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Utah's Environment: 2011:
Message from the Executive Director
The Utah Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has, since 2006, taken this opportunity to highlight our environmental achievements over the past year in an annual State of the Environment Report. Each year the report updates the most current information on the amount of pollution released to Utah's environment, and it showcases our environmental achievements.
This report is no different in that regard. But this year—2011—marks a milestone for a number of reasons.
It was 20 years ago that DEQ was officially established as an agency with the mission of "safeguarding human health and quality of life by protecting and enhancing the environment." And each year since that time, DEQ's six Divisions have made significant progress toward protecting and enhancing Utah's Air, Land, and Water. While much progress has been made, there remain issues that still need our vigilance, such as improving air quality in the Uintah Basin.
Given the importance of energy to Utah's economy and environment, energy is afforded its own section in this report. In 2011 the Utah Legislature created the Utah Office of Energy Development. Additionally, Energy is one of Governor Gary Herbert's four cornerstones of his administration policy. While the Office of Energy Development is an independent office, I proudly serve dual roles as the governor's Energy Advisor and Executive Director of DEQ.
As the statistics in this annual report indicate, Utah's environment continues to improve. Finding ways to work more efficiently and produce better results is difficult but critical to businesses and industries subject to DEQ oversight. It is also critical to enhancing the quality of Utah's environment.
Again in 2011, DEQ invited the public and stakeholders to take a critical look at how we do business. Allowing full review of our administrative process—a look at how information is gathered, analyzed, and decisions formed. This is a process of openly and honestly evaluating how we can improve upon our mission of safeguarding and enhancing Utah's environment.
DEQ did this through the guidance of Business Consultant Steve Avery, who taught us to utilize "Lean Six Sigma" improvement methods, a premier management strategy that is gaining national momentum. It enables government agencies, like DEQ, to work more effectively and efficiently by first dissecting past practices and then examining new ways to improve those practices.
And we also listened to what you had to say.
In the Divisions of Air Quality (DAQ) and Radiation Control (DRC), we've found better ways to review permits, encouraging the public to participate early and often while giving business and industry assurances that we will act in a timely manner, and that, in the end, the process will produce a permit that best protects public health and the environment. In the Office of Finance and the Division of Environmental Response and Remediation (DERR) we are working to implement improvement processes that will result in increased efficiencies in our budgeting and business transactions and a more coordinated emergency response.
The State of the Environment Report for 2011 cannot yet measure the effectiveness of our new management approach. But the report is a reflection of what we have learned and how we have grown over the past two decades.
Our mission remains resolute: We will safeguard human health and quality of life and we will protect and enhance Utah's environment. This annual report provides you, the public and interested stakeholders, with the data to show we are in fact doing that.
- Utah's Report on the Environment: 2011 (Full Printable Version)
Past Reports
Utah's Report on the Environment (Full Printable Versions):
Comments
Send comments or questions to Donna Spangler.
