The Environmental Protection Specialist is responsible for specific regulatory compliance programs, including maintenance of plans and permits, regulatory reporting, and issue tracking. Generally, work is auxiliary to higher grade environmental personnel. The GEMS coordinator has overall program management activity oversite. This position is located at the Marion, Indiana VA Medical Center.

Duties

Environmental Protection Specialists plays a critical role in planning and administering environmental programs. Environmental Protection programs deals with all environmental impacts of human activities on the air, land, water, and other media. Environmental Protection programs are designed to ensure compliance with federal, state and local laws for water quality, storage of regulated substances (e.g. petroleum products, chemicals, and wastes), among other areas, and to alleviate the adverse impacts of human activities on the environment. Environmental Protection specialists supports the VA's Green Environmental Management System (GEMS) implementation and applies specialized knowledge of one or more programs or functional area of environmental protection work, but does not require full professional competence in environmental engineering or science. Major Duties: Coordinates the efforts of staff involved with the GEMS program to ensure that the program is developed and implemented in accordance with VHA and VA medical center policy and guidance. Ensures that GEMS findings, conclusions, and inspection results lead to continual improvement of environmental programs. Assists in the development of facility wide goals and policies. Participates in the national-level GEMS committees, as well as liaising with other inspectors/surveyors. Leads site inspections at a variety of sites, hazardous waste disposal sites, transport locations, or storage areas where the problems may not be easily identified or conventional in nature. Evaluates work practices, determines compliance with applicable laws and regulations, and develops changes to control or eliminate potential or existing hazards or violations. Investigates routine violations of all environmental laws and prepares abatement actions and reports. Facilitates the interaction of complex relationships between human health, ecosystems, environmental, medical, and natural resource programs to meet federal and state mandated guidelines. Gathers and examines evidence of violations; prepares warning letters, complaints, administrative orders, etc. and assembles case files for civil and criminal actions. Provides a technical review of every construction and renovation project, significant maintenance, and repair work planned for the facilities. Leads internal audits of the environmental compliance programs. Develops and implements custom facility and service specific environmental policies, procedures and systems. Promotion Potential: The selectee may be promoted to the full performance level without further competition when all regulatory, qualification, and performance requirements are met. Selection at a lower grade level does not guarantee promotion to the full performance level. Work Schedule: Monday - Friday, 7:00 am - 3:30 pm(Subject to change depending on the needs of the agency). Virtual: This is not a virtual position. Position Description/PD#: Environmental Protection Specialist/PD00161-0 and PD00162-0 Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: Not Authorized Critical Skills Incentive (CSI): Not Approved Permanent Change of Station (PCS): Not Authorized Financial Disclosure Report: Not required

Requirements

Qualifications

To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 12/21/2023. Time-In-Grade Requirement: Applicants who are current Federal employees and have held a GS grade any time in the past 52 weeks must also meet time-in-grade requirements by the closing date of this announcement. For a GS-07 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-05. The grade may have been in any occupation, but must have been held in the Federal service. An SF-50 that shows your time-in-grade eligibility must be submitted with your application materials. If the most recent SF-50 has an effective date within the past year, it may not clearly demonstrate you possess one-year time-in-grade, as required by the announcement. In this instance, you must provide an additional SF-50 that clearly demonstrates one-year time-in-grade. Note: Time-In-Grade requirements also apply to former Federal employees applying for reinstatement as well as current employees applying for Veterans Employment Opportunities Act of 1998 (VEOA) appointment. Time-In-Grade Requirement: Applicants who are current Federal employees and have held a GS grade any time in the past 52 weeks must also meet time-in-grade requirements by the closing date of this announcement. For a GS-7 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-5.For a GS-9 position you must have served 52 weeks at the GS-7. You may qualify based on your experience and/or education as described below: To qualify for this position at the GS-7 level, you meet one of the following: Specialized Experience: You must have at least one (1) year of specialized experience equivalent to the GS-5 grade level in federal service that demonstrates Examples of specialized experience would typically include, but are not limited to: an understanding of environment laws and regulations, practical knowledge of environ environmental science and related disciplines. Such experience may be gained in administrative, professional, technical or other responsible work positions in the public (i.e., Government or military) or private sector. OR, Education: Applicants may substitute education for the required experience. To qualify based on education for this grade level you must have Successful completion of one full year of graduate level education or Superior Academic Achievement (S.A.A.). The S.A.A. provision is an educational achievement based on class standing, grade-point average or honor society membership. Such education must demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to do the work of this position. OR, Combination: Applicants may also combine education and experience to qualify at this level. You must have an combination of specialized experience and education (beyond a bachelors degree) and specialized experience, as described above, to meet the total requirements. The education portion must include graduate courses that demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to do to the work of this position. To qualify for this position at the GS-9 level, you must meet one of the following: Specialized Experience: You must have at least one (1) year of specialized experience equivalent to the GS-7 grade level in federal service that demonstrates HR management knowledge, concepts and principles and the performance of work in one or more of the specialty areas. Such experience may be gained in administrative, professional, technical or other responsible work positions in the public (i.e., Government or military) or private sector. Qualifying specialized experience includes: knowledge of how to plan, organize, implement, and evaluate environmental programs, specialized knowledge and a deep understanding of environmental laws, and/or regulations for one or more program areas to assist the facility in meeting compliance requirements. OR Education: Successful completion of a Master's or equivalent graduate degree, two full years of progressively higher- level graduate education leading to such a degree, or LL.B. or J.D., if related. Such education must demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to do the work of this position. OR Combination: Combinations of successfully completed graduate level education (beyond the first year) and specialized experience, as described above, to meet the total requirements. The education portion must include graduate courses that demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to do to the work of this position. You will be rated on the following Competencies for this position: You will be rated on the following Competencies for this position: CommunicationsCreative ThinkingPlanning and EvaluatingProblem SolvingReasoningWriting Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religions; spiritual; community; student; social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience. Note: A full year of work is considered to be 35-40 hours of work per week. Part-time experience will be credited on the basis of time actually spent in appropriate activities. Applicants wishing to receive credit for such experience must indicate clearly the nature of their duties and responsibilities in each position and the number of hours a week spent in such employment. Physical Requirements: There will be walking, climbing, bending, stooping and lifting up to 50 pounds when at field locations or conducting inspections or environmental sampling. On occasion, the work requires the employee to wear various form of Personal Protective Equipment to include respirators. Incumbent must remain physically fit to perform all assigned duties. Employee must maintain a valid drives license for the operation of government vehicles. For more information on these qualification standards, please visit the United States Office of Personnel Management's website at https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-qualifications/general-schedule-qualification-standards/.

Education

A transcript must be submitted with your application if you are basing all or part of your qualifications on education.

Note: Only education or degrees recognized by the U.S. Department of Education from accredited colleges, universities, schools, or institutions may be used to qualify for Federal employment. You can verify your education here: http://ope.ed.gov/accreditation/. If you are using foreign education to meet qualification requirements, you must send a Certificate of Foreign Equivalency with your transcript in order to receive credit for that education. For further information, visit: http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ous/international/usnei/us/edlite-visitus-forrecog.html.

Contacts

• Address Northern Indiana HCS 1700 East 38th Street Marion, IN 46953 US
• Name: Jessica Creal
• Phone: 8325160096
• Email: [email protected]