Water and wastewater utility managers across the nation have been utilizing Environmental Management Systems (EMS) to: Reduce operating costs; Improve environmental performance; Reduce vulnerability to environmental violations, fines and penalties; Capture institutional knowledge to sustain successes. In August 2004, a group of these utility managers, having successfully implemented EMSs at their facilities, described the manner in which these types of results were achieved through development of a step by step EMS Handbook for Wastewater Utilities, completed in August 2004. This EMS Compendium for Wastewater Utility Managers was created as a direct follow up to the EMS Handbook to make the business case for top management by demonstrating, with detail and specificity, why implementing an EMS can result in significant benefits that far outweigh the cost and effort of implementation. An EMS does not reinvent the wheel, but rather creates a systematic framework to clearly identify an organization's most important goals and then better organize and enhance the management programs and corporate strategies that you already have in place to best meet those goals.