Table of Contents
Letter from Governor Jan Brewer
Our History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1
Green Building . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2
Air Quality Division
AQD Cleaning Valley Air . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3
AQD Forecasting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5
Office of Border Environmental Protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7
Waste Programs Division
WPD Underground Storage Tank Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9
WPD Electronic Waste Recycling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11
WPD Brownfields Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13
Emergency Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15
Water Quality Division
WQD Aquifer Protection Permit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17
WQD Water Quality Improvement Grant Program . . . . . . . . . .19
WQD Monitoring Assistance Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21
Preventing Pollution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22
Office of Children’s Environmental Health . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23
Closing Letter from ADEQ Director Henry Darwin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24
When House Majority Leader Rep. Burton Barr addressed the House
Committee on Natural Resources and Energy in the spring of 1986, his words were
powerful and direct about the matter at hand, the environmental quality act.
“In the history of state legislation,” Barr intoned. “This bill will be regarded
as a landmark.”
And so it was.
The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality was established as a sepa-rate,
cabinet-level agency in 1987 to administer all of the state’s environmental
protection programs. The same legislation also established a comprehensive
groundwater protection program and the state’s Water Quality Assurance
Revolving Fund (WQARF), which cleans up contaminated sites that have the
potential to harm human health or groundwater.
Before ADEQ was created, the state’s environmental programs were man-aged
by a number of different offices within the Arizona Department of Health
Services.
During the last 25 years, ADEQ has grown in size from about 135 employees
to an agency of more than 450 people, who support a wide range of environ-mental
programs that protect the quality of our air, water and land in Arizona.
The agency has created the rules and regulations necessary to administer state
environmental protection laws and a
number of programs delegated by the
federal government like the Clean Air
Act, Safe Water Drinking Act, National
Pollutant Discharge Elimination System
program and the Resource Conservation
and Recovery Act program.
Above: Environmental Quality Act
establishing ADEQ was passed by the
legislature and signed by Governor
Bruce Babbitt on Aug. 13, 1986.
Below: Early ADEQ offices at
3033 N. Central Ave.
1987 Aquifer Protection Permit (APP) Program for groundwater protection is established.
Our History
1
ADEQ Moved into One of the
Nation’s Greenest Buildings on
Washington Street a Decade Ago
The Arizona Department of Environmental
Quality has practiced what it preached in its own
work environment. The agency’s six-story head-quarters,
located at 1110 W. Washington in
Phoenix, has been a regular winner of state and
regional awards for its green features, including
greenest building in state government, since its
completion in July 2002.
When Opus West finished the building’s
construction, it was the largest green building in
Arizona. In fact, according to Mark Stromgren,
senior property manager for what is now Lincoln
Properties Company, the building was the largest
LEED Silver building in the country at the time it
was built.
LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is a framework and rating
system designed by the U.S. Green Building Council to promote green building practices.
It consists of four levels of certification: certified, silver, gold and platinum.
ADEQ’s building, which wraps around the historic Evans House, has many energy-saving
features that reduce energy consumption more than 20 percent below conventional
buildings and save the state about $60,000 a year in energy costs.
These features include a white roof that reflects summer sun rays, motors with variable
frequency drives that run at less than full capacity unless there is peak demand, glass
that utilizes light but reflects heat away from walls and furniture, and Energy Star trans-formers.
Other energy savings come from fluorescent lights that dim when natural light is
available.
Motion sensors in the bathrooms control the amount of water used in the sinks and
toilets and motion sensors in the offices and hallways automatically turn off lights when
the area is unoccupied.
In the years after ADEQ moved into the building, a governor’s office directive to reduce
electric bulbs resulted in an additional energy saving of more than two percent without
sacrificing workplace light.
Outside the building, trees and shrubbery are watered by a unique irrigation system
which uses no potable water, only the bleed water from the air conditioning. Atop ADEQ’s
parking garage, Arizona Public Service placed 900 solar panels, which generate 200 kilo-watts
of electricity a year.
While the 300,000-square-foot building incorporated many green concepts, Stromgren
said it only cost about one percent more to build than conventional construction because
87 percent of the building debris was recycled, including more than 2,400 tons of wood,
gypsum board, steel, cardboard, concrete and masonry.
Bob Rocha, director of Administrative Services Division at ADEQ, and former General
Services Manager John Joyce worked with Opus and the Arizona Department of
Administration during the construction of the building. “For a state facility this is a
premier building,” Rocha said. “It was the first environmentally friendly building on the
capitol mall.”
1988 First Environmental Ombudsman position in the nation established.
Our Green Building
Above: Governor Jane Hull, J. Elliot
Hibbs the Director of ADOA and
ADEQ Director Jacqueline Schafer
break ground on the new building.
Below: The ADEQ budget team
looks over the plans.
2
1989 Oxygenated fuels program was implemented on October 1, 1989. These fuels burn more cleanly, and produce less carbon monoxide.
3
Clleeaanniinngg Vaalllleeyy Aiirr
In the 25 years that the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality has been an
agency, it has played a critical role in the dramatic improvement of air quality in the
Phoenix metropolitan area.
Since 1987, the amount of carbon monoxide, dust and ozone in Valley skies has been
reduced by 83 percent, 40 percent and 6 percent, respectively.
Even more remarkable is that this has been accomplished despite the population of
the Valley increasing 94 percent from 1.98 million to 3.84 million during that period, the
number of vehicles on Valley highways increasing 177 percent from 1.36 million to 3.76
million and the number of vehicle miles travelled within Maricopa County increasing 89
percent from an estimated 17.3 billion to 32.7 billion per year between 1990 and 2010.
ADEQ has assisted in cleaning up the Valley skies in a number of ways:
• Administering what is widely regarded as one of the nation’s best vehicle emissions
inspection programs.
• Partnering with Maricopa County Air Quality Department and Maricopa Association of
Governments to develop and implement pollution reduction strategies.
• Providing technical expertise to task forces in 1996, 1998, 2001, 2007 and 2011
resulting in air quality acts that were instrumental in achieving improvements in air
quality, including the elimination of dust problems during stagnant meteorological
conditions.
• Issuing daily air quality forecasts and working successfully with local governments and
the public, and representatives of dust generating operations to reduce dust levels.
• Operating a camera-based, Web-linked urban visibility monitoring program in Phoenix
to observe and rate how air pollution obscures the views of Camelback Mountain, the
Superstitions, South Mountain, the Estrellas and White Tanks.
