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IN COMPLIANCE
Dealing Effectively With The EPA And DOT
By Sharon Naylor
As a mobile self storage business, your practices are governed by a multitude of state and local laws. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Transportation (DOT) are two of the government agencies whose regulations you need to be in compliance with, and it’s far wiser to be proactive in your knowledge and application of their rules than to risk them knocking on your door to fine you for violations or shut you down. This is, after all, an essential business relationship, so your best interests are served by open communication with the agencies, inviting them to your establishment rather than avoiding them in fear.
The key to dealing positively with powerful government agencies is respecting their rules, which involves investing the time to learn their rules. Here, you’ll learn some of the top strategies for ensuring your own compliance and thus avoiding their wrath.
Connect With The DOT
Kevin Butterfield, Director of Business Development for Ryder Logistics and Transport Solutions in Indianapolis, Ind., recently led a roundtable at the mobile conference. “If you are unclear about a law, reach out to the DOT and invite them to do an audit on your company,” he says. “If you invite them in to answer your questions about compliance and they find a violation, they will be less likely to fine you.” This can be a good strategy considering that if the DOT caught you doing something wrong without your invitation to perform an instructional audit, you would very likely be fined. DOT agents don’t like it when proprietors try to hide their mistakes; and, of course, ignorance of the laws is no excuse. You can contact the DOT through their Web site www.dot.gov, and ask for a complete audit of your practices, which is free. “We have a separate department to help coordinate and prepare you for audits,” says Butterfield, “which can be a very involved process considering all the records you’ll need to provide.”
Your organized participation in this audit is essential, so be sure you can provide full drivers’ files including updates on their hours, full maintenance records for your equipment, the history of your equipment, and the results of reports you research from the SaferStat system. “The best analogy to describe the SaferStat system,” says Butterfield, “is how a police officer will look up your license on their computer system to get a full report on your driving record and history.
For the mobile self storage industry you would plug your DOT number into www.saferstat.org to find out your SaferStat rating, which shows how legal you have been in the past. If you have a poor rating, the DOT will dig because they think you’re doing something wrong.” SaferStat works much the same way as your credit report, and it’s an essential piece of information to have. You can earn points with the DOT by showing that you care enough about compliance to do this research on your own. An added benefit is discovering any wrong information in your file, so that you can work with the DOT to correct your rating and history. Since laws vary from state to state, contact your local DOT agency for more guidance or to apply for a DOT number if you haven’t acquired one yet.
Wesley Chused, partner at the law firm of Looney and Grossman in Boston, says, “First you have to find out if you’re subject to DOT jurisdiction.” You would find that information on the DOT Web site, which spells out the terms of jurisdiction, such as ‘commercial vehicles over 10,000 pounds.’ Assess your fleet for jurisdiction rules, just to know the parameters, but Chused says you should file form MCS 150 to get into the DOT’s safety bank of compliance. Ben Terrell, Director of Logistics for Mobile Attic in Elba, Ala., and also a board member of the MS-SA, says, “We are not in the business of moving trucks across state lines, and since our trucks are 16,000 pounds and our containers are 10,000 pounds or less, we avoid a lot of regulations for DOT standards in larger size categories.”
It’s important that you know the rules for the size of your fleet and containers, since laws do apply to the different classifications. “If you do have a run-in with the DOT, just maintain excellent records on your maintenance checkups so that you can show them what you’ve been doing to be in compliance,” says Terrell. In preparation of your full records, provide a full report of your insurance policies, employee handbooks, memos on safety policies, employee drug testing policies, and every positive step taken to establish a safe and effective business. And don’t just create a packet of your positive paperwork. Full disclosure of your negative incidents earns you “points” with your auditor as well. Collect your accident reports, since the DOT agent who contacts you and sees a long list of accidents will take this as evidence of non-compliance and will descend upon you with requests for every record you’ve ever kept. They will look upon you as a potential rule-breaker, not a businessowner who wants to adhere to the rules. “When you contact the DOT and say ‘I want to be in compliance,’ they will supply you with everything you need,” says Butterfield.
