Lead Environmental Engineer

Colonial Group; Chester (VA); Hybrid; USD 105,000 - 158,000; Full time

Job summary

AdvanSix seeks an Environmental Leader to guide the Chesterfield, Virginia facility's environmental program. You will direct compliance across air, water, and waste programs, manage regulatory relationships, and align environmental strategy with site operations and capital projects.

The role requires multi-media expertise, strong communication with regulators, and leadership of the site's HSE team to protect the license to operate.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Environmental Science, Chemistry, or a related technical field.
• 7+ years of environmental compliance, permitting, or program management experience at an industrial facility.
• Minimum 5 years supporting industrial or manufacturing operations.
• Experience interacting with regulatory agencies on permitting, inspections, compliance matters, or enforcement-related activities.

Responsibilities

• Lead environmental compliance and permitting activities for the Chesterfield site, including CAA/CAA, CWA, RCRA, EPCRA, CERCLA, SPCC, Virginia AST requirements, and local rules.
• Provide overall leadership for air compliance and permitting.
• Oversee compliance with the facility’s VPDES permit and pretreatment permit; monitoring, reporting, and permit strategy.
• Manage the site industrial stormwater program, SWPPP, inspections, and regulatory reporting.
• Lead RC14001/Responsible Care compliance programs and internal audits.
• Develop regulatory strategies and ensure obligations are funded and implemented.
• Manage the environmental department budget and cross-functional coordination.
• Support emergency response, incident investigation, and lessons learned.

Skills

Environmental compliance

Regulatory engagement

Project management

Leadership

Education

Bachelor’s degree

Tools

Microsoft Office

Environmental data systems

Job description

Position Summary:

The Environmental Leader is responsible for leading the environmental function for the AdvanSix Chesterfield, Virginia manufacturing site, a large manufacturing facility with air, water, waste, emergency planning, and environmental management system obligations. This role provides strategic and day-to-day leadership for environmental compliance, permitting, regulatory engagement, environmental risk management, and continuous improvement across the site. The Environmental Leader reports directly to the Chesterfield HSE Manager. The role leads compliance programs for air permitting, VPDES and pretreatment water discharges, stormwater, RCRA waste, SPCC/AST requirements, and Responsible Care/RC14001 environmental management system elements. This position works closely with operations, engineering, maintenance, corporate HSE, consultants, and regulatory agencies to ensure compliance, support capital projects, and protect AdvanSix’s license to operate.

Duties and Responsibilities:

The Environmental Leader provides overall leadership, direction, and accountability for the site’s environmental programs, ensuring compliance with applicable federal, state, and local requirements while supporting safe, reliable, and compliant manufacturing operations. This role is responsible for leading environmental strategy, managing regulatory relationships, supporting capital and operational priorities, and driving continuous improvement in environmental performance across the Chesterfield site.

• Lead all environmental compliance and permitting activities for the Chesterfieldl site, including programs under the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, RCRA, EPCRA, CERCLA, SPCC, FRP, Virginia AST requirements, and applicable state and local requirements.
• Provide overall leadership for air compliance and permitting.
• Oversee compliance with the facility’s VPDES permit for direct discharges, including monitoring, reporting, permit strategy, permit renewals, and implementation of compliance plans.
• Oversee compliance with the industrial pretreatment permit for discharges to the POTW.
• Manage the site industrial stormwater program, including SWPPP implementation, inspections, sampling, corrective actions, employee awareness, and regulatory reporting.
• Provide overall leadership for site waste management, including RCRA regulated wastes, waste minimization, accumulation areas, inspections, contingency planning, contractor oversight, and disposal vendor performance.
• Lead EPCRA and CERCLA compliance programs, including Tier II, release reporting, emergency planning, and regulatory notifications.
• Manage SPCC Plan requirements and Virginia aboveground storage tank (AST) and oil discharge control plan compliance programs.
• Lead communication, negotiation, inspection support, enforcement response, and relationship management with federal, state, and local regulatory agencies.
• Develop and execute regulatory compliance strategies for emerging environmental requirements and ensure new or revised obligations are evaluated, communicated, funded, and implemented.
• Manage the environmental department budget, including consultants, contractors, sampling, monitoring, reporting, compliance projects, and other resources required to maintain compliance.
• Provide environmental guidance to site leadership on compliance risks, priorities, regulatory developments, and strategic decisions.
• Lead the on-site internal environmental audit program for functional compliance with AdvanSix environmental procedures and ensure timely corrective and preventive actions.
• Review capital projects, process changes, management of change activities, and maintenance projects for environmental permitting requirements, regulatory impacts, and internal HSE standards.
• Support environmental aspects of emergency response, incident investigation, root cause analysis, corrective action tracking, and lessons learned.
• Participate in periodic environmental on-call duty to provide weekend and after-hours coverage for environmental incidents, regulatory notifications, operational support, and emergency response needs.
• Implement and maintain applicable American Chemistry Council Responsible Care and RC14001 environmental management system elements, including planning, implementation, checking, corrective action, management review, and continual improvement.
• Establish environmental performance metrics, compliance assurance routines, management review materials, and reporting processes for site and corporate leadership.

Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Environmental Science, Chemistry, or a related technical field.
• Minimum of 7 years of environmental compliance, permitting, or environmental program management experience, including multi-media environmental compliance experience at an industrial facility.
• Minimum of 5 years of experience supporting industrial or manufacturing operations.
• Experience interacting with regulatory agencies on permitting, inspections, compliance matters, or enforcement-related activities.

Additional Qualifications:

• Strong working knowledge of federal and Virginia environmental regulations, including the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, RCRA, EPCRA, CERCLA, SPCC, Virginia AST requirements, and applicable Virginia DEQ programs.
• Demonstrated experience with air compliance and permitting, including NSR construction permitting, emissions inventories and deviation reporting.
• Experience with water compliance programs, including VPDES permit compliance, wastewater discharge monitoring, industrial pretreatment, stormwater and discharge monitoring reports.
• Experience with RCRA hazardous waste management, waste characterization, generator requirements, inspections, contingency planning, waste minimization, and waste vendor management.
• Understanding of EPCRA and CERCLA reporting obligations, including TRI, Tier II, release reporting, emergency release notification, agency follow-up, and emergency planning interfaces.
• Understanding of RC14001, Responsible Care, ISO 14001, or similar management system principles, including internal auditing, corrective action, management review, and continual improvement.
• Ability to interpret regulations, permits, enforcement documents, technical reports, and regulatory guidance and translate them into practical site compliance requirements and risk-based decisions.
• Strong project management and organizational skills, including the ability to manage multiple priorities, compliance deadlines, capital project interfaces, budgets, consultants, and cross-functional teams.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills, including the ability to prepare regulatory correspondence, executive summaries, compliance reports, and presentations and to build effective relationships with operations, engineering, maintenance, Corporate HSE, legal, consultants, regulators, and community stakeholders.
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office and environmental data, document management, or reporting systems is preferred.

Base Salary for this role is $104,600 - $158,000 annually.