• Using its own scientific expertise and partnerships with Arizona State University,
Harvard University, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the
National Weather Service and Desert Research Institute to further understand the
chemistry that produces high ozone levels.
"The ADEQ staff has
done excellent work
over the years in
improving air quality.
While federal require-ments
for new vehicle technologies
have been critical, the vehicle emis-sions
inspection program also did help
get clunkers to clean up their act, let-ting
motorists know that they may not
have checked their vehicles’ mileage in
a while and that their cars may not be
up to snuff. We requested a voluntary
program by ADEQ to ‘save the peaks’
and issue advisories, which evolved
into the on-going Phoenix Visibility
Monitoring Network. Citizens told us
that they prized their mountain views
and tourism representatives expressed
concern that continuing worsening of
the areas visibility would have a nega-tive
effect on the number of visitors.”
- Ed Phillips
Former State Senator and a
long-time Valley television and
radio meteorologist
Carbon Monoxide, Dust, Ozone Levels Fallen Far in 25 years
1990 Completion of the Non-point Source Water Quality Management Program allowed ADEQ to receive $1.1 million in Federal Clean Water Act grants.
4
The Phoenix area’s topography and climate play a significant role in concentrations
of air pollution.
Every evening after sunset, the land cools off more rapidly than the air above it,
trapping dust and gases from combustion under the inversion and combining with
moisture to form a brown cloud.
Due to elevation differences, cooler air pushes pollution across the Valley from
east to west. Each morning, as the sun rises and the land and air heat up, the air
flow direction reverses leading to higher afternoon pollutant levels in the East Valley.
The Valley’s weather also produces unique challenges. With an average wind speed
of only 6 mph, the Valley is prone to having stagnant air which traps pollutants, some-times
for days at a time.
Also, monsoon storms in the summer push enormous dust storms into the area,
sometimes from hundreds of miles away. Westerly winds transport ozone and other
pollutants from out of state. The abundance of summer heat and sunshine combine
in the chemical formation of ground-level ozone.
1991 Pollution Prevention program legislation is passed.
5
It’s a tough job for our favorite forecasters on TV or radio to come up with accurate
information about today��s weather and the five-day outlook.
But imagine the difficulty of having to do the same kind of forecasting for levels of a
myriad of different air pollutants where concentrations are measured not in degrees
Fahrenheit, but in concentrations such as parts per billion.
That’s where Arizona Department of Environmental Quality forecasting comes into
play. Since the winter of 1989, Valley residents have depended on the agency to fore-cast
local air pollution levels. And they have received a lot of accurate information over
time. In 2011, ADEQ forecasters accurately predicted a health watch or high pollution
advisory for ozone 70 percent of the time before they occurred.
“The synopsis and discussion part of the daily weather forecast produced by ADEQ is
quite good and detailed and something I use regularly. Data is great but professionals
putting the information into context is even better,” said Royal Norman, long-time
meteorologist for KTVK Channel 3 in Phoenix. “The real-time air quality map on the
ADEQ website is also a valuable tool to help locate areas of metro Phoenix where air
quality is degraded.”
The number of those receiving forecasts has grown from a handful to nearly 6,000
subscribers and those connected to ADEQ through social networks. Daily forecasts are
provided for ozone, Particulate Matter-10, PM-2.5 and carbon monoxide in the metro
Phoenix area; ozone, PM-10 and PM-2.5 in the Yuma area; and the risk of wind-blown
dust in Green Valley. A daily forecast for PM-10 and 2.5 is planned for Nogales in the fall
of 2012.
In 1989, the agency started forecasting levels of carbon monoxide, which primarily
comes from vehicle exhaust. That proved to be relatively easy because high levels
occurred only on winter days with stag-nant
air. Predictions of high levels of
carbon monoxide triggered “no-burn”
Above:The historic 2011 haboob.
Right: The launch of the first
weather blimp in 1992.
Forecasting
In late June 2011, ADEQ’s meteoro-logical
forecast and analysis team had
one of those “can you believe we called
that right” moments.
A fine-particle soot lingered in met-ropolitan
Phoenix’s air. People figured it
was caused by smoke from a wildfire in
southeastern Arizona, but ADEQ’s mete-orologists
knew that wasn’t the case.
Prevailing winds were blowing the wild-fire’s
smoke toward New Mexico.
Using their detailed satellite imagery
and weather charts, the forecasters
came up with a novel conclusion.
Huge Canadian wildfires north of
Edmonton, Alberta – and very far from
Arizona – had charred nearly 400,000
acres of forest. ADEQ’s forecasting
team determined the Alberta smoke
had migrated first into neighboring
British Columbia and down a corridor
through Washington, Oregon and
California to just east of Los Angeles.
It then doglegged into western Arizona
before settling over the Valley.
Local news media were incredulous,
at least until a dozen or so reporters
came to ADEQ’s Phoenix offices and
reviewed the forecasting team’s high
resolution maps and charts for
themselves.
Then, they believed.
ADEQ Forecasters Have High Accuracy Rate in Tough Job
1992 Water Infrastructure Finance Authority of Arizona (WIFA) was created as a “bond bank”.
6
days and admonitions to car-pool
or ride the bus. Because
of many control measures,
unhealthful levels of the
pollutant have not occurred
in the Valley since 1999.
Forecasting the level of
air pollution requires an
understanding of the local
atmosphere from the surface to about 10,000 feet above it. In the late 1980s, the
National Weather Service only collected this information in Tucson and Flagstaff. To get
information in Phoenix, ADEQ began to release a tethered helium-filled weather balloon
that ascended to nearly 8,000 feet and lofted a device to measure pressure, temperature,
relative humidity, wind speed and direction and a transmitter to send the data. The data
was used to predict conditions that could lead to high pollution levels.
From that basic beginning, ADEQ forecasting has advanced to use of an instrument
package carried on commercial aircraft taking off and landing
at Sky Harbor International Airport that measures atmospheric
conditions. That data is overlaid graphically to increase
resolution and details changing atmospheric conditions that
affect weather and pollutant concentrations.
Understanding the atmosphere is one aspect of forecasting,
but for ADEQ forecasters the other component is having
accurate information on current air pollutant concentrations.
The ADEQ air quality monitoring network has expanded
from 116 instruments at 51 statewide locations in 1987 to the
current network of 234 instruments at 123 sites, including
monitors operated by Maricopa, Pinal and Pima counties.
