In 2000, the City of Fort Worth (Village Creek Water Reclamation Facility) became one of the original twenty-one agencies across the United States to voluntarily participate as a demonstration agency in the National Biosolids Partnership (NBP) Environmental Management System (EMS) for biosolids programs.
Fort Worth made a commitment to the NBP to develop, implement and maintain an EMS for the Fort Worth Biosolids Program. In establishing a biosolids EMS, Fort Worth’s expectations were to continue advancing to the “next level” in biosolids performance and management. This would involve improving overall environmental performance, providing greater opportunities for public comment/involvement, and enhancing communication between divisions, employees, contractors and the public.
On July 20, 2005, the City of Fort Worth’s Village Creek Water Reclamation Facility became the seventh agency in the United States and first agency in Texas to obtain National Biosolids Partnership (NBP) EMS certification.
To obtain this biosolids EMS certification, the Fort Worth Biosolids Program underwent a thorough evaluation and audit of their EMS practices and processes. The EMS audit was conducted by both internal auditors and “EMS certified” third party auditors. One year later (July 2006), the Fort Worth Biosolids EMS Program successfully underwent internal and external audits and met requirements to maintain EMS certification and obtained the “EMS - Tier 4 Platinum Certification,” which represents “the highest achievement in biosolids management and environmental stewardship” recognized by the Water Environment Federation (WEF), National Association of Clean Water Agencies (NACWA), and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Since EMS certification was obtained, the biosolids EMS continues to be audited on an annual basis to maintain EMS certification.