEPA National Small Business Ombudsman’s office contacted the SBAP and asked us to handle a complaint that was lodged by a small business in Homerville, GA. The case involves a timber company, Region IV, and EPD.

A second request for assistance came from the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB). The NFIB needed assistance for one of their members. The executive director called; he was referred by one of our CAP members (Stan Hathcock). The case involves Region IV’s EPCRA office and a small gasoline marketer. Region IV inspected a facility and determined that they were not fully in compliance with reporting requirements under section 311 and 312 of EPCRA. The facility thought that they were exempt from reporting requirements because they sold gasoline. The company was fined approximately $19,000 for failure to submit copies of their MSDSs to the local fire department and Georgia EPD (section 311 and 312). The NOV was prepared by USEPA. I explained that we did not have “jurisdiction,” however, we agreed to provide some documents for them and to contact the Region IV Small Business Liaison and the Regional Advocate to speed up the process. The NFIB is one of the trade associations credited with the development of the SBAP. This case was also referred to Sen. Paul Coverdale’s office and Rep. John Linder's office. We agreed to "assist with leg work" by providing copies of EPA's policies on EPCRA, Enforcement and Supplemental Environment Projects. The company also needed additional time to respond to the order and to review the documents. We contacted Ms. Karen V, Brown, USEPA Small Business Ombudsman and requested that she contact Region IV on behalf of the business. She did so and Region IV granted them an additional 30 days. We contacted Ms. Annette N. Hill, Small Business Liaison Region IV and requested a matrix for the company. Ms. Annette N. Hill forwarded a matrix to the NFIB. It should be noted that the company and GA SBAP had requested a copy of the penalty matrix from Region IV and they failed to provide them or us a copy of the penalty matrix. The NFIB was very pleased with our assistance in this effort.

The SBAP prepared economic impact statements for 3 proposed rules in 2000. The Ombudsman’s office assesses the direct impact of every proposed air rule on small businesses. The Division’s policy is to minimize any adverse impact to the extent feasible.

One of the SBAP’s CAP members works with a nonprofit organization that has created an award winning urban garden, His nonprofit organization has also done some “brown field” type work in one of the older neighbors in Atlanta. His organization was submitted for an environmental merit award by Georgia’s SBAP.

EPD's Director’s office addressed the Small Business Compliance Advisory Panel for the first time in 2000. The Asst. Director talked about the transfer of the Small Business Assistance Program from the Air Protection Branch to the Program Coordination Branch. This move should facilitate the transition of the SBAP to a multimedia program.

The Atlanta Business Chronicles interviewed the SBAP. The reporter wanted to do an in-depth piece and was looking for businesses that routinely do recycling as part of their normal business practices. We referred them to three businesses one of these was owned by a CAP member.

Georgia’s SBAP staff was reduced to 2 people during 2000. Because of that and an increase in our workload we asked our CAP to assist us by representing the SBAP at meetings and in some instances presenting at these meetings. Their support has been invaluable this year.

Under the auspices of the CAP, we prepared a report on the staffing needs of the SBAP. This report lead to the allocation of 2 additional positions to be filled in 2001.

The CAP also asked the SBAP to prepare a positon paper on the effectivenesss of the SBAP. Some recommendations made by the CAP on the location of the SBAP lead to the transfer of the program from the Air Protection Branch to the Program Coordination Branch in February 2001.

We received 481 calls on the toll free number during 2000. We provided technical assistance to 935 businesses; performed 57 site visits; distributed 29, 932 documents; provided permit assistance to 88 facilities and we had 14 speaking engagements.

The SBAP Stationary Source Compliance Program and the Stationary Permitting Programs referred numerous facilities to the SBAP for technical assistance during 2000.

The SBAP finalized the 2001 Dry Cleaner Compliance Calendar and mailed copies to 1300 recipients. This year we simplified the instructions and added color for contrast to the instruction sheet.