Measurements in grams per cubic meter have been replaced
with trace-level instruments that measure in the parts per
billion. Data collection systems that collected one measure-ment
every six days have been replaced with instruments that measure
every minute and report data averaged to the hour. Data records have
transitioned from strip charts and magnetic tapes to a sophisticated
Oracle database.
Over the years, ADEQ forecasters have honed their skills to increase
the accuracy of their predictions.
That has led to great strides in forecasting one of the most complex
pollutants, ozone, a combination of nitrogen oxides and volatile organic
compounds which react in the presence of heat and sunlight. Forecasting
ozone levels presents the most challenges because typically the pollutant
forms and travels with prevailing winds from west to east across the
Valley, where the highest concentrations usually occur in the afternoons.
1993 The first continuous PM 10 air quality monitor in central Phoenix.
7
Five years ago, the Santa Cruz River
was so contaminated that native fish
species were dying off and the leaves of
the river’s stately cottonwoods were
turning a sickly brown.
Something had to be done.
Staff at the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality studied the problem and
determined the contaminants resulted from discharges of raw sewage and storm water
originating in Mexico, which then flowed north into Arizona. To avoid a potential public
health and safety disaster at the border between the United States and Mexico, ADEQ
worked to maintain $65 million of mostly federal funding to revamp the Nogales
International Wastewater Treatment plant and provided the technical expertise to
improve the vitality of the river.
ADEQ staff developed ideas for using the federal money on the project and fig-ured
out how best to remove pollutants like ammonia that were adversely
affecting the life of one of southern Arizona’s premier riparian areas. They col-laborated
with conservation groups to monitor the health of the river on a con-tinuing
basis and convinced their Mexican counterparts to support their efforts
in protecting the quality of water discharges that cross the international
boundary.
Restoration and revitalization of the
Santa Cruz River is just one example of
how ADEQ has helped protect human
health and the environment of Arizona
communities in the border region.
While the international boundary legally
separates the two countries, no such
demarcation exists in terms of the
environment. Thus, Arizona residents benefit greatly from ADEQ efforts to control
pollution in the common airsheds and watersheds along the border.
Top: Diesel retrofits help reduce
emissions and clean Nogales air.
Right: The revitalized Santa Cruz River.
Below: Two shots of the new state-of-the-
art Nogales International waste-water
treatment plant.
Office of Border Environmental Protection
ADEQ Solves Environmental
Problems in Border Region
ADEQ has long been an active participant on the international front through its role
on the Arizona-Mexico Commission and Border Governors Conference and has helped find
solutions for environmental problems on both sides of the border. Over the years, ADEQ
has allocated tens of millions of dollars for drinking water and wastewater infrastructure
benefitting Arizona border communities from Douglas, Sierra Vista, Willcox and
Pomerene in southeastern Arizona to Yuma, San Luis, and Somerton in the southwestern
part of the state.
ADEQ responded to the region’s air quality problems by overseeing the installation of
nearly 200 diesel emissions reduction devices on school buses in Yuma, Santa Cruz, Cochise
and Pima counties and cargo trucks which regularly cross the border delivering produce
between Nogales, Sonora, and the Rio Rico warehouses.
ADEQ staff has assisted its Mexican colleagues on several other projects such as
identifying well-traveled dirt roads in Nogales, Sonora, for paving, which
has reduced dust generation and improved air quality in the community
that straddles the border. They have worked with Mexican officials to
collect and properly dispose of waste tires and organized electronic waste
recycling events.
Staff has even devised some fairly ingenious conservation approaches
such as combining waste paper with sand and cement to make energy
efficient building blocks and installing composting toilets in areas not
served by wastewater infrastructure.
Some years ago, a number of agency employees organized
and carried out trash cleanups on the patchwork of trails
along the 370-mile border between Arizona and Mexico
through a pilot project. These efforts eventually led to the
establishment of the Arizona Border Trash program in 2008,
which now features a Web page and database to offer con-sistent
reporting and support for organizations conducting
cleanups.
On the education side, ADEQ designs, prints and distrib-utes
thousands of calendars annually that convey clean-air
messages, the artwork for which is provided by students on
both sides of the border.
“ADEQ has done outstanding work identifying and finding
solutions for the wide array of problems in the region of the
international boundary,” said Nogales Mayor Arturo Garino. “We are especially grateful
for the assistance and continued collaboration, especially in attempting to solve our
community’s wastewater challenges.”
8
1994 Created legal counsel office, regional offices in Tucson and Flagstaff and a Tribal Liaison position.
The international border
near Douglas, Arizona.
Below: One of the many
clean-ups along the
border, part of the
Arizona Border Trash
Program.
1995 Arizona-Mexico Border Alliance was created to identify and sample air, water and soil in the border communities.
9
In 2000, a Quartzsite resident first
noticed the pungent odors in the clothes
washed in her home.
She called ADEQ and investigators swung
into action investigating the cause of the
odors. They began by testing 20 private
wells and confirmed that contamination
came from a large leak in storage tanks
owned by the already-closed Ted’s Truck Stop.
ADEQ provided an alternative water supply so residents wouldn’t be exposed to
contaminants in their well water. The agency also worked with the Town of Quartzsite
to expedite construction of a safe water distribution system.
A total of 17 groundwater monitoring wells were installed by ADEQ. They collected
about 240 soil and groundwater samples. The agency then constructed a water treatment
system. The system began operation in December 2007 and has removed about 14,000
gallons of petroleum since.
“ADEQ and its staff did an excellent job in identifying the source and coming up with
a sustainable plan to clean up the soil and groundwater,” said former Quartzsite Mayor
Verlyn Michel.
This is just one of hundreds of ADEQ’s success stories of cleaning up contamination
caused by leaking underground storage tanks (LUST). That effort has been funded in part
by the State Assurance Fund (SAF), a one cent per gallon excise tax on motor fuel which
was established in 1990 to help the department and underground storage tank (UST)
owners and operators offset the high cost of cleanups.
The ADEQ LUST Program was established in 1986 to provide a regulatory framework
and process for ensuring that potentially hazardous releases from USTs are identified and
cleaned up. Since inception, ADEQ has worked closely with UST owners and operators to
investigate and clean up their
sites. ADEQ also works with
property owners and conducts
investigations and cleanup of
releases for which no responsi-ble
party has been identified.
Since 1982, a total of 8,647
UST releases have been reported
and 91 percent of those have
been cleaned up and closed.
