CHAPTER 1:Introduction and Research Approach

1.1.Problem statement and Research Objectives

The drafters of the scope for this project recognized a pressing need for information regarding environmental stewardship practices in construction and maintenance in order to increase environmental sensitivities and help states avoid “reinventing the wheel.” Thus, this project was designed to help DOTs apply more quickly and easily that which has already been learned or developed by others. To this end, this report describes sample practices and then links the user to pertinent examples, design drawings, or more detailed technical guidance or procedures.

State transportation agencies are increasingly adopting a wide array of stewardship and environmental protection and enhancement practices, many on a voluntary basis. Regulatory agencies, insurers, and interest groups also favor adoption of construction and maintenance practices that protect or enhance the environment. The need for standards and improvements in environmental processes and practices has risen with:

Public concern for the environment and sustainability.
Acknowledgement at both the state and federal level of the importance of environmental issues and demonstrating environmental stewardship.
Proliferating national, state, and local regulation and standards.
Evolution from “command and control” to self-motivating strategies.

DOTs also have efficiency reasons for pursuing environmental stewardship practices. Raw material usage, energy consumption, waste generation, storage of materials, environmental mitigation, maintenance of construction sites and the final facilities and roadsides all require a significant investment of financial resources. Efficient, effective, and environmentally conscious use of these resources can yield both financial and ecological benefits.

The specific objective of this research was to develop a compendium of practices for integrating environmental stewardship into construction, operations, and maintenance activities. The Random House College Dictionary defines a compendium as a list or inventory. The practices included in this compendium have applicability beyond specific state or local regulations. Many environmental stewardship practices and operational controls are commonly employed by state transportation agencies. Those that are self-explanatory as listed are presented herein in bulleted checklist format by functional areas, and in some cases by environmental media. Other more complex/comprehensive and highly recommended models of practices, policies, procedures, or programs are identified and described in greater detail, with examples and links provided whenever possible. Where states are using performance measures to evaluate practices, or more widespread standards are available, these are included as well.

While “the original project refers mainly to specific technical practices and procedures,” a revised scope developed by the panel suggested that “this should be broadened to include policy, organizational and management approaches, up to and including overall environmental management policies [such as] PennDOT’s SEMP (Strategic Environmental Management Program)…a comprehensive guide to implementing Pennsylvania’s Green Plan…Partnerships between DOTs and resource agencies is another example of an organizational approach to environmental stewardship. The adoption of environmental management systems and policies should be documented in different sections of the report from the compendium of specific best practices.” Thus, in addition to construction and maintenance practices, initial chapters were developed on organizational level stewardship practice and requested areas in pre-construction, including context sensitive design, wildlife crossings, and bioengineering.

1.2.The Trend toward Environmental Stewardship

Discussions among environmental leaders at several DOTs led to the genesis of AASHTO’s Environmental Stewardship Demonstration Program in the fall of 2001, with financial support from FHWA. The demonstration program acknowledges three levels of approaches to environmental stewardship among transportation agencies, from adding stewardship features to projects on a case-by-case basis, without major changes to financial or organizational systems, to developing programmatic stewardship efforts and institutionalizing changes to the organization and its processes. Cultural and process change may be the most challenging, but can bring about some of the greatest rewards, as leaders in the field testify. Some of these leading states have adopted environmental policies and stewardship objectives in strategic plans, are utilizing and expanding the environmental expertise of all staff, and modifying procedures and business processes to incorporate environmentally sound decision-making and action in all parts of the organization.

Participants in a workshop focused on stewardship at the Transportation Research Board’s 2001 A1F02 Environmental Analysis in Transportation Committee meeting defined environmental stewardship in transportation as:

Wise choices based on understanding the consequences to natural, human-made, and social environments.
Improving environmental conditions and the quality of life when possible, not just complying with regulations.
Careful management of environmental resources and values through partnerships among public and private entities.
Attitude, ethics, and behavior by individuals.
Fulfilling responsibilities as trustees of the environment for succeeding generations, moving toward a cost-effective and environmentally sustainable future.
Integrating environmental values with partners within all transportation work as a “core business value.”

AASHTO has taken steps to try to expand environmental stewardship among DOTs by publicizing DOT success stories, recognizing notable DOT initiatives, and creating the Center for Environmental Excellence, a one stop source of environmental information for transportation professionals. AASHTO’s Standing Committee on the Environment initiated the NCHRP 25-25 research program focusing on research to “develop improvements to the analytical methods, decision-support tools, procedures, and techniques employed by practitioners in environmental streamlining, environmental stewardship, statewide and metropolitan environmental transportation planning, program delivery, and project development.”([i]) This research program has backed the current study effort, with interest, support, and involvement from the AASHTO Subcommittees on Construction and Maintenance, as well as the TRB Task Force on Accelerating Innovation.

