A look at the confusion stemming from regulatory uncertainty of new rules limiting air emissions from municipal solid waste landfills by David Greene, P.E., SCS Engineers – Asheville, NC.
The landfill industry continues to work with EPA Administration to get a longer-term stay to work out needed NSPS/EG rule changes. At this time, industry representatives are hopeful both these related goals can be achieved.
While the new NSPS/EG rules became effective back in 2016, the concerns with the rules raised at the time still remain unresolved. Despite this, we can expect resolution though it may take some time to fix. The fog should be lifting, yielding changes that are expected to be more workable for both the landfill industry and state/local regulators. In the meantime, stay tuned and stay informed.
Read the full article with links to the NSPS/EG update in a recently published SCS Technical Bulletin.
Fangmei Zhang, P.E., PhD, is a Senior Project Manager in the Miami Office of the Southeast Region. She has 13 years of experience in the environmental and civil engineering field, with 7 years at SCS Engineers. Fangmei received her Bachelor of Science degree from Southeast University (China), her Master from Tongji University (China), and PhD from Case Western Reserve University (Ohio), all in Environmental Engineering.
At SCS, Fangmei manages assessment, remediation, and redevelopment projects for some of our largest clients. Fangmei is also a founding member of the SCS Technical Advisory Group, a newly created group of staff who serve as technical advisors on environmental projects. She also leads the region’s Environmental Services Technical Committee. The intent of this committee, which is comprised of a group of environmental leaders through the region, is to foster a forum for the identification, evaluation, and implementation of new and emerging technologies to enhance technical excellence and to facilitate SCS’s growth as a leader in the environmental engineering and consulting field. Fangmei is also a founding member of the Southeast Region’s SCS Women, a group recently created to provide mentorship and support to empower women to achieve career and personal success.
Fangmei was born in a remote village in east-central China. Growing up in the countryside, Fangmei has unforgettable memories of being close to nature. As a child, she learned how to plant rice in rice paddies, to work with cotton and hem fields, and to plant vegetables. She picked wild vegetables to feed pigs and collected chicken droppings to use as organic fertilizer using tools hand-made from bamboo sticks and river mussel shells. The country life she enjoyed as a child forged her love of nature.
Fangmei also loved going to school. At the time, she was the only girl who attended the village school, and she walked several miles each day to earn her education. After the fifth grade, she continued her education in Jingzhou, Hubei province, where schools were more competitive and provided better prospects for going to college. Eventually, she completed her BS and MS in China. In 2001, she came to the United States for further study, partly because environmental engineering in China did not yet address soil or groundwater contamination. She received her PhD in 2006 with research focusing on bioremediation.
Fangmei chose to come to the U.S. to study because she also loves to travel and see the world. She enjoys traveling to new places and learning about different cultures. She also loves visiting botanical gardens and farms. During her trip to Laos two years ago, she saw poor villages and little girls running around without shoes in the countryside, and it reminded her of her own childhood. Influenced by a friend and her experiences, Fangmei has provided financial support and assisted in other fundraising to help build schools in the villages in Laos and Cambodia, with the hope of providing these children with opportunities for a better future.
To learn more about a career with SCS Engineers, please visit the SCS Careers page.
Agri-business companies handling large quantities of chemicals and transporting them through all sorts of conditions to different facilities must be prepared for an accidental spill. Accidental spills create environmental problems that can cost your business. However, agri-businesses can control their response to spills and react in ways that limit the environmental impact and help save time and money should a spill occur.
Environmental consultant, Tony Kollasch first discusses, what businesses can do to minimize environmental impacts? He covers the importance of spill response preparedness and REACT; Respond, Evaluate, Alert, Contain, Take.
Read the full article published in Wisconsin Agri-Business News Quarterly.
SCS Engineers periodically prepares Technical Bulletins to highlight items of interest to our clients and friends who have signed up to receive them. Our most recent SCS Bulletin summarizes the new rules which took effect on October 28, 2016, with compliance obligations under the NSPS Subpart XXX rule beginning November 28, 2016. Originally, states and local air jurisdictions were to submit their proposed EG rules by May 30, 2017; however, there have been some delays in this process, which we condense and detail in this Bulletin. SCS will continually update coverage of this Rule on our website.
In a Motion filed on November 7, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) requested remand of five provisions of the Coal Combustion Residuals (CCR) Rule (40 CFR Parts 257 and 261), which would allow the agency to reconsider the provisions. This SCS Engineers Technical Bulletin covers the five provisions and the basis for their reconsideration. Read the full text here.
Oral arguments on EPA’s motion took place on November 20, 2017. EPA had asked that oral arguments be postponed, and all other aspects of the litigation are suspended until it could rule, but the court did not agree. The current provisions in this Technical Bulletin remain in place unless and until USEPA revises or rescinds them in a future rulemaking.
SCS Engineers will continue to track these issues and keep you informed. Join our Technical Bulletin email list by clicking here, or follow SCS on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter .
Som Kundral is a Project Manager with the Miami office. He is currently managing a 500-acre C&D landfill redevelopment project involving multiple engineering disciplines. Som serves clients in the region by providing design and construction oversight of groundwater remediation and landfill gas management systems. He says redevelopment on old landfills pose interesting environmental challenges and can be complex given the heavy involvement of regulatory agencies.
Som was born in 1983 in India, raised in Karnataka, a state in southwest India on the coast of the Arabian Sea. He has two younger brothers, both of whom work in Information Technology. His parents are retired and live in India. He grew up in a typical middle-class family with an emphasis on tradition and culture, where one is taught to respect and obey elders and to protect the young.