Underground Sttoorraggee Tankk Prrooggrram
Leaking Tanks Cleaned Up
After ADEQ got involved
The current number of open releases has been reduced to 769. In addition to protecting
the public health and environment of Arizona, the cleanup of the petroleum contaminat-ed
properties allows them to be redeveloped for productive use and increased state and
local tax dollars.
One of the most notable success stories of the cleanup effort has been the Route 66
Initiative. Beginning in 2004, the initiative, along the path of America’s once premier
cross-country corridor, became a national program supported by the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency. Initially, about 100 properties were identified as having LUST
contamination. By 2012, more than half of those properties had been cleaned up.
“ADEQ has done an excellent job of cleaning up contaminated properties along Route
66. The EPA is proud to join ADEQ to take the project even further. We want to explore
ways to help support restoration and job creation along this historic route,” said Jeff
Scott, director of waste management at EPA’s regional office in San Francisco.
The State Legislature established ADEQ’s Municipal Tank Closure Program in 2001.
That program removed abandoned USTs located in rural communities. ADEQ both
managed and funded the tank removal activities and the program has removed 255
abandoned USTs in 43 cities across the state.
EPA awarded ADEQ $3.2 million through the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act
of 2009. ADEQ used this funding for investigation and cleanup of 26 facilities with
contamination from LUSTs in 20 different cities.
Because of the economic downturn and the deadline passing for claim submittal
under the SAF reimbursement program, ADEQ has had an increase in property owners
and financially needy UST owners and operators turning to the LUST program to help
them with their cleanups. By continually focusing on process improvement and
enhanced communication with property owners and owners and operators of USTs, the
program has evolved into one of the most successful cleanup programs in the country
and we intend to continue this evolution over the next 25 years.
10
1996 Partnered with National Football League and Arizona Clean and Beautiful to make recycling a part of the 1996 Super Bowl events.
In 2007, ADEQ launched an initiative
which provided technical assistance
to schools and school districts
across the state to ensure that USTs
owned and operated by schools and
districts are properly maintained in
accordance with the law to prevent
leaks. ADEQ took over the manage-ment
and cleanup on many of the
sites where contamination was
identified.
1997 Community Advisory Boards were established for State Superfund sites.
11
When Cottonwood Mayor Diane Joens began her regular hikes a few years back in the
Verde Valley countryside, it wasn’t the lovely vista of the nearby Mingus Mountain that
caught her eye.
The real attention grabbers were the piles of shattered, discarded televisions and
computer equipment that littered the arroyos on the edges of Cottonwood, leaching
dangerous heavy metals like cadmium and lead into the soil and water.
“It was so deep in some areas that it was literally acting as a dam when it rained or
there was snow runoff in the area,” Joens said.
Stories such as these are why ADEQ began its Free Electronic Waste Recycling Program
in August 2009. Since that time, the agency has sponsored 71 collection events from
Duncan in the east to Lake Havasu City in the west and Nogales in the south to Page in the
north. A total of 1.75 million pounds of e-waste, enough material to fill 175 large moving
vans, have been collected from more than 12,000 motorists attending the events.
The fourth year of the program began in August 2012.
The program has filled a huge void in many rural areas of the state where there had
been no such recycling in the past and the waste would have likely ended up illegally
dumped in the countryside or taking up large amounts of valuable space in landfills.
For example, ADEQ sponsored the largest e-waste recycling event in state history
when 161,000 pounds – more than 80 tons – of discarded electronics were collected in
Show Low in August 2010, filling a need in Navajo and Apache counties. The same goes in
Mohave County, where the first three such events ever in Lake Havasu City collected
nearly 80,000 pounds of e-waste and in Gila County, where three events in Globe took in
60,000 pounds.
The program also has served big cities and Native American reservations. Nearly 1,500
motorists brought recyclable material to two events in the Southwest Valley and more
than 100,000 pounds were collected in an event on the Hopi Reservation.
Elleeccttrrooniicc Wassttee Reeccyycclliingg
Nearly 875 Tons of E-waste Diverted from Landfills, Illegal Dumps
In mid-2009, more than $2 million in annual legislative funding to ADEQ to maintain
recycling programs in the state was ended. We immediately turned our attention to
determine what to do to retain a recycling presence in the state
that we could maintain without funding.
Enter the free e-waste recycling program, which takes collab-oration
among the state, municipalities, counties, Native American
tribes, non-governmental organizations and private industry to
new heights in achieving significant environmental results. Our
co-sponsors now total 45 Arizona towns, cities and communities
that range in size from Heber-Overgaard to Phoenix, 35 corporations
and businesses from tiny Benson Lumber to corporate giant
Freeport McMoRan and 25 non-governmental organizations like
Friends of the Santa Cruz River, Casa Grande Clean and Beautiful
and Gila Watershed Partnership.
Here is the way the program works:
Private electronic waste recycling companies in Arizona that want to participate --
and four companies have been certified -- submit detailed paperwork about their
businesses, the recycling practices they use and what happens to the recycled materials
they send downstream.
ADEQ’s technical analysts in the Waste Programs Division use available state and federal
databases to investigate companies for past environmental violations and proper business
licensing. They also require companies to file “downstream” reports detailing what they
do with their recycled material. ADEQ also is currently acting as a conduit to two of the
three companies who are not R2 certified to attain that certification by the end of 2012.
Our agency determines the sites of e-waste events by identifying those communities
which have been underserved by recyclers in the past. In return for ADEQ putting the
most effective partnership together to maximize turnout and attract volunteers plus
publicizing the events, the private companies agree to accept all electronics waste for
free, including televisions.
Because of the effective partner-ships
we put together and the free
publicity we receive because of press
releases sent to media outlets plus
social networking, we generate enough
volume at the events to ensure that
the companies return a profit.
It's a win-win situation because
the recyclers make money, the citizens
of Arizona can get rid of their aging
electronics for free rather than helter
skelter disposal and it's personally
rewarding to ADEQ workers because
they are doing good works in Arizona
communities.
12
1998 Arizona is the only state to implement an Interim Monitoring Relief Program to save small water systems as much as 75% in analysis costs.
1999 ADEQ obtains a grant from EPA to establish a $1 million Brownfields Cleanup Revolving Loan Fund for sites in Phoenix and Tucson.
13
It was the largest Brownfield cleanup in Arizona history, a massive 117-acre
project that turned an area of multiple tire fires and law enforcement headaches
into the sparkling shopping and entertainment district now known as Tempe
Marketplace.
