Engineer, Principal Environmental

Come Join an Inclusive Team

Located in La Porte, TX, the role of Principal Environmental Engineer will be responsible for ensuring compliance with waste management regulations for a petrochemical manufacturing facility and ensuring that waste management best practices are implemented to support the needs of the manufacturing production units while enhancing value and efficiency to waste management practices. 

A Day in the Life

• Responsible for ensuring compliance with all EPA and TCEQ hazardous and non-hazardous waste regulations.
• Maintain and improve the management systems to ensure the proper classification, storage, transportation, disposal and recycling of waste.
• Ensure waste streams have available approved disposal outlets and identify alternatives when issues arise with outlets being unable to accept waste.
• Identify opportunities to reduce waste volumes generated, increase reuse or recycling of materials or reclassification of waste. 
• Continuously assess and champion opportunities to reduce the site’s cost for waste handling, storage, transportation and disposal.
• Review new technologies to handle and manage waste to ensure they are safe, compliant and add value.
• Contribute to or submit regulatory reports such as Annual Waste Summary, Toxic Release Inventory, Benzene Waste NESHAPS.
• Prepare and submit the waste portion of LYB Sustainability report for site.
• Develop relationships with key suppliers and vendors of waste management equipment and services to ensure competitive pricing and outstanding customer service is maintained.
• Provide guidance for spill cleanup activities and associated remediation efforts.
• Manage any soil and groundwater remediation efforts at the site.
• Partner with Environmental Unit Contacts (EUC) to identify waste management needs to support production units.
• Responsible for interaction with TCEQ or EPA personnel during agency investigations or inquiries related to waste or remediation issues.
• Manage consultants or contractors as needed for outsourced projects.
• Maintain robust electronic record keeping system that provides clear documentation of waste shipments including manifests, volumes and costs.
• Develop annual budget for waste disposal, transportation and management activities at the site. 
• Communicate regulatory requirements and compliance risks to unit personnel.
• Track waste spending, review invoices for accuracy and approve invoices for payment.
• Develop and maintain process to review capital projects and long range capital spending plan to identify potential impact to waste generation or management.
• Help develop the waste management matrix for major unit outages and turnarounds and supply budget estimates for turnaround for waste expense.
• Support the planning and procurement of temporary equipment needed for managing waste during turnarounds and major unit outages.
• Provide training, as needed, related to waste specific regulatory requirements.
• Serve in On-Call rotation for environmental release reporting.
• Represent the site in trade organizations and best practice groups.
• Identify, initiate and develop projects that improve environmental performance.
• Serve as backup to Environmental Unit Contact as needed by supporting specific areas of the plant in daily operations and compliance activities.
• Occasionally present HSE topics to new employees and others as needed. 

You Bring This Value

• Four year applicable Engineering or Science degree.
• Solid understanding of RCRA, waste management practices, and economics of waste management and disposal.
• Typically a minimum of 10 years of hands-on experience of supporting environmental regulatory compliance for chemical manufacturing or oil refining facilities with all or a portion of that managing a waste program.
• Demonstrated experience interacting with a regulatory agency.
• Ability to understand chemical processes and equipment along with a firm understanding of chemistry and math.

Additional Qualifications:

• Excellent written and oral communication skills with the ability to effectively communicate at all levels of the organization.
• Microsoft Suite skills with an emphasis in Excel. 
• Have the ability to organize and prioritize work, facilitate meetings, give presentations and have strong aptitude to utilize technology to bring efficiency to the compliance management systems.
• Must be able to manage projects by establishing long-range plans with interim milestones and identifying key stakeholders.
• Be able to foresee problems, identify proactive measures that can be taken and have the capability to plan and execute the work.
• Ability to use abstract thinking and creativity to develop solutions.
• Own decisions and outcomes.
• Must be able to work as part of a team.
• Provide exceptional customer service to internal and external customers.
• Occasional travel to Austin TX may be required for meeting with TCEQ.
• Must be able to work outside for extended periods of time and safely operate a motor vehicle.

Competencies