On March 7, 2014 the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) held a meeting with representatives from the wastewater community. Attendees represented Operator Associations and training providers.
Many topics were discussed regarding the goals IDEM has set for to be completed in 2014 and how to accomplish those goals with the assistance of operators throughout the state.
In the future many aspects of the Operator Certification Exam will be discussed, but at this time the main goal is to receive feedback regarding proposed changes to the test sites, the way it is taken as well as the cost. The proposed changes are:
- Instead of only providing 2 Operator Exam test dates and limited locations, there would be 24 locations throughout the state of Indiana available for testing. These testing sites are at IVY Tech testing facilities.
- Testing will be available at any time throughout the year including testing on Saturdays. The exact procedure has not be worked out, but the proposed scenario would be:
- The applicant completes the application, sends it to IDEM with the $30 application fee
- The Wastewater Certification Coordinator would review the application and if approved would send a letter of approval with the instructions as to the testing sites available as well as other pertinent information
- The applicant would contact the IVY Tech Testing site of their choice, make an appointment with IVY Tech for their exam
- When their date and time come the applicant takes the letter of approval and a photo ID to be presented to the test technician
- Within a yet to be determined amount of days following the test the applicant (if passed) will receive their license via mail.
- The tests would be computer generated and the questions would be randomly chosen by the computer programs from the questions provided by IDEM. Each category on the study key will be represented in the percent listed.
- Not only will the pass/fail results be available immediately following the test, but a rate will be available at the same time.
- It has not be decided how often an applicant can retest before they have to receive additional training or how long between tests an applicant has to wait to reapply.
- The final proposed change is an additional fee of $45 to the test site (the payment method has not been decided). However, this could well offset the cost of travel costs associated with traveling to distant existing sites used today.
- IDEM is hoping to have these changes and with the final blanks filled in for the fall test session.
IDEM is asking for your assistance in getting the word out and getting feedback to their proposed changes. Contact Wastewater 101 with your feed back so we can get the information to the correct parties. Do you think it is a good thing? Is there any downside? Let your voice be heard.