Arizona Department of Environmental Quality workers really had their work cut
out for them when the cleanup project began in 2004. The site had previously
been contaminated by three large unregulated dumps, 11,000 cubic yards of soil
contaminated by lead, 130 septic tanks and leach pits, 42 drums of hazardous
waste and 260,000 tons of buried construction and household debris.
Now, Tempe Marketplace is the state’s largest outdoor retail, entertainment
and dining destination, creating 4,800 jobs, $110 million in annual wages and
$24.5 million in sales tax revenue since it opened. The redevelopment effort also
came with praise from high places.
During the last nine years, ADEQ’s Brownfields Program has funded a total of
nearly $1.4 million in projects at 27 different sites around the state. A brown-field
is an abandoned or under-used property with an active redevelopment
potential that suffers from known or perceived environmental contamination.
“Built on a former
Superfund site,
Tempe Marketplace
is considered the
largest brownfield
clean-up in the his-tory
of Arizona. The 117-acre site
went from unofficial landfill – a
source of multiple tire fires and
law enforcement headaches – to
the successful open-air, regional
shopping, dining and entertain-ment
destination that it is today.
Tempe Marketplace is a true envi-ronmental
success story for
Tempe. We were proud to partner
with the Arizona Department of
Environmental Quality on a proj-ect
that contributes to the long-term
sustainability of the com-munity
– environmentally, eco-nomically
and socially.”
-Hugh Hallman
Former Mayor of Tempe
Brownfields Program
Converting Contaminated Land into Productive Property
In Winslow (pictured above), Brownfields Program money was put to excellent
use when the city’s leading tourist attraction, Standin’ On The Corner Park, was
ravaged by fire in 2004 that destroyed a large wall and a huge, popular mural
painted on it. Concerns about asbestos contamination in the
charred rubble had prevented efforts to remove the debris and
reopen the park. ADEQ funded $315,000 for cleanup and technical
oversight and the site was reopened to visitors.
In Flagstaff, the city had a pressing need for a central bus
station to operate its Mountain Line transit system. But in the
way was redeveloping a vacant lot contaminated by hydrocarbons
from railroad petroleum products. Brownfields money in 2008
paid for environmental site assessments and the city now has a fully
operational, modern transit center in downtown on Phoenix Avenue.
In southern Arizona, Brownfields funding came
riding to the rescue to save Camp Naco, the only
surviving fort on the Mexican border manned by
the famed “buffalo soldiers” of African-American
heritage in the 19th Century. A 2006 fire at the
site scattered asbestos-containing roofing material
and cleanup funds allowed historic preservation
of the building to continue.
14
2000 $1.9 million in Water Quality Improvement Grants created new tools and processes to provide federal funds for nonpoint-source projects.
The Flagstaff Transit Center.
2001 EPA announced that Phoenix metro area met the one-hour air quality health standard for ground-level ozone.
15
As the state’s largest wildfire ever, the Wallow Fire, incinerated half a million acres
in June 2011, the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality’s emergency response
team quickly rolled into action.
ADEQ staff was on the point for the State of Arizona in protecting the public’s health
from the dense smoke conditions. They assisted Apache County officials in providing air
quality data and forecasts and determining when the evacuation of the Towns of
Springerville and Eagar would end. Agency workers coordinated the state’s response to
inquiries from dozens of members of the national media that had flocked to what was
then the largest active wildfire in the country.
Emergency responders from ADEQ were the first State agency personnel allowed into
the fire-damaged areas and they assessed the risk of hazardous materials in and around
the communities of Alpine, Nutrioso and Greer.
“ADEQ’s commitment to being part of the solution to this regional tragedy lifted our
spirits and provided an extra degree of confidence with our massive Wallow Fire recovery
undertaking,” Apache County Manager Delwin Wengert later wrote in a letter to the agency.
But that was only the beginning.
ADEQ’s Water Quality Division staff explained how to bring water systems back on line
and up to pressure and made sure burn area residents understood the impacts of fire,
firefighting and the transport of ash and sedimentation and effects on water quality of
area streams and lakes. Staff worked to identify landfills and public water and waste-water
treatment facilities that were impacted by the fire and warned about pollution
and infrastructure damage when monsoon rains begin.
Above: Checking to make sure the
equipment is working properly.
ADEQ emergency responders figure
out where to place the portable
monitors.
Emergency Response
Rural Communities Depend on ADEQ’s Emergency Response Team
2002 ADEQ developed the Arsenic Master Plan to help Arizona water systems come into compliance with the new EPA standard.
In the weeks and months that followed, ADEQ personnel continued
lending technical expertise on particulate monitoring, debris removal
and waste disposal as well as drinking water and wastewater issues.
They even figured out a way to provide $250,000 in federal Clean
Water Act grant funding to local agencies for projects that would
help prevent erosion and protect water quality in the burn
area. ADEQ’s community liaisons provided regular briefings for
civic leaders and residents and coordinated communication
between agency staff, county health departments and other agencies.
ADEQ’s Emergency Response Unit, funded primarily by the agency’s
WQARF program, originally was created to minimize the threat to public
safety, human health and the environment from chemical spills, fire
explosions and other pollutant releases round the clock and throughout the state. But
the larger the emergency event, the more that ADEQ’s Air, Water Quality and Waste
Programs divisions will help out in follow-up actions during recovery operations.
Take, for example, what the ADEQ role was in what had been the state’s largest
wildfire before Wallow, the Rodeo-Chedeski fire of 2002. For weeks ADEQ had nearly
constant, round-the-clock support from its air monitoring and assessment teams, which
provided data that local health officials used to keep residents near the burn area
informed about the health effects from the smoke.
At the same time, water quality and waste disposal experts helped identify threats
to drinking water systems and underground fuel storage tanks by charting and predicting
the daily fire lines.
When the fire ended, ADEQ personnel worked tirelessly to speed the return of
residents to their homes by surveying burned areas for hazardous materials, rapidly
providing area residents with information about the quality of area drinking water, and
increasing its monitoring frequency for downstream rivers and lakes. The department
also provided invaluable assistance to nearly 500 homeowners who lost their homes in
the Heber-Overgaard area by analyzing infrastructure needs in the recovery.
ADEQ staff received a distinguished service award from the U.S. Forest Service for
the department’s efforts.
The department worked with city and county officials to allow property owners to
bury burned trees and vegetation that would normally have required landfill disposal.
