Critigen

Sector: Government

Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality

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Background

The Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality administers the state’s environmental regulations that promote business while ensuring environmental stewardship. The state is home to several national treasures, including Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton National Park, and is also a major coal, natural gas, and energy producer.

Challenge

The Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality (WDEQ) continuously receives a large number of permit applications. This fact, combined with the time-consuming and thorough permit consideration process, resulted in a backlog of permits. Some environmental permits faced a multi-year waiting list for processing—an obvious roadblock to developing new energy sources in the western United States. 

Solution

WDEQ engaged Critigen to first define, streamline, and prioritize the existing inefficient permit approval process, and then, using this information, develop an information system that would help them quickly and efficiently process permit applications.

To ensure WDEQ’s thorough understanding and complete adoption of the new system, Critigen approached the project in phases. They began by seeking input from end-user focus groups. They then used this information to develop an agency-wide database and integrate it with Wyoming’s existing e-business portal, thereby maximizing efficiency through automated and integrated processes. They are also automating management of the permitting process, and providing reviewing engineers with improved tools to streamline the approval process.

Result

Benefits of the new system include:

• Increased efficiency for permit applicants through single login access to Department of Environmental Quality programs.
• Online permit application processing, including an electronic signature mechanism that complies with EPA’s Cross-Media Electronic Reporting Regulation (CROMERR).
• Ability to synchronize the agency’s data with the EPA’s Central Data Exchange.
• Improved emergency response with the ability to report hazardous spills using an online portal.
• Combine disparate program-specific GIS data into a central agency-wide GIS, and integrate GIS queries with the permitting process.
• Ability for staff to quickly and easily prioritize approval processes using intranet portal worklists.
• Ability for permit submitters to access the real-time status of their applications. This will reduce the administrative burden of responding to status inquiries and free staff time to focus on processing applications.
• An exponential increase in cross-program communication.
• Reduced permit processing time.

The outcome of these benefits anticipates a significant labor savings (through cost avoidance) at full implementation from automation, an increase of WY revenues from energy production which will have a significant benefit to the WY budget, with full environmental review/approval and an average permit processing time reduced from multiple years to multiple months. A political balance is also achieved between the increased energy production and continued focus on protecting the environment.