Avoiding the DOT can give the impression of wrongdoing, so don’t be afraid to reach out for a partnership that can serve as a safe foundation under your business. And spend plenty of time reading the articles, updates, and explanations of the laws on their Web site at www.dot.gov. The more informed you are, the better you can communicate with the DOT on their level, and the more likely they are to work with you to solve any minor violations without fines.
Dealing With the EPA
“The EPA is a different bag of goods altogether,” says Butterfield. “Since ‘green’ business practices are on the rise, you’re talking about energy efficiency, environmentally- friendly trucks, and more intense scrutiny about cleanup.” Since state laws vary, check with your local EPA agency (www.epa.gov) for the latest reports and rules you’ll need to follow to work positively with this government agency. Fines are hefty for non-compliance, since the government now takes air, land, and water safety very seriously.
“The two biggest areas where you’ll deal with the EPA are the washing of vehicles and fuel spills,” says Butterfield. “You can’t wash a truck on your lot and allow the water to run off and go into the sewer, since that water is contaminated with oil and grime. Now you have to capture that waste, and there are new mobile services that allow you to capture that water and re-use it.”
When you reach out to the EPA or visit their Web site, you’ll find local resources for this service. Accidents that result in fuel spills demand a heightened level of action now. “Years ago, if you had a fuel spill, you would just throw some sawdust on it and keep moving. Now, your customer and company are fully responsible for the cost of a detailed cleanup policy in which an EPA team is called to the site, the spill is contained, the soil is removed to a certain depth and treated, usually burned. This process can be very expensive, especially in more liberal states like California and New York,” says Butterfield.
In order to work more positively with the EPA in these instances, it helps tremendously to be more proactive in your preparedness for spills. “We make sure that every truck has one of our spill kits, which contains the spill and reduces the amount of effort and expense in cleanup,” says Butterfield. The EPA Web site offers everything you need to know to be in compliance with constantly evolving laws, and FAQ pages can lead you to create a to-do list to bring your company to a higher level of safety.
Need a Private Consultant?
If this research seems daunting as it uncovers even more state and government agencies whose guidelines you need to know, you might consider hiring a consultant to bring your company up to code. Shawn Hacker, president of Mini Storage on Wheels in American Canyon, Calif., says, “We hired a consultant in the moving and storage industry who we found through our association, and we found that it was a positive step to have that consultant act as our liaison to the agencies.” The Public Utilities Commission, for instance, has a rule book three-and-a-half inches thick. “We also found that getting insurance was really difficult,” says Hacker. “Not too many people will help you all the way, so we sought a consultant with over 20 years in the industry who put together the packages we needed and worked for us to secure the permits we needed.”
Hacker says that one of the EPA issues their consultant resolved was the acquisition of a Commercial Fueling Network card, which helped solve their dilemma of having more diesel fuel on their site than local ordinances allowed. A consultant can point out such issues, which you may not be aware of, and then save you time and energy by working with the EPA, DOT, or other agencies to bring you to code. Again, the agencies may look favorably on your dedication to compliance as shown by your investment in a consultant.
The Most Important Step
Terrell strongly suggests that the best way to communicate positively with the DOT is to visit each individual state’s Web sites to keep up with the new laws and restrictions in the industry. These laws change every day. This advice also rings true for dealings with the EPA.
“When you do need to reach out to the agency, the best way to do so is by phone,” says Terrell. “And record everything that you discussed with the agent, get the agent’s name, write down the date and time of your discussion. Since this is a young industry, you may run into situations where one agent says one thing and another agent says something else. If you’re questioned by the DOT, you can show them your phone conversation record complete with a log of who gave you the information you received, and that shows good effort on your part.” Reaching out to the EPA and DOT is always your best bet if you have a question on any compliance issue or if you’re planning to branch out in your business plan. In this case, Terrell says, “It’s always better to ask for permission now than to ask for forgiveness later.”
Sharon Naylor is a freelance writer and editor based in Morristown, New Jersey. The author of over 30 books, she has been a guest on “ABC News,” “Inside Edition,” and “Fox 5 Live.” She has won top honor awards from Writer’s Digest magazine and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
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