Our small, nimble, handsome (and extremely humble) content team recently returned from a marketing seminar, where we had to take a hard look at our messaging. And we realized something:
We haven’t been totally honest with you.
For years, we’ve focused on telling you all the good stuff about hiring an environmental consultant. How we can make issues go away, get those pesky permits for you, or handle the annoying (and confusing) paperwork you just don't want to tackle. That’s how we’ve stayed in business for over 30 years!
But if we’re being real, we're biased. Of course we want you to hire us (again and again). The reality is, when it comes to environmental (or any type of) consulting, and it’s not always a sunshine-and-rainbows situation. Sometimes, things go wrong. Sometimes, people are disappointed. And sometimes, you regret hiring a consultant in the first place.
So here we are (nervously) publishing the kind of article most consulting firms would never touch with a ten-foot pole. This is a long read, but it’s the read you deserve. We’re laying it all out: the problems, the miscommunications, the frustrating red tape, all the moments where things don’t go as planned with a consultant, and how to deal with it. Because if you can’t trust us to be real with you here, then we haven’t earned your business anyway.
And with that, here it is: every reason (that we can think of, have heard of, and in some examples, from experience) why hiring an environmental consultant (yes, even like us) might not be the right decision for you or your organization.
Consultants are just people. And not everyone’s personalities mesh. You might tolerate your coworkers, but love your neighbors at home. Or vice versa! Point is, maybe your consultant’s style doesn’t jive with yours. They’re a little rude. They joke too much. They don't joke enough.
You. Just. Don’t. Click.
By the time you realize it, it might be too late: you’re already deep into a project, or worse, locked into a long-term agreement.
Over the years at RMA, we’ve had clients come and go, and we don’t always know why someone chooses to end a partnership with us. It’s certainly possible that they just didn't like our style or our personalities. And while nobody’s ever told us that directly, we’re not naive. It happens. Different strokes for different folks.
Yes, this can happen. And yeah, it sucks. We've been there, and it's a defeating moment.
Sometimes the regulatory agency (government) and the client (you) hit an impasse. Here's an example: maybe the state wants you to upgrade your equipment before approving your air permit, and you just can’t swing it financially. That can lead to a permit denial, and we don’t realize that’s how it’s going to play out until we’re already deep into the process. If we would have seen this coming, we'd have warned you, but it's too late. The damage is done, the time is wasted, the money is spent.
Other times, we can apply for your permit or approval... but it just… sits there. Stuck in review. Sometimes for months. Sometimes for years.
This is exactly what’s happening right now with NJPDES stormwater permits in New Jersey. It’s a disaster. We have applications we submitted years ago that are still tied up in red tape. Emails and phone calls go unanswered by the agency. No one seems to know what’s going on. And yeah, we feel pretty crummy that someone paid us to get them something that’s still not resolved, especially since there's nothing we can do about it.
Now, at least these clients have some coverage under the “permit application shield” while it’s pending (if someone comes out and inspects you, you can say “we applied and we’re waiting on YOU!”), but still. Not ideal. It makes us look bad, you get mad, it's a lose-lose.
And this isn't addressing the consultants who will yes you to death, knowing full well that the permit, plan, or approval you need, could be impossible to get - and yes, we see and hear about this all too often!
This one hurts. Because you paid for something that just doesn’t feel right.
Maybe your SPCC Plan or SWPPP feels like something you could’ve made yourself. Or it’s confusing, overly technical, or clearly a low-effort copy-paste job. We’ve seen plenty of underwhelming environmental documents over the years, sitting on dusty shelves in facilities we’ve visited.
Or, and this is a big one, your consultant provides a hard copy, but refuses to give you a digital copy of your document. Instead, they keep it under lock and key, holding you hostage for future updates, regardless of how small and minute the changes are.
That’s been a dirty little secret industry norm for a long time. And we’ll be honest... in earlier years, we were guilty of it too. It stings to even admit. But we’ve snapped out of it.