This document should be viewed as a starting point for DOTs, to increase exposure to and utilization of a range of environmental stewardship practices in use or under consideration. It is hoped that as a starting point, DOTs will find ways to use and continue to update and extend this resource and fill the inevitable gaps, accelerating environmental stewardship and implementation of environmental practice across the country. A separate implementation plan will address these aspirations. Additional practices can be sent to the study authors or the Center for Environmental Excellence.

1.3.Scope of Study and Definition of Environmental Stewardship Practices

The oversight panel for this project discussed and rejected use of the more common terms “best practices” or “best management practices” for this project, in favor of the term “environmental stewardship practices.” In this document, environmental stewardship practices address a broad range of practices, programs, and procedures designed to better care for the environment.

Whether they are called BMPs or environmental stewardship practices, practitioners faced with specific problems must always take into account the settings in which the practice is applied, and often tailor a more general practice to fit a specific context. Some practices are by necessity highly local, such as roadside vegetation management, while others, such as shop maintenance, can have greater consistency across organizations.

Practices are constantly evolving with technological improvements and regulatory changes. Also, what is considered “best” in one locale is not necessarily the most appropriate practice in another. By developing a compendium of practice, the panel sought to provide DOTs with a way to survey what is occurring at other agencies in their areas of interest at this point in time, and to expand opportunities to implement good ideas and process improvements appropriate for their own agencies and situations.

Chapter 2 of this report addresses environmental stewardship and its impact on state Departments of Transportation in its broadest sense – from strategic planning and policy setting to environmental management systems and performance audits. There are several key reasons for this foundation in environmental stewardship to be established as a prelude to addressing the detail of individual construction and maintenance practices covered in subsequent chapters:

The scope of work for this project wisely reflects the reality that the degree of commitment to environmental stewardship practices in construction and maintenance is rooted in the extent to which the organization’s leadership, culture and policy framework have bought into environmental stewardship at a philosophical level. It is less likely that exemplary stewardship practices will be found among DOT staff and contractors without such an organization-wide commitment.
The linkage between what occurs on the front lines of work activity and the front office of policy making needs to be appreciated and understood by all who are involved and affected. Construction and maintenance staff and contractors are generally at home in an outdoor environment―both in their professional and their personal lives, and are perhaps more oriented toward environmental stewardship than we might think. However, they are chronically under-represented in the policy-making and planning activities of most agencies. It is particularly important that they have the benefit of understanding the environmental stewardship concept in its fullest context if they are to be significant contributors to its ultimate success.
Construction and maintenance is where dirt moves, structures are put up, and pavements are laid down. This is where the impacts really happen. Some DOTs have learned the hard way that having the environmental stewardship concept securely embraced among policy planners, senior managers and environmental staff does not guarantee that what happens in the field, on the jobsite, will be implementing the spirit or the letter of what was intended by policy or by planning and environmental commitments. It requires positive action facilitated by a durable linkage of communication and comprehension.

1.4.Research Approach

The research approach to this project was designed to accomplish the stated project goal of developing a compendium that would collect a wide range of stewardship practices in use in one convenient place. The study began with a review of literature available through the Transportation Research Information Service (TRIS) including over a thousand references related to construction, maintenance, and environmental aspects. This literature review was accompanied by a review of model BMP handbooks. As of mid-2002, 19 state DOTs and Puerto Rico had developed BMP manuals of various sorts, ranging from herbicide application to erosion control, and in a few cases, broader environmental management practices. In most cases, states developed their policies and procedures independently, without the benefit of prototypes and best practices from leaders in the field. Model manuals, DOT procedures and practices were reviewed, were supplemented with interviews where necessary, and are the primary sources for the compendium of environmental stewardship practices included herein.

The author also drew upon her own experience as an environmental manager within a state DOT, working with resource agencies and their requests, as well as experience working with federal and state DOTs, resource agencies, and AASHTO as a consultant on environmental stewardship practice and process improvement. Previously unpublished research results of environmental practices at state DOTs, conducted in 2002, are also included. That effort reached all 50 state transportation agencies, plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. The examples shared in this document include some previously discussed or written about by the author in other forums for FHWA, state DOT and multi-agency initiatives, TRB, the National Association of Environmental Professionals, AASHTO’s Environmental Technical Assistance Program, and AASHTO’s Center for Environmental Excellence. Best practices are also included from other relevant industries such as utilities, transit, and railroads; for example, the State University of New York was a key contributor with regard to their work with Integrated Vegetation Management for the utility industry. Stewardship practices from lead agencies in Canada and Australia are included as well; many members of the international community have taken environmental stewardship practice seriously for years, and can provide valuable leadership for state DOTs in the U.S., particularly in fields such as EMS implementation, wildlife and fish passage improvements, and salt management practices.

