Ali Khatami, PhD, PE, LEP, CGC, is a Project Director and a Vice President of SCS Engineers. He is our National Expert on Elevated Temperature Landfills and Landfill Design/CQA. He has over 40 years of research and professional experience in mechanical, structural, and civil engineering. Dr. Khatami has been involved for more than 30 years in the design and permitting of civil/solid waste/environmental projects such as, surface water management systems, drainage structures, municipal solid waste landfills, hazardous solid waste landfills, low level radioactive waste landfills, leachate and wastewater conveyance and treatment systems, gas management systems, hazardous waste impoundments, storage tank systems, waste tire processing facilities, composting facilities, material recovery facilities, landfill gas collection and disposal systems, leachate evaporator systems, and liquid impoundment floating covers. Dr. Khatami has acquired extensive experience and knowledge in the areas of geology, hydrogeology, hydrology, hydraulics, construction methods, material science, construction quality assurance (CQA), and stability of earth systems. Dr. Khatami has applied this experience in the siting of numerous landfills.
Dr. Khatami has developed numerous concepts used in the design of various components of landfills and has coined terminologies for such concepts as Leachate Toe Drain System (LTDS); Rainwater Toe Drain System (RTDS); Gas Pressure Release System (GPRS) above Bottom Liner; Tiered Vertical Gas Wells (TVGW); Minimum Head Design (MHD) for Base Grades; and MHD-Herringbone Hybrid Design (Hybrid) for Base Grades.
As a National Expert in Landfill Design, Elevated Temperature Landfills, and Construction Quality Assurance and an executive member in the area of solid waste management, Dr. Khatami works with various offices of SCS on complicated technical matters. He provides advice to technical professionals, makes technical presentations at conferences, conducts national webinars, publishes technical papers and blogs, and prepares technical training material for internal use by SCS’s professional staff.
Dr. Khatami has been involved in the design, permitting, and construction of over 100 landfills in the United States, Europe, and Middle East. He has significant experience in the design and construction of landfill gas collection and gas disposal systems. Dr. Khatami has designed numerous landfills with active and passive gas collection systems, permitted several leachate evaporator systems with beneficial reuse of the landfill gas. As the engineer of record for these facilities, Dr. Khatami has managed construction of these systems following completion of permitting. Dr. Khatami has been extensively involved in the preparation of Title V permit applications for utility and enclosed flare systems, solar flares, and gas collection systems.
Dr. Khatami has provided expert services to clients facing structural failure issues at their facilities, to legal counsels representing plaintiffs, to developers defending their planned projects before administrative judges, and to clients during resolution meetings with regulatory agencies.
Dr. Khatami has significant design and construction experience with low level radioactive landfills. Dr. Khatami performed as the resident engineer for the closure of the first geosynthetic cover system at the low level radioactive landfill in Barnwell, South Carolina. The cover system extended over trenches that had been filled for approximately 10 years, and contained waste grades A, B, and C. Dr. Khatami also performed as the project engineer for the design of a landfill for radioactive contaminated materials generated from the decommissioning of the Fernald Uranium Processing Facility located in Cincinnati, Ohio. The landfill was designed to perform for a 2,000-year period. The cross sections of the landfill and storm-water conveyance ditches were designed based on natural shapes of landforms and streams formed over thousands of years to minimize soil erosion from the landfill cover due to wind, and storm-water ditches due to water. The leachate collection system in the landfill was designed to minimize human involvement in the operation of the landfill over the next 2,000 years. Extensive compatibility tests were performed to evaluate effect of radioactive isotopes on the integrity of the geosynthetics used in the landfill lining system. The landfill cover system included components to prevent animals from burrowing over the 2,000 year period. Dr. Khatami was also involved in the permitting process for accepting hazardous waste as part of a transuranic waste being accepted at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) facility in Carlsbad, New Mexico.
Dr. Khatami has also been involved in remediation of many hazardous waste contaminated sites.Â
