ISO 14001 Certification

Protecting and improving the environment—particularly our water resources—is an important part of our mission.

In order to effectively manage the impact of our services on the environment, we subscribed to a voluntary standard created by the International Organization for Standardization, or ISO.

About ISO 14001

In 1999, we became the first public water or wastewater utility in the nation to become certified under the ISO 14001 standard for environmental management. This certification requires the implementation of an Environmental Management System, or EMS, which is a set of standards that provide a framework for how to identify and control environmental impacts, both positive and negative.

Our commitment to ISO 14001 ensures that our customers receive safe and reliable water and sewer services. The focus of ISO 14001 is to ensure that all processes related to the environment are identified, managed, and reviewed on a routine basis.

Email us for more info about our EMS program.


Benefits

Our EMS provides a framework for managing everything from standard operating procedures to record-keeping. 

Implementation of the ISO 14001 standard helps:


  • Prevent pollution and improves the environment.
  • Demonstrates compliance with current and future statutory and regulatory requirements.
  • Minimizes operations that adversely affect the environment.
  • Increases cost effectiveness and competitiveness.
  • Promotes technological advances.
  • Affirms our commitment to environmental protection to our stakeholders.

Objectives of our commitment:

  • Treatment and distribution of high quality drinking water.
  • Collection, transportation, and treatment of wastewater.
  • Provide for an abundant water supply for our customers and fire protection.
  • Communication of the impact our activities, products and services on the environment to our associates, contractors working for us, and our customers.
  • Compliance with applicable federal, state, local laws, regulations, statutes and other environmentally related requirements to which we subscribe.
  • Continual environmental improvement and prevention of pollution.
  • Documentation of required elements of our EMS Program.

Environmental Aspects

A key part of an Environmental Management System is identifying and then managing the impacts our operations have on the environment. These impacts are called aspects, and they include everything from the disposal of paper waste to the proper use of water treatment chemicals.

While we manage many environmental aspects, some have a greater potential for substantially impacting the environment, and these are called significant aspects.

We evaluate our environmental aspects annually. This helps ensure we have adequate control methods to prevent adverse impacts to the environment.

Our current environmental aspects are listed below. For more information about our environmental aspects or our EMS program contact the Executive Office at (843) 727-6856 or info@charlestoncpw.com.

2024 Significant Environmental Aspects

ERD
•    Influent Pumping  Associated Valves & Piping; Influent Wastewater Pumps
•    Suspended Growth   Aeration Basins; Air Filters; Aeration Blowers; Air Diffusers & Associated Piping; Aeration Controls and instrumentation; RAS Pumps Valves & Piping; Aeration Inlet Channel Mixing
•    Source Water    Service to Outside Communities: Retail and Wholesale; Industrial Wastewater; Category Waste
•    Stormwater Outfalls-Outfall Monitoring
•    Secondary Clarification   Final Settling Basins; Collector System
•    Effluent - Eff. Flume, Eff. Pump Station, Outfall piping & diffusers.
•    Storm Water Outfalls - Outfall Monitoring
•    Disinfection   Sodium Hypochlorite Tanks/ Piping; Chemical Loop Pumps; Chemical Feed Pumps; Mixing Equipment; Effluent Discharge Instrumentation
•    Electrical Distribution/Generators - Electrical Equipment; Emergency Power; Diesel Fuel Usage and Storage
•    Solids Dewatering   Waste Pumps, Sludge Thickeners; Sludge Feed Pumps; De-watering Equipment; Polymer Systems; Odors: Scrubbers, Chemical Addition

HWTP
•    NPDES Discharge
•    Chemical Usage and Application (Chemical feed systems and piping to point of application)
•    Chlorine and Ammonia Use and Storage

WWCD
•    Conveyance of Wastewater through the Collection System
•    System Integrity (i.e., tunnels, forcemains, interceptors, collector mains, & wetwells) including storm water cross connects


Compliance Obligations

To ensure water quality and environmental protection, we must comply with federal, state, and local laws. In addition to these requirements, we subscribe to a number of voluntary standards and practices to provide service of a higher quality than required by law. We adhere to these compliance obligations and keep track of them through our Environmental Management System (EMS).


Wastewater effluent is primarily regulated by the federal Clean Water Act and the South Carolina Pollution Control Act, which prohibit the discharge of any pollutant into a body of water without a permit from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) or the SC Department of Health and Environmental Control (SCDHEC).

The federal Safe Drinking Water Act and the South Carolina Safe Drinking Water Act regulate the quality of tap water and control pollution of groundwater sources.  We not only meet all regulations set forth by these laws and regulations, but in many cases we exceed the set standards.

More info: email or (843) 727-6856.