Environmental stewardship practices are described primarily by example in the section on Organizational Practices, including environmental policies, planning, performance measurement, tracking, staffing and training. Design, construction, and maintenance environmental stewardship practices are presented mainly as bulleted lists under various topic headings. Environmental stewardship practices are included under hundreds of categories. Given the size and scope of this endeavor and to streamline the length and size of the compendium as much as possible, links to associated on-line resources are included whenever possible rather than including such procedures, guidance, forms, design drawings, and photos in the document. The Word version of this report contains thousands of these links to facilitate DOT access to existing practice. A number of short examples and examples which cannot be easily located on the web are included throughout the document and in the Appendix.

The review process for various sections of the document included lead DOT practitioners as well as experts from university and research institutes, including the Recycled Materials Resource Center at the University of New Hampshire, the USDOT Volpe Research Center, the Turner-Fairbanks Highway Research Center, and the Center for Transportation and the Environment.

1.5.Research Uses

This compendium of stewardship practices and procedures is designed to have a broad range of uses by the practitioner. It is anticipated that this material can be re-used and easily re-formatted into the following products that can be readily and practically applied by DOTs to improve environmental performance. The primary purpose of the project was to put the world of environmental stewardship practices and resources within much easier reach of the transportation professional. To help accomplish this, links to useful existing resources are included throughout the document. Practices and measures or indicators are primarily listed in bullet format, for easy use as checklists or in different stewardship practice media. Material is presented electronically, in Word, to facilitate re-use of the enclosed stewardship practices as:

A menu of management or environmental stewardship practices.
Short 1-2 page bulletins and tail-gate resources for construction and maintenance staff.
Manuals, handbooks, or guides a DOT can tailor to their specific needs and requirements, or on specific topics of interest or priority.
Checklists for inspection, evaluation, or benchmarking in various areas.
Addition of environmental stewardship practices to construction and maintenance activity manuals.
Proactive environmental stewardship commitments that a DOT may incorporate or include in activity or project-specific permits or plans. As such, these practices may serve as a starting point for internal and external discussion.
Newsletter articles or website overviews on environmental stewardship topics for a DOT.
On-line resource at AASHTO’s Center for Environmental Excellence, that can be used as a reference with regard to:
Environmental Stewardship― How to do DOT work in environmentally sound ways.
Innovation ― What’s being done in specific program areas and with reference to certain environmental issue areas. What has been effective?
Benchmarking ― What are others doing and how do we compare?
Sharing ideas and experience.

1.6.Disclaimer/Limitation of Liability

DOTs are in the process of developing and implementing a wide range of environmental stewardship practices, which should never be viewed as complete. This effort is merely a compendium or wide-ranging overview or sample of practices that currently exist. The reader or user should note that the practices contained in this report should not be considered complete, sufficient, or all-inclusive. Gaps in environmental practice exist and the absence or omission of practices in certain lists does not mean that there are not further practices that could or should be employed.

DOTs are urged to develop and apply practices with consideration for what is appropriate in their own state, on particular projects, and in particular environments, with special attention to legal requirements and public and worker safety. The necessary permits and/or approvals for the operation a DOT is undertaking should always be obtained. The practices herein should not be construed to meet regulatory, safety, or other requirements; practitioners should consult with environmental, legal, and other specialty personnel in their own state to decide which practices are appropriate to use, what if any gaps remain, and how practices should be employed and remaining needs addressed. As this effort was intended to help states proactively steward the environment and not to meet particular requirements in individual states, practices herein are presented as recommended actions or “should” (not “shall”) statements. Compliance with all legal and safety requirements and avoidance of any sort of negligence, and the responsibility for identifying and implementing appropriate practice to achieve or maintain such performance, remains the responsibility of the implementing agency staff and associated regulatory agencies. DOTs, DOT staff, and resource agency associates who may use this work are entirely responsible for how they choose and apply environmental practices, whether included in this report or not, and for ensuring that all appropriate practices are applied and standards are enforced within a standard of care for which they take full responsibility.

Chapter 1: Introduction and Research Approach

[i]. Research for the AASHTO Standing Committee on the Environment, NCHRP 25-25,