You deserve a clear, professional, high-quality document that you can actually use. One that’s yours, in both physical and digital formats. If you need help with a technical revision someday, we hope you’ll come back. But you shouldn’t have to rely on us just to update a phone number in your plan.
This one’s a common concern. And it’s valid.
You’ve been flying under the radar for years. Then you finally submit a Tier II report. Or apply for an NPDES permit. And suddenly - bam! You’re getting inspections out of nowhere. You’ve introduced yourself to a system that never even knew you existed!
Devil's advocate here: it’s like paying your taxes for the first time and then being mad that the IRS now expects you to do it again next year. Yeah, you’re gonna have to do it moving forward. And if you suddenly stop doing it, expect someone to come knocking to find out why.
If this idea freaks you out, maybe, just maybe, you should close this tab right now and clear your browser history before anyone finds out you were thinking about doing things the right way. (Just kidding. Sort of.)
Here’s another side to that last point: you get a new permit or plan, and now you’ve got new responsibilities.
You might need to collect stormwater samples, do monthly SPCC inspections, keep better records, train your team, you name it. That’s the tradeoff. In order to run your business, do what you need to do, and stay in compliance with the regulations that you can't avoid, you will have tasks to do moving forward, forever.
It’s like getting your driver’s license and realizing you now need insurance, have to register your car, keep a copy in the glove box, renew your license every so many years... It’s just part of doing things legally. Sure you can drive without any of that stuff, but if you get caught or cause an accident, don't expect any leniency!
If you want to keep doing things the way you always have, with minimal accountability and maximum risk, that’s your call.
The truth? It’s possible. You would have gotten away with it too if it wasn't for those meddling kids! Any Scooby Doo fans out there? No? Anyways...
You could hire a consultant, get fully into compliance, spend a bunch of money, and realize that, realistically, you might’ve gotten away with doing nothing.
There are businesses operating without permits, plans, or approvals right now, and have been for decades, who’ve never been caught! We’ve seen it more times than we can count! Enforcement can be lax. Regulators are stretched thin. And yeah, it can feel like an opportunity to skip the rules.
But it’s also a gamble. If you do get caught - and especially if it’s clear you knew you weren’t in compliance, or even worse, your non-compliance caused a spill, leak, accident, or other serious problem - the consequences can be severe. We’re talking six to seven-figure fines, business shutdowns, and even criminal charges in certain cases.
We have clients who have staff members which have been the subject of criminal prosecution for serious non-compliance issues. It's rare, but we know people who went through the ringer for lying, ignoring regs, or knowingly doing illegal activities. It's not worth it. Compliance can be a headache, but it's not worth starting a rap sheet over.
This is one of the most frustrating (and frankly terrifying) things that can happen. You hire someone to help you stay compliant, maybe even to give you peace of mind. But then an inspector shows up, asks to see your plan or your environmental training program documentation, and lets you know it’s not up to snuff. Or maybe your consultant got sidetracked and forgot to submit your TRI report on time. Now you’re the one in trouble, even though you paid someone else to make sure you wouldn’t be.
The worst part is, the consultant might not even be on the hook for it. They may have technically completed their scope of work, or they might argue it’s a matter of interpretation. But from your side of the table, it doesn’t really matter. You’re the one being cited. You’re the one required to conduct corrective actions. You’re the one potentially paying fines, or worse.
This can happen if your consultant doesn’t fully understand the nuances of the rule, doesn’t tailor the work to your specific operation, takes shortcuts, or maybe is outside of their area of expertise because they tried to yes you to death. It can also happen if they weren’t clear with you about best practices and your responsibilities after they leave, like if they didn’t tell you that sampling snow melt can lead to bad results, or how often you need to conduct environmental training.
Sometimes, it turns out your situation was way simpler than you thought, and you didn’t need to hire anyone at all. We’ve seen plenty of small facilities panic and reach out because they got a scary-looking letter or heard about some environmental rule, and next thing you know they’ve got a consultant preparing a 30-page report… just for a single simple AST registration with a local fire department (who's usually pretty friendly and easy to work with, from experience)!
