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| SUMMER 2017 NEWSLETTER |
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Click to expand/collapse One of the areas affected is the installation of emergency generators. In the five years since Superstorm Sandy, businesses that have added generators or switched to larger generators or have added fuel for run times have all needed to make sure their work meets state and local compliance and permitting codes. Our environmental regulatory compliance team has been busy working with clients to provide quality counsel on all these matters. In this newsletter, our employee spotlight will focus on Chris Gulics, who came to PS&S in 2015, bringing more than 20 years of experience providing environmental regulatory compliance services to a variety of clients. Our “In Focus” looks at a topic that many of us take for granted: clean drinking water. Recent headlines regarding lead in water in towns such as Flint, Michigan, and Newark, New Jersey have put the spotlight on how safe our water is. Many municipalities and public and private entities are looking to PS&S to make sure they are following all current regulations regarding testing and compliance, and with Chris Gulics and his team of professionals, we are confident they are in very good hands. For more information, please contact Anthony Sartor at asartor@psands.com, or John Sartor at jsartor@psands.com. |
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Click to expand/collapse But in recent years, several high-profile stories have changed the way many Americans think about tap water, especially in places away from the familiarity of home such as malls, schools and hospitals. We first heard about the Flint, Michigan, water disaster in 2014 when the city of nearly 100,000 people switched water sources as a cost-cutting measure which led to tainted drinking water that contained lead and other toxins. Last year in New Jersey, Newark school officials broke the news that elevated levels of lead had been found in nearly half of the public schools. Prompted by the Flint crisis and the high lead results in Newark, the New Jersey Board of Education adopted rules last July requiring schools to test water fountains and other drinking water sources. The city of Newark wound up spending more than $1 million to test water sources across the city’s 65 public schools. Lead in public water is a national issue and with the aging of the nation’s infrastructure – in this case pipes carrying water from the source to the tap – one that is not likely to go away. In the vast majority of cases, lead enters the drinking water through the water delivery system itself when it leaches from either lead pipes, fixtures containing lead, or lead solder. The leaching of lead is caused by corrosive properties in water. Very rarely is lead present in the sources of drinking water. PS&S is a recognized leader in the field of water resources with a staff of talented professionals that can meet the technical requirements of any water challenge. Earlier this year, a large New Jersey Medical Center was told tests showed its drinking water contained elevated levels of lead, which was most likely leaching from the hospital’s own pipes and faucet fixtures. PS&S has worked with the hospital to upgrade both its well and water treatment systems. “The Medical Center uses its well water as its primary source and relies on city water as a backup source,” said Chris Gulics, PS&S’s Senior Director of Environmental and Regulatory Compliance. “We are currently working with them to treat both supplies, meeting the challenge of additional sampling and permit compliance.” “Our work follows our successful collaboration with another major New Jersey Healthcare System,” continued Gulics. “When tests at one of their locations showed elevated lead levels, PS&S’s water treatment team was called in to help fix the problem.” Currently, there are thousands of miles of aging water lines providing water to buildings in New Jersey and other states. The PS&S professionals in its Water Resources and Environmental Regulatory Compliance teams are ready to help both public and private entities fix this costly and potentially unhealthy problem. For more information, contact Chris Gulics at cgulics@psands.com. |
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Click to expand/collapse “PS&S was doing this work before I arrived,” said Gulics. “But now, we have a core group that makes sure our clients are covered on all environmental and regulatory matters. We take care of operational permits, which are basically things clients must do in order to operate their businesses. There is a constant learning process to keep current on guidelines and regulations and to understand permitting. It’s easy to get the permit; it’s hard to make sure the client complies with the permit. So, our goal is to keep the clients from needing permitting if possible, and if not, we make it as easy as possible to operate within the conditions of the permit.” Chris grew up in Woodbridge and went to Rutgers where he graduated with a B.S. in Environmental Science with a concentration in Water Resources. He now lives in Howell, which gives him great access to two of his favorite pastimes with his three sons ages 11, 13, and 15: fishing and the hitting the Point Pleasant beach. In his 20-plus years working with clients, Chris has developed relationships with many professionals who are often able to recommend other PS&S services to their company. “We start out doing work in one area and it leads to more,” said Gulics. “Relationships matter, and once you earn someone’s trust, they are much more likely to want to expand that working relationship. PS&S is truly a “one-stop shop.” Clients begin to realize that the longer we work with them. We are always looking to educating clients as to PS&S’s capabilities.” One such client is a New Jersey- based behavioral health facility and a Chris Gulics client since 2000. In fact, the relationship goes back even further when Chris was involved in environmental work with the company’s current director of facilities at his prior employer. PS&S has made upgrades to the treatment plants and has worked on numerous environmental projects. Besides Chris, there are four other professionals on the compliance team:
One very important affiliation for Chris and PS&S is the relationship with the New Jersey Municipal Environmental Risk Management Fund (EJIF) which was established by property and casualty joint insurance funds to provide their member public entities and utility authorities with environmental coverage. Currently, Chris is one of the Fund’s two environmental engineers who help manage environmental risk associated with municipal operations such as insurance claims for more than 150 municipalities in NJ. This includes being on call 24/7 in the event of spills or discharges to soils, surface water or groundwater. This service was designed by the EJIF to provide guidance to its members to help in the immediate moments following an emergency. |
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