Update on Environmental Regulations for Photochemical Machining

Government regulations affecting PCMI members continue to increase. The increase is not so much from the enactment of new legislation but from broader interpretation of existing legislation by the regulatory agencies and by stricter enforcement of current laws. This is occurring because the regulatory agencies have now had the time to better understand the laws and have had time to learn the ways of industry more than in the past. For example, in the past, regulatory agencies had no idea how chemical precipitation is used in aqueous treatment. Now some government inspectors can advise industrial plant operators that perhaps their filter press cloths need changing or that an end-of pipe sand filter might be a good idea to meet their discharge limits. Now an inspector, who five years ago had never been in a circuit shop or PCM plant, has seen many and is able to identify the different machines and chemicals used in a plant. As a result, he can spot violations that may have gone unnoticed in the past.