Steven Freund joins the SCS Engineers’ Liquids and Wastewater Management Practice as a senior project manager. A licensed Professional Engineer with degrees in chemical engineering and chemistry, he brings over a decade of hands-on expertise in operating and designing wastewater treatment systems and ultra-pure water processes. Steven has led large-scale industrial projects, including delivering a $30 million wastewater treatment facility. He specializes in treating complex industrial waste streams that contain heavy metals, cyanide, and emerging contaminants such as PFAS.
Mr. Freund holds credentials as a Professional Engineer (PE), Lean Six Sigma Black Belt (LSSBB), and Project Management Professional (PMP). He addresses treatment challenges, including high treatment costs, the complexity and variability of industrial waste streams, and evolving environmental regulations related to PFAS and other contaminants.
Wastewater treatment and leachate management plans require specialized expertise and a deep bench of professionals to support the most economical and effective solutions. Steven’s experience in industrial manufacturing, wastewater treatment, ultrapure water, and subsequent field implementation complements our industrial wastewater team in addressing our clients’ water management needs, says Monte Markley, SCS senior vice president of SCS and Liquids Management Leader.
Challenges such as a shortage of skilled labor, fewer opportunities for financing, and aging infrastructure require strong process engineering and experience with all treatment phases (design, build, implementation, and monitoring) to obtain environmental sustainability and a return on investment.
Mr. Freund brings his experience in manufacturing, wastewater treatment facility management, and process engineering across various industries to the SCS team. His background in pretreatment processes for industrial wastewater includes work with ultrapure water and unique waste streams that require specialized treatment before discharging to municipal systems. His expertise encompasses project management of scalable systems, evaluating projects for comprehensive solutions, overseeing facility design and construction, and ensuring project closeout.
Steven Freund perhaps says it best: Our job is to ensure that SCS designs and implements systems that will properly integrate with local infrastructure and meet compliance requirements, while addressing the municipal (POTW) and industrial wastewater clients’ need to eliminate unique contaminants cost-efficiently. The right solution is cost-effective and environmentally sustainable.
He continues…Whether your business or municipality provides services such as landfills, public water and sewage systems, or you are a manufacturer or product producer, there are financial and technical hurdles to address related to PFAS (including PFOS, PFOA, and related compounds). Although EPA enforcement is still in development, with current limits mainly proposed and pending, wastewater teams must deeply understand PFAS regulations and testing, which can hinder enforcement and decision-making for timely treatment.
Steven Freund is a published author earning his Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering and Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY.
Zubieta Research Group Team Member funded by the National Science Foundation (CHE-0907787) to formulate new experiments for hydrothermal synthesis of crystalline imine, xylyl-diphosphonate, oxomolybdenum, copper vanadate, and oxyfluorovanadate substructures.