The ADEQ Recycling Program purchased two wood chippers for Navajo County to support
efforts by private property owners to clear their property of damaged or destroyed
trees or other vegetation. ADEQ also awarded a $413,640 water quality improvement
grant to the Arizona Community Tree Council’s “Trees for the
Rim” project, which provided trees and other vegetation, at
no cost, to private property owners whose trees and landscape
plants were destroyed during the fire.
Above: The haz mat team prepares
during an emergency drill.
Below: The aftermath of a fire brings
more concerns.
Below: The 2010 Schultz fire on the
east side of Humphreys Peak.
16
2003 Children’s Environmental Health Project was established.
17
Cleaning Arizona’s Water
Trailblazing Aquifer Protection
Permitting Program Slashes
Nitrogen Releases to the
Environment and Transforms a
Waste into a Resource
When you live in the desert, you learn
to appreciate every drop of water,
whether it is above the surface or
beneath it. This is especially true when
the annual average rainfall is less than
8 inches and temperatures soar above 100
degrees for months of the year.
That’s why the Arizona Aquifer
Protection Permit (APP) program was the
first comprehensive groundwater protec-tion
program in the nation when it was
adopted during the Arizona Department of
Environmental Quality’s first year of exis-tence
in 1987. In its 25 years, the APP program has issued permits to thousands of facilities
in the state, from septic tanks and small wastewater treatment plants to large metal
mining operations covering many square miles.
Under the program, all groundwater is protected for drinking water use and discharges
cannot cause an exceedance of a drinking water standard in groundwater. A key focus of
the program is to minimize the discharge of nitrogen to less than 10 milligrams per liter.
That’s accomplished by requiring new and expanding wastewater facilities to use the
best available demonstrated control technologies.
Above: Palo Verde Nuclear Generating
Station uses reclaimed water for all
its cooling. About 60 million gallons
of reclaimed water from metropoli-tan
Phoenix is sent daily by a 35 mile
pipeline to the largest nuclear gener-ating
plant in the country where it
undergoes further polishing at an
advanced water treatment facility
before being used in the reactor cool-ing
towers. A predictable supply of
reclaimed water is essential to the
continued operation of this important
power generation facility.
Arizona a Pioneer in Reuse
of Reclaimed Wastewater
Currently, nearly 200 million gallons
per day of reclaimed water are
available as part of Arizona’s water
supply. This high quality reclaimed
water is used to irrigate golf courses,
parks and schoolyards, is used to
recharge groundwater aquifers, and
provides critical supplies for indus-trial
and power generation needs.
Further, use of reclaimed water
reduces groundwater pumping and
preserves water resources for the
future.
The chart on the right shows the
majority of the permits are Type 2.
Type 2 reclaimed general permits are
issued to end users for direct reuse.
Type 3 permits are issued to compa-nies
that provide reclaimed water for
direct reuse to more than one end
user or irrigates with flows between
400 and 3,000 gallons per day.
2004 School Bus Idling Reduction Program was initiated.
Because of the APP program, much less nitrogen has been released from the majority
of municipal wastewater reclamation facilities throughout Arizona. Major changes to the
APP program in 2001 also greatly advanced the safe reuse of reclaimed water throughout
the state. The reductions in nitrogen have been achieved as existing wastewater treat-ment
plants (WWTPs) have expanded and upgraded their technologies, and new waste-water
treatment plants have been installed in areas previously dependent on septic tanks.
All have been required to install nitrogen removal technologies.
The cumulative amount of nitrogen released per day before 1996 from five of the
largest major WWTPs in the state, was nearly 80,000 pounds a day. These five facilities
include: the City of Phoenix’s two main plants at 23rd Avenue and 91st Avenue, the
Nogales international wastewater treatment facility, and Pima County’s two main waste-water
treatment plants at Ina Road and Roger Road. When the extensive upgrades to
these two Pima County facilities are completed in 2014-2015, that cumulative total of
nitrogen released per day will have been reduced to less than 20,000 pounds a day, nearly
a fourfold decrease in 20 years. Under the upgrade, the current Roger Road plant will be
decommissioned and replaced by a new state-of-the-art water reclamation facility.
The requirement to reduce and remove nitrogen has the added benefit of improving
surface water habitat due to the removal of ammonia, a form of nitrogen that is toxic to
fish and other aquatic life. Fish populations and other water quality indicators have
shown documented improvements in streams below upgraded wastewater treatment
plants. The advanced treatment of wastewater to remove nitrogen also allows the
wastewater to be put to other beneficial uses such as increased riparian habitat, artificial
lakes and recreational opportunities.
Reclaimed water – the highly treated water from wastewater treatment plants - has
become an increasingly important part of Arizona’s water supply and ADEQ has had a
formal reclaimed water program since 1979.
Because stringent treatment and quality standards are now met at the wastewater
treatment plant where the reclaimed water is produced, ADEQ was able to create a
simplified permit program for users of reclaimed water.
This simplified regulatory framework has incentivized the use of reclaimed water,
turning what was once a “waste” into a resource. Prior to 2001, reclaimed systems
required individual reuse permits, a lengthy and sometimes costly process. Once the new
framework was in place in 2001, the number of reuse permits has increased significantly
as did the uses of reclaimed water.
Nearly 350 acres of Yuma East
Wetlands on the Colorado River
has been restored since the proj-ect
began in 2004. The 1,400-acre
project is restoring riparian habi-tat,
wetlands creation and exca-vating
a channel. During the initial
conversion of the land to cotton-wood-
willow and other native
habitats, effluent from the City of
Yuma’s wastewater treatment
plant was used to irrigate the area.
AFTER
BEFORE
18
2005 Arizona bans the use of methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) in gasoline.
19
Back in the late 1990s, Nutrioso Creek, located in the eastern
Arizona highlands of southern Apache County, was the poster child
for a once-lovely mountain creek where paradise had been lost.
Stream banks were denuded and eroded because of heavy cattle
grazing and forestry management practices from decades ago that
did not control runoff. Sediment from the Apache-Sitgreaves National
Forests filled the creek bed and turned the water into a murky brown color.
Enter ADEQ’s Water Quality Improvement Grant (WQIG) Program. Seven different
projects along nearly 13 miles of the creek later, the stream banks have been stabilized,
fences built, trees and other vegetation flourish and the sinewy twists and turns and
water clarity have returned to the bed of Nutrioso Creek. It’s been taken off the state’s
impaired waters list and the native Little Colorado spinedace has been reintroduced.
