Since 2009, NEWMOA has been working with the Small Business Environmental Assistance Programs in the six US EPA Region 5 states (IL, IN, MI, MN, OH and WI) to develop and implement an Environmental Results Program (ERP) for autobody refinishing shops. The autobody sector was chosen because EPA issued an area source rule that affects the shops.

The Autobody ERP Initiative involves:

• Developing a common inspection checklist
• Randomly selecting a statistically valid number of facilities and conducting baseline visits at the selected shops
• Analyzing the results of the baseline visits to identify the areas where shops need additional assistance in understanding how to comply with state and federal rules
• Developing outreach materials, including a self-certification checklist, and performing outreach to shops
• Conducting following up inspections at another randomly selected set of shops after the compliance date (March 2011)
• Comparing facility performance before and after outreach to understand its effectiveness in raising compliance

The expected outcomes of the project are to:

• Illuminate the nature, scope, and seriousness of problems at autobody shops in the urban areas within US EPA Region 5
• Quantify environmental performance in the autobody refinishing sector and document changes resulting from outreach efforts
• Enable participating states and US EPA to better focus limited resources on specific problem areas and to achieve improvements in environmental results

Outreach and other materials are available at http://dnr.wi.gov/topic/compassist/sb/autobody.html.

For more information, contact Jennifer Griffith at .