And hey, we get it. Regulations can be confusing, and if you’re not sure what you need, it’s natural to ask for help. But if you’ve got someone in-house who’s reasonably knowledgeable, or if your requirements are truly minimal, there’s a chance you could just knock it out yourself.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of “better safe than sorry,” but that can lead to overpaying for services you didn’t need. And while most good consultants will tell you if something’s truly not worth their involvement… not all of them do. We've seen too many reports, plans, or approvals that are overkill for an operation.
Think of it this way - would you hire a construction crew to hang a painting? Probably not! Even if you weren't good with a hammer, try one of those sticky 3M strips. Conversely if you're putting on an addition, maybe you should call the experts...
The time and expense (or hourly) model, as opposed to a lump sum, is super common in consulting, even we use it from time to time. They both have their advantages and drawbacks.
And with the T&E model it probably sounds reasonable to you at first: just pay for the time your consultant spends working on your stuff. But that can get out of hand fast. Maybe there’s no clear scope. Maybe the consultant keeps “needing” to hop on another quick call, or drive out to your site for the third time this month, or they're just working too slow.
Before you know it, the project that was supposed to be $5,000 is creeping up to $9,000… and it’s not even finished. You’re caught between wanting to finish what you started, and not wanting to throw more money at something that feels like a bottomless pit.
This is a huge reason why some companies avoid consultants altogether, they’re afraid of the never-ending invoice. And frankly, sometimes that fear is justified.
Similarly to that last one, some consultants charge for every single touchpoint: emails, quick chats, random questions, even reviewing something you sent over just to “double check.” And again, technically, that’s fair if you’re operating under an hourly model.
But it can also create a dynamic where you’re afraid to ask questions. You might hesitate to call your consultant because you don’t want to get billed for another 15 minutes just to clarify something small. And that kind of relationship just doesn’t work in the long run.
Consulting is supposed to make your life easier, not give you anxiety every time you think about picking up the phone or sending an email.
Sometimes the problem isn’t paperwork. It’s people.
You bring in a consultant to quietly help with an issue. You assume it’ll be a discreet, under-the-radar fix. But next thing you know, a competitor makes a weirdly specific comment. Or your supplier casually mentions hearing something “through the industry grapevine.” Maybe you see your facility on some consultant's social media feeds, with your logo and a "here's what not to do" title underneath it.
Here’s the ugly truth: some consultants talk. Some don't understand privacy or confidentiality.
They vent to colleagues. They name-drop at conferences. They complain about “a client we’re working with” in earshot of the wrong people. Even if they don’t mean harm, they don’t always think about keeping things under wraps the way you would like them to. And once your situation becomes consultant gossip, it can spread fast.
At RMA, we can genuinely say we never disclose who we're working with or why. Not at conferences, not online, not in passing. When you talk to us, our conversations are confidential. But not everyone holds that same line.
This one is a classic. You hire someone, they get started, and then… it just kind of stalls. Maybe they’re juggling too many clients. Maybe they underestimated how long it would take. Maybe there are regulatory delays (fair and usually outside the consultant's control), but they’re not telling you what’s going on (not fair).
In any case, you’re left wondering if anything’s actually happening. Your project that was supposed to be “wrapped up in a couple weeks” is now stretching into month three, and every time you check in, you get vague updates.
Sure, environmental work isn’t always fast, but radio silence, shifting timelines, or just a general lack of momentum can be incredibly frustrating when you’re trying to meet deadlines or respond to regulators. It's important to understand the speed at which work can be accomplished, the time a government may take to respond, and how that stacks up compared to your expectations.
Some firms take on too much. It happens. But when that starts impacting your project, that’s when it becomes a problem. You might find that your emails take days to get answered, or your calls get pushed, or meetings keep getting rescheduled.
Worse, you might get the sense that you’ve been moved to the “back burner” in favor of larger or higher-paying clients. Even if that’s not intentional, it still feels like you’re being neglected.
And if you’re relying on this consultant to help you stay out of trouble or to meet a compliance deadline, that delay can quickly turn into a real issue.