As a child, he was curious about how things work and admits to destroying numerous gadgets attempting to reveal their secrets – so engineering was a natural career choice. His father is a Civil Engineer who influenced Som to get a Civil Engineering degree instead of a Computer Science degree. Som has a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering and came to Miami in August 2010, to earn a Masters of Environmental Engineering. While at school, he says he fell in love with the place, the people, and the culture.
Som’s wife, also an engineer, moved from Houston after their wedding in 2012. They enjoy gardening, greenery, and farms. He also collects watches and gadgets. While enamored with motorcycles, once belonging to a biking group as an undergrad, he no longer bikes out of respect for his wife and says he misses it.
Som aspires to become a leader in the industry and wants to grow with SCS Engineers. Som’s mentor is SCS Vice President and Southeast Region Office Director Bob Speed, who states,
I’ve worked with Som for several years. Som accepts tasks regardless of the difficulty and completes each promptly. Our projects usually have numerous stakeholders; Som keeps them informed, so good communications play an important role in keeping our work on-task. I would describe Som as ‘humble, hungry and smart; he truly is an ideal team player for our clients and SCS.
Som is an enthusiastic member of the SCS team. We appreciate his contributions supporting clientele, enhancing our technical reputation, and contributing to our company culture of industry involvement.
Using a simple example the authors make apparent the importance of understanding a refrigeration system’s actual performance. An energy balance is a very useful tool to do so.
Not only do PSM regulations require that facilities have this in your PSM program, there is real value in understanding a system’s capacities. Operation and efficiency translates to substantial dollar savings every year. Savings that can be reinvested in your facility.
Calculating the total consequences of an unbalance system is more complex, but there are considerable savings running a properly energy balanced refrigeration system. Savings that can fund maintenance needs and avoid postponing timely repairs.
This white paper, presented at the RETA 2017 Conference in Pennsylvania is available in English and Spanish by clicking here.
Learn more about environmental and engineering services for Process Safety Management (PSM), Risk Management Plans (RMP), and ammonia refrigeration safety at SCS Engineers.
Ann O’Brien of SCS Engineers has pulled together a list of questions that printers should be asking themselves before the environmental reporting season is upon us.
Use Ann’s questions as a guide to find out how ready your company is, and decrease your risk of non-compliance by being more organized.
If you don’t know the answers, ask Ann. She’s one of our air and water permitting, monitoring, and reporting experts at SCS. Ann specializes in printing industry compliance.
Contact and we’ll direct you to an air, storm water, wastewater, or groundwater expert near you and in your industry.
We continue SCS’s Advice from the Field blog series with guidance from an article in MSW Magazine by Daniel R. Cooper, Jason Timmons, and Stephanie Liptak.
The authors of a recent article in MSW Management Magazine present engineering ideas that provide for more efficient construction of a GCCS. Gas system operators will benefit by having fewer pumps to operate and maintain and shallower headers that are more easily accessible. Odor management will be easier along with other benefits.
Read the full article here to learn about the design elements for maximizing long-term benefits, impacting: bottom liners, location of the blower/flare station, leachate risers, extraction well targets, and external header piping.
It is challenging to restore properties with a past, but you can do it on time and on budget if you plan ahead to address contaminated historic fill. Follow these tips and use the brownfield redevelopment checklist to keep your next redevelopment on track.
Design Phase
Consider how contaminated historic fill impacts the following:
Site feature locations – You can reduce or even eliminate landfill disposal costs by carefully selecting locations for your building, underground parking, parking lot, utility, and green space.
Storm water infiltration – Do you know that storm water infiltration devices must be located in areas free of contaminated historic fill? Infiltration devices cannot be located where contaminants of concern (as defined in s. NR 720.03(2)) are present in the soil through which the infiltration will occur.
Subslab vapor mitigation system – Already know you have contaminated historic fill on site? Consider adding a subslab vapor mitigation system to the design of your new building. It is usually much cheaper to install this system in a new building than to retrofit one into an existing building. It can also mitigate radon gas.
Planning & Design
Determine if contamination requires the following plans to manage the construction phase:
Material management plan – It establishes how you will separate excavated contaminated material from material that is not contaminated. It also outlines how you will handle contaminated material, either by disposing of it off site in a landfill or reusing it on site in an approved area such as a paved parking lot. This plan also covers screening, sampling, and testing contaminated materials, if required.
Dewatering plan – If the development requires excavation through contaminated historic fill to depths below groundwater, you will need a dewatering plan to properly manage discharge of the water. You may be able to discharge the water to the storm sewer or the sanitary sewer depending on the type and concentration of contaminants. You must determine local and state permit requirements before implementing your dewatering plan.
Demolition plan – The demolition plan for removing existing structures during redevelopment should include handling, removal, and disposal of potential contaminants such as lead and asbestos. The demolition plan should also address recycling and reuse of existing on site materials like concrete. You may be able to save money by crushing and reusing concrete on site as fill material, or by hauling and crushing it off site to reuse it as fill at another property. This approach can save you considerable money compared to landfill disposal.
Ready to start saving time and money addressing contaminated historic fill at your next redevelopment? Contact Ray Tierney for help evaluating your options in the Upper Midwest, or using the SCS Brownfield Redevelopment Checklist .
Live in another part of the country? SCS Engineers offers brownfields, remediation, due diligence, and all appropriate inquires services nationwide. Contact us today at .
Learn more about these services at SCS Engineers; read our case studies and articles:
Brownfields and Remediation
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