Arizona’s WQIG Program, funded under the federal Clean Water Act by the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency, began in 2002 and has been very successful in keeping
sediments, nitrogen and phosphorous from polluting the state’s waterways. Grant
recipients include private landowners, schools, Native American tribes, cities, counties,
watershed partnerships, non-profit groups and other state agencies.
Since the program’s inception, about $20 million in federal money has been spent on
dozens of projects, primarily in the watersheds of the Verde River and Oak Creek, Salt
River, Upper Gila River, Little Colorado River, and the San Pedro River. Over the years
the program has increased its emphasis on watershed planning and has developed four
community-led watershed plans across the state, which will have top priority in funding
for the future.
Between 2002 and 2007, the program kept an estimated 362,000 tons of sediment out
of the water and between 2004 and 2009 an estimated 360,000 pounds of nitrogen and
phosphorous also did not pollute waterways.
Uncontrolled sedimentation fills stream bottoms, decreasing spawning areas and
habitat for the food chain of fish. Excessive amounts of nitrogen and
phosphorous in the water can lead to huge algae blooms being pro-duced,
aquatic dead zones because of lack of oxygen and increased
risk of human exposure to toxic microorganisms.
Jan Holder, executive director of the Gila Watershed Partnership of
Arizona in Safford, said the WQIG Program has done wonders in cleaning
up and protecting water in the state’s back country. The partnership
has worked on numerous projects protecting the water quality and
riparian areas of the Upper Gila and San Francisco rivers along with
Eagle Creek in eastern Arizona.
Water Quality Impprroovveemeenntt Grraanntt Prrooggrraam
Keeping Sediment, Nitrogen and Phosporous
from Polluting Arizona’s Waterways
About $1.3 million in WQIG funding has also been the determining factor in the
success of the Prescott Creeks organization’s efforts to restore four lengthy reaches of
Granite Creek to their natural dimensions after the area was pulverized by sand and
gravel operations for several decades.
“We would not be here if it wasn’t for those funds,” Prescott Creeks Executive
Director Michael Byrd said. “Because of that money we were able to do channel
restoration which led to thousands of volunteers helping with that. And that led to
thousands of additional extra hikers using the adjoining Peavine Trail to go to Watson
and Willow lakes.”
Then there is all the work currently
being done in the targeted watersheds
across the state.
In Sedona and Benson, volunteer water-shed
groups funded by WQIG, are examining
ways to improve the problems posed by
E. coli contamination in Oak Creek and
the San Pedro River, respectively.
Volunteers from Apache, Graham, and
Greenlee counties are examining the
same issue in the San Francisco River
drainage area.
Developing solutions for the sedimenta-tion
problems in the Little Colorado River
near the towns of Springerville and Eagar
are being considered by a volunteer group
in that area.
20
2006 Green Business Program launched. Three auto repair centers in Tucson were the first facilities in the state to be certified as Green Shops.
“There has been a complete culture
shift in this area in less than 10
years. People used to be completely
negative about any presence of
state government in these parts.
Now, not only do they praise how
their favorite recreation area has
changed for the better, they also
are some of our best volunteers in
doing watershed work. Large cor-porations
like Freeport McMoRan
are also donating money to these
causes.��
-Jan Holder
Executive Director, Gila Watershed
Partnership of Arizona
2007 The Small Communities Environmental Assistance Program was initiated.
21
In the early 1990s, Arizona’s small public water
systems found themselves in a real bind.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, under the
Safe Drinking Water Act, added 49 new pollutants that
required testing. The state’s smaller water systems,
serving 10,000 or fewer customers, were hit particularly
hard as many of the tests would cost between $3,000
and $4,000 per sample for laboratory analysis.
ADEQ began its Monitoring Assistance Program (MAP) to lessen the monitoring and
financial burdens faced by systems to ensure that water served met state and federal
safe drinking water standards.
MAP has been quite the success story. Before the program began in 1999, 697 of
those systems, almost three-fourths of the systems in the state, did not conduct proper
monitoring nor report the results to the state to determine compliance with state and
federal standards. That number was reduced to just nine water systems by 2010, which
is less than 2 percent not in compliance.
“The Monitoring Assistance Program was a tremendous help to a lot of the systems I
interacted with throughout the state,” said Flavio Gonzalez, operations manager for
Bella Vista Water Company in Sierra Vista. “Some systems went from paying thousands
of dollars a year in laboratory costs down to paying only a few hundred dollars in MAP
fees per year.”
Because of MAP, the compliance rate for synthetic organic compounds like pesticides,
herbicides and PCBs went from just 26 percent before the program began to 100 percent
for participating public water systems from 2008 until 2010. MAP expanded to include
asbestos, radionuclide, nitrite, sulfate and nickel monitoring in 2002 and the compliance
rate increased from 44 percent to 99 percent. Nitrate monitoring was added in 2008 and
the compliance rate has increased from 75 percent to 99 percent.
Prior to MAP, all public water systems were required to monitor for contaminants at
prescribed schedules and at various locations in their system as required by the Safe
Drinking Water Act. Monitoring was often required for multiple contaminants in multiple
years and proved to be a challenge for many systems, especially smaller ones. Since
introducing MAP, more small drinking water systems are being fully and accurately moni-tored
and the results are provided to ADEQ, which keeps these small systems in compli-ance
with complex reporting regulations, and ensures safe, healthy drinking water.
In Arizona, MAP currently provides assistance to 850 of the smaller public water systems,
which is 55 percent of the total number of regulated public water systems in the state.
Waatteerr Moonniittoorriinngg
Monitoring Assistance Program Helps Small Water
Systems Provide Safe, Healthy Drinking Water
“MAP has really helped us in
terms of continuity… Before
MAP, we had compliance
concerns related to missing
sampling events.���
-Darren Campbell
Director of Water Quality Testing,
Luke Air Force Base, Glendale
2008 Leaking underground storage tanks on school property program initiated and wins EPA Region 9 award for innovation.
22
Later this year, ADEQ will become the first state environmental
regulatory authority in the country to implement its own in-house environmental man-agement
system.
Everything within the agency’s buildings will be examined to reduce the agency’s
environmental footprint. Records will be kept of waste management. Everything from
energy usage to paper consumption to emissions reductions will be addressed.
This is just one of the areas in which ADEQ and the State of Arizona have been a
pollution prevention leader since the state Legislature adopted a pollution prevention
policy in 1991.