Clear communication is key in any working relationship, and consulting is no exception. You need to know what’s happening, what your responsibilities are, and when things are due.
If your consultant is vague, overly technical, or just plain hard to reach, it can leave you in the dark. You might start missing important follow-ups or failing to complete parts of your project because you didn’t know you were supposed to. It could even be simpler - maybe they love talking on the phone, but you're busy and prefer email!
Even worse, some consultants just assume you already know everything they know. Or they think you're taking this environmental stuff super seriously, when in fact you just want it handled and dealt with, and don't care about the details. That can lead to situations where they finish a project and you’re left holding a report or plan you don’t understand and don’t know what to do with. Maybe you've received the results of your environmental audit, but it's like reading a different language. That’s not helpful, it’s just confusing.
Ah, the dreaded buyer’s remorse. This one stings, especially if you paid a premium expecting top-tier service and then realized someone else could’ve done the same thing for less money, and possibly just as well.
It’s frustrating, but it happens. Sometimes it’s because pricing in this industry is all over the place. Sometimes it’s because consultants over-scope or over-promise. Sometimes it's because you hired a Rolls Royce firm for a Honda problem. And sometimes... you just get taken advantage of.
The important thing is to understand exactly what you’re paying for and whether the price reflects the value. If it doesn’t, you’re right to be annoyed. At RMA, we try to be transparent about our pricing. And we'll be the first to tell you that we're not always the cheapest option on the market, because the lowest bidder usually also means the lowest quality work.
Maybe you signed a multi-year contract. Maybe you paid up front. Maybe you’re halfway through a permitting process and switching horses midstream would cause a mess.
Whatever the reason, you’re locked in… and now realizing it’s not the relationship you thought it was going to be. That’s a bad feeling.
You don’t want to spend the next six months (or longer) dreading every interaction, hoping your consultant finally delivers, or trying to find ways to fix the situation without starting from scratch.
And the other side of the coin - this one’s kind of funny, but also a little serious. In some cases, consultants become so embedded in your operations that you don’t know how to function without them. They’re managing your reports, training your people, writing your plans, talking to your regulators… and when they’re gone (or busy, or on vacation), you’re stuck.
That kind of dependency might feel like good service at first, but it can backfire when you realize you don’t have the in-house knowledge to take care of anything yourself.
It’s always smart to retain some internal awareness of what your consultant is doing, even if you trust them completely.
Look, just because someone calls themselves a consultant doesn’t mean they’re great at their job. Maybe they don't know your industry. Maybe they’re disorganized. Maybe they were a great consultant 20 years ago, but it's time to retire. Maybe they rely too heavily on junior staff or outsource important work to someone cheaper and less experienced.
Whatever the reason, the result is the same: you end up with something that just doesn’t cut it. The document looks slapped together. The advice seems half-baked. They don’t know the regulations as well as they should, or they miss key deadlines, or they disappear for weeks at a time with no communication.
This can leave you feeling like you’re babysitting the person you hired to take things off your plate. And in the worst-case scenario, it can leave you more vulnerable than before you hired them.
Credentials and fancy presentations only go so far. If someone’s not putting in the work to truly understand your site, stay on top of your deadlines, or deliver real value, you’re not getting what you paid for.
Let’s say your consultant does exactly what they said they would. They check every box in the scope of work. They meet every deliverable. But when it’s all said and done… you’re completely lost.
You’re left holding a technical document you don’t understand, or in a program you don’t know how to run, with no clue what to do next. You have no idea how to implement the plan, how to maintain it, or how to stay in compliance moving forward.
Unfortunately, this happens more than it should. Some consultants focus so hard on meeting the contract requirements that they forget there’s a real human being on the other side who might need a little help making sense of it all once the project wraps up.
A plan, permit, or environmental training is only valuable if you know how to use it. If you’re stuck Googling acronyms and trying to reverse-engineer what your consultant was thinking, something went wrong.
Let’s be honest: the environmental world is full of gray areas. There are a lot of “maybes” and “shoulds” when it comes to compliance, and that can open the door for consultants to recommend services that aren’t totally necessary.
