Professional Ethics and Documentation
Core obligations
Practice only within your competence; disclose the limits of your analysis; identify and manage conflicts of interest; protect public health, safety, and the environment; hold client and site information in confidence; and report findings truthfully, including findings that are inconvenient to the client.
Common pressure points
- A client asks you to backdate an inspection or a signature. Refuse, and document the request and your response.
- A contractor asks you to sign off on work you did not observe. Sign only for work you performed or directly supervised.
- Someone asks you to soften a deficiency in a report. State observations as facts and opinions as opinions, labeled as such.
- A verbal instruction to change a BMP. Confirm it in writing before acting.
Reporting violations
Raise observed noncompliance with the operator or owner first, in writing, with a clear corrective-action request. Where the permit or law requires notification to the permitting authority - for example, a discharge that threatens waters - notify within the required timeframe. Silently ignoring a violation is a professional and legal exposure.
Documentation standards
Record contemporaneously: date, time, weather, location, who was present, what was observed. Correct errors with a single strike-through, initialed and dated - never erase, overwrite, or use correction fluid. Photographs should be dated and locatable by a recognizable reference. Retain records for the permit-specified period.
Rule of thumb
Write every field note as though it will be read aloud in a hearing three years from now - because it may be. If it is not written down, dated, and signed, it did not happen.