New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Pollution Prevention Unit Part 378 Regulations Development Files

Arranged by type of record.

The Pollution Prevention Unit is a non-regulatory unit of DEC that works with other DEC units, the private sector, and State agencies and local governments to encourage pollution prevention. The Unit's attentions include the air, water, solid waste and hazardous waste programs. In addition to coordinating activities within DEC, the Unit also works directly with businesses by developing manuals, workshops and conferences and by staffing a hotline to help these private entities learn how to prevent pollution. One project of the Pollution Prevention Unit was the Part 378 Regulations Development initiative. During the early 1990s, the Unit formed an advisory group of representatives of businesses, industry groups, environmental groups and other parties to develop new regulations to prevent soil and water pollution.

The goal was to include this broad representation so that the resulting regulations would be acceptable to all. During the several year life of this project, meetings were held and proposed regulations were drafted, commented on and refined. However, in the end, the initiative was terminated by DEC before the project completed its work. A change in environmental regulation strategy within DEC resulted in the agency shifting away from regulation as the mechanism to eliminate pollution in favor of voluntary actions on the part of industries and others. While this cooperative approach towards developing regulations was unusual, it was ultimately considered unsuccessful and is unlikely to be repeated because of current trends in pollution prevention strategies in New York State and nationally.

This series consists of Advisory Group minutes and comments, supporting documents for regulation development, hearing records, draft responsiveness summary, and rulemaking documents.

Container list is available at the repository.

There are no restrictions regarding access to or use of this material.