Maybe you get quoted for a full suite of plans when all you really needed was one. Maybe you’re offered recurring services for something that barely changes year to year. Or maybe you’re nudged toward upgrading to custom environmental training when you'd be fine with the standard off-the-shelf option.
Sometimes these add-ons come from a place of good intentions, trying to keep you extra safe or ahead of the curve. But other times, it’s just upselling. And unless you’re really tuned in to the regs, it can be tough to tell the difference.
If you start to feel like every conversation leads to a new invoice, it’s worth taking a step back and asking: what’s actually required, and what’s just padding the bill?
There are some consultants out there who still do everything on paper. Who use fax machines. Who email you Word docs that haven’t been spell-checked and ask you to “Pleas ;print, sign and, mail back Thansk!.” Great.
If you’re used to working in the cloud, sharing links instead of attachments, and managing projects in digital dashboards, this can be a tough pill to swallow.
And it’s not just about convenience, it’s also about how information flows. If your consultant’s methods slow you down, add friction, or make collaboration harder, it can affect the whole project.
This isn’t to say old-school is automatically bad. Sometimes experience and deep regulatory knowledge come with it. But if their tech habits make your life harder, it might not be the right fit.
On the flip side, maybe you’re the one who prefers to print things out. Maybe you like phone calls over video meetings, or hard copies over digital signatures. Maybe your facility doesn’t know how to manage shared drives or project management platforms.
If your consultant is too “new school,” they might unintentionally leave you in the dust. They assume you know how to use their software. They send links to interactive online training instead of simple powerpoints, or they expect you to handle your side of the work in platforms you’ve never even seen before.
And suddenly, what should have been a simple compliance task becomes a tech headache. If they don’t take the time to meet you where you are, or don’t realize your systems just work differently, it can create unnecessary stress and confusion.
It’s all about compatibility. You don’t have to share workflows exactly, but you do need to communicate in a way that works for both sides.
We saved the worst-case scenario, the scariest one for last! This one’s extremely rare, but not impossible. 99.999% of the time, you will not get in trouble for talking to an environmental consultant. In certain situations, though, a consultant may be legally required to notify regulators about something. Maybe you hired a consultant who is licensed or heavily regulated by the state or some agency. Maybe the findings of their reports get submitted for a review, think of something like a remediation project.
Think: a significant toxic chemical spill that's entering a waterway. If something like that comes to light and it poses a serious risk to human health or the environment, the law may require your consultant to speak up, even if it puts your business in the crosshairs.
For what it’s worth, we’ve never had to do this in over 30 years. But we know the possibility exists. And depending on the situation, you may or may not get a say in what gets disclosed.
It’s super rare. But it’s a real risk you should know about... because once that bell is rung, you can’t un-ring it.
After all that, you might be wondering what a consultant is actually supposed to do. And that’s a fair question.
When it’s working the way it should, hiring an environmental consultant is like gaining a strategic partner: someone who helps you understand your obligations, stay out of trouble, and save time and stress along the way. They should give you clear guidance, handle the heavy lifting, and leave you feeling more confident, not more confused.
You shouldn’t have to chase them down for answers, feel pressured into extra services, or be left wondering whether you even needed them in the first place. A good consultant should take time to understand your business, explain things in a way that makes sense, and deliver what they said they would.
If they can’t do that, then what’s the point?
Hiring an environmental consultant isn’t always a guaranteed win. Like any professional service, there are risks, trade-offs, and occasionally… regrets. We’ve seen them all, sometimes from afar, sometimes up close.
But we still believe that when it’s the right fit, the value is real. If you’ve got complex requirements, limited time, or a need to stay out of regulatory hot water, having someone who knows the rules and has your back can make all the difference.
We hope this helped you get a clearer picture of the good, the bad, and the occasionally ugly side of hiring a consultant. No sugarcoating, no sales pitch, just honesty.
Okay, mostly no sales pitch.
We’ll let you know if we’re a good fit... or not. No pressure, no hard sell. Just a conversation.