ADEQ launched a Performance Track Program in 2005 to encourage and
reward businesses that are good environmental stewards and to
encourage others to go above and beyond the minimum requirements
of the law. Among the success stories are Ping Inc. of Phoenix, which
decreased its energy usage by nearly a quarter; Intel Ocotillo of
Chandler, which dramatically reduced its emissions of volatile organic compounds; City of
Scottsdale, which conserved more than 4,000 acres of habitat; and Xanterra South Rim,
LLC, of the Grand Canyon, which reduced water usage more than 100 million gallons in
the past decade.
ADEQ also introduced the Green Business Automotive Program in
2005, designed for auto shops to protect the environment and
conserve resources through better front-office waste disposal
practices, parts management programs, housekeeping, parts
cleaning and degreasing, fluid recycling and reducing energy use.
The program, a partnership with AAA-Arizona, the Automotive Service Association of
Arizona and City of Mesa, now has 65 member auto shops in the Valley and Tucson.
Preventing Pollution
For the last two decades, ADEQ’s
Pollution Prevention (P2) Program has been
working with Arizona industry to reduce or
eliminate the use of toxic substances, the
generation of hazardous waste and pollutant
releases.
P2 has partnered with many sectors
including aerospace, automotive, boats and
marinas, electronics, government, medical
services, mining, military, recycling and
environmental remediation and utilities and
manufacturing companies. It also has collab-orated
with builders and municipalities in
promoting green building practices.
Here are the results, from 1992 through 2010:
Electrical Energy (Kilowatt Hours Saved)
572.8 million
Hazardous Waste (Pounds Prevented)
48.8 million
Air Pollutants (Pounds Prevented)
139.3 million
Solid Waste Disposal (Pounds Prevented)
331.9 million
Toxic Substances (Pounds Prevented)
41.8 million
Water Conserved (Gallons)
2.3 billion
Waste Water (Gallons Prevented)
332.1 million
Natural Gas (Therms Saved)
3.8 million
Greenhouse Gases (Pounds Prevented)
18.2 million
ARIZONA CARES
REDUCE • REUSE • RECYCLE
Pollution Prevention Saves Money
2009 Nutrioso Creek in the White Mountaions is the first surface water to be removed from the “impared waters” list.
23
Transportation Supervisor Bill
Patterson of Joseph City schools said
he’s happy that problems caused by
diesel exhaust of idling school buses
are a fading memory.
That’s because the school district
joined the No Idling Initiative for Schools soon after its inception in 2004. ADEQ’s Office
of Children’s Environmental Health (CEH) developed the program to educate school bus
drivers about the importance of reducing children’s exposure to the harmful fumes emitted
by idling buses.
The program, which has 158 districts and over 1,000 schools as members, instructs
drivers to turn off buses when reaching a school and not turn on the engine until the
vehicle is ready to depart. In addition buses should be parked at least 100 feet from a
school air intake system.
“The students are able to load and unload the buses without the smell and negative
health effects of diesel fumes,” Patterson said. “This program has been a win-win for
everyone.”
The CEH office also has been involved with protecting the health and environment of
Arizona’s school children on other fronts. ADEQ’s Air Quality Flag Program now has more
than 50 participating schools. The program uses colored flags to alert students, teachers
and parents about risks on high-pollution days.
Schools receive a daily air quality forecast from ADEQ’s staff
meteorologists with instructions to fly one of four flags: green
for good air quality, yellow for moderate, orange for unhealthy
for sensitive groups, and red for unhealthy for everyone. With the
flag flying, parents of students with asthma or other breathing ailments know
what to expect and teachers can take precautions to protect students on bad-air days.
The flag program coincided with an important 21-month study ADEQ launched in
January 2005. The study, which analyzed more than 5,000 asthma events in Phoenix,
established that the incidence of asthma among children between 5 and 18 years old
increased by nearly 14 percent with elevated levels of particulate pollution.
The Children’s Environmental Health Office also coordinates other educational activities.
During April’s “Earth Month” and Governor Jan Brewer’s “Green Week” in early
February, CEH and other ADEQ public outreach representatives fan out across the state
to conduct presentations in schools on recycling and how to prevent water pollution.
There are also many water quality testing events for schoolchildren. In the past five
years, staff hydrologists have travelled around the state staging 21 testing events at
water bodies for nearly 1,400 students.
Right: This pennant is
flown at schools to
let children know the
air quality.
Office of Children’s Environmental Health
Educating our children on
the 3 R’s (reuse, reduce,
recycle) are the fundamentals
of the future
25th Anniversary Closing Message from the Director
The preceding stories offer a glimpse of the many ways in which the Arizona
Department of Environmental Quality has touched the lives of Arizonans in
our first 25 years as a state agency. I am honored to be one of the privileged
few to have served as director of ADEQ, and the only one who joined the
agency as a staff-level employee and worked in each of its three environmental
program divisions. Over the years, I have worked along side of many talented
and dedicated public servants, and I deeply appreciate the efforts of all the
men and women who have furthered ADEQ’s mission to protect public health
and the environment of Arizona.
Since our inception, ADEQ’s responsibilities have grown with each passing
year. We helped bring about many environmental accomplishments against
the backdrop of a thriving economy and a rising population but recent years
have caused us to weather unprecedented challenges. Despite no longer
receiving an annual General Fund appropriation, we stabilized new funding
sources amid a struggling economy. We now rely solely on fees and federal
grants for our operations. We significantly reduced staffing and restructured
our organization in an effort to maintain core programs vital to the ADEQ
mission. Through adversity, we have made great strides in reducing costs,
improving operational efficiency and expanding our partnerships with the
private sector so we can fulfill our commitments to Arizona taxpayers.
ADEQ today has a strong foundation upon which to build its future. As
always, our success will depend heavily on the commitment of our staff, and
we are undertaking new initiatives to restore capacity within our programs
and unleash the potential of our employees. With our eyes fixed firmly on the
horizon, ADEQ looks to provide balanced, leading-edge environmental
protection while offering radical simplicity for both our customers and staff.
It’s my hope for ADEQ to be known as an organization committed to technical
and operational excellence as we deliver the finest quality service in all of
our endeavors.
We invite all Arizonans to join us in this experience, because ADEQ works
for you. Our mission is vital, as is your continued support.
Sincerely,
Henry R. Darwin
Director
24
Main Office
1110 W. Washington St.
Phoenix, AZ 85007
(602) 771-2300
(800) 234-5677
(602) 771-4829 (Hearing impaired)
Web site: www.azdeq.gov
Publication number C 12-05
