Inside SCS Engineers, an award-winning environmental services firm, are practices that specialize in permitting, designing, implementing, and performing the operational maintenance and monitoring of modern solutions for essential public services that impact climate change.
Focusing their efforts and investment on solid waste management efficiencies for municipalities leads to better customer service and helps lower emissions that impact communities. For example, the Solid and Hazardous Waste Management Division in Collier County, FL, uses SCS on a variety of progressive solid waste and resource management projects. These projects include sustainable materials management, facilities and operations planning, and landfill optimization.
The County also reaches out to SCS Engineers as a resource to answer questions that only an expert environmental engineer can safely answer. Think of searching Google but only getting advice from qualified professional engineers and scientists who know your specific geology, environmental systems, and regulations.
Environmental Expertise On-Demand
For example, the County’s Division Director called Daniel Dietch, its SCS Engineers client service manager, to inquire about a specific contractor’s plan to excavate stormwater ponds within 1,000 feet of the County’s new deep injection well (DIW). Dietch is not a DIW expert, but with a single call to his colleague, Monte Markley, he could address the Division Director’s question in detail.
The client learned about SCS’s DIW knowledge and expertise in the process.
Knowing SCS’s DIW capabilities, the County’s Division Director contacted SCS again with a different concern and need. The County planned a ribbon-cutting ceremony for their new DIW and asked if SCS could quickly prepare several informational boards to display at the public ceremony.
With SCS’s expertise, Dietch contacted SCS resources, engaging Marketing Manager Renee Roman and Carbon Sequestration and Injection Well Services Leader Stephanie Hill to develop simple yet informative images that helped the County “tell the story” of their DIW. You can view the infographics here!
Outreach with all stakeholders, including community organizations, regulatory agencies, the public, and local environmental advocacy groups, about well-installation plans and the science behind them leads to smoother-running projects. It helps everyone understand how safe DIW technology is and why the EPA and state regulatory agencies approve it.
The work was fast-paced and collaborative, and the finished product showcased how knowing the client, understanding the subject matter, and collaboratively working as OneSCS are successes.
The County’s Division Director shared this with the SCS Team: Thank you for your guidance along the way, offering experts and project management teams, as this project hit bumps along the path. Finally, the much-needed, resilient infrastructure is in place, and not without a team of professional and technical experts, even those that were able to offer support in times of uncertainty.
SCS Educational Resources:
Many companies are scrambling in anticipation of new and pending climate change disclosure requirements. There is much activity, but it doesn’t mean it’s the best or right activity to provide real investment returns on efforts to meet sustainability goals.
In March 2022, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced a proposed rule requiring certain climate-related disclosures in initial filings and annual financial reports. Following several months of silence, the SEC has revealed that the final vote on the Climate Change Disclosure rule has been delayed again until Spring 2024. The final adoption delays result from several groups challenging aspects of the proposed rule. The good news is that this will provide a little more runway for companies to gauge their sustainability programs, allowing time to monitor progress and ensure achieving the desired results.
The SEC’s proposal is similar to the International Financial Reporting Standards Foundation corporate reporting standards for sustainability and climate risk established by the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB). Similar to the SEC, similar regulations in Europe affect global companies, like the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), which require ESG reporting for companies in the EU starting January 2024.
In addition, California recently passed SB253, Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act or CCDAA, which affects large companies doing business in California and requires them to disclose emissions publicly. Other states are considering climate accountability regulations in their respective committees as well.
Many leaders are looking at how to get the “biggest bang for their buck” from sustainability plans while adhering to the reporting and monitoring required for for climate change disclosure from regulatory agencies. One of the less complicated areas to explore is the utilization of water.
Many companies don’t have full insight into how they measure and monitor their water use within individual process areas, reporting rough estimates and preliminary data. Using a sustainability consultant with experience mitigating environmental impacts can help supplement your efforts with salient data.
In one case study, SCS Engineers partnered with a steel manufacturer to help them prepare a water stewardship program. The steel facility did not have ample clarity on baseline utilization regarding sustainability metrics. Instead of starting from scratch to research the appropriate benchmarking, the SCS team accessed a breadth of data prepared by others in the industry, demonstrating where the steel manufacturer ranked accordingly.
The steel industry’s approach to sustainability benchmarking is a great example of companies proactively addressing their carbon footprints. The ResponsibleSteelTM standard stems from the large target painted on the industry’s back—the process of creating steel is CO2-heavy and energy-intensive.
Steel companies have come together to develop a holistic green standard to improve their image and reduce environmental impacts. Several other industries have collectively participated in blind studies to capture information on sustainability-related metrics from production, buildings, and campus-level processes. SCS accessed publicly available benchmarking data to demonstrate that its steel client was best in class compared to other facilities and helped planners target the higher return on investment activities.
Many large manufacturers keep operational data close to the vest because they don’t want to share confidential or potentially proprietary information with their competitors, which makes perfect sense.
SCS Engineers has faced these hurdles before, like with a recent energy audit for a large aerospace company. The team found many factors other similar companies had published and used this to establish its benchmarks. Steve Stewart, SCS’s Director of Sustainability, says, “Our approach includes taking a handful of sustainability aspects and investigating how the client compares with similar facilities. Then we can start to develop a strategy to see what moves the needle.”
The main question is: where do you invest your sustainability dollars now for the biggest impact? Most focus on greenhouse gasses, so looking at a company’s direct emissions activities is a natural place to start. “We look at how the company uses electricity and natural gas, then move on to other utilities such as waste and water. These are typically your significant opportunities for improvement,” says Steve.
Accounting firms and consulting companies are on the upstream side of establishing sustainability programs; most lack environmental engineers and scientists’ insight on the most innovative approaches and processes used in designing and implementing cost-effective solutions. In other words—they lack the technical knowledge to solve these issues in the field.
“Management consultants can help program and provide reporting structures, but they don’t always understand the execution and requirements from a ‘boots on the ground’ perspective. That’s where the real results happen and what truly moves the needle in reducing GHGs,” says Stewart.
Knowing what’s coming down the line, companies should now select their environmental partners and ask questions about carbon footprint calculations and climate change disclosures. A major misstep is to view disclosures as a mere compliance requirement since many studies correlate stock price with a company’s commitment to ESG principles.
Additional Climate Change Disclosure Resources:
About the Author: Steven Stewart, PE, is SCS’s National Expert and Director for Sustainability. He is responsible for project development and serving as the client account manager for firms with a sustainability focus. Steven has with more two decades of experience within the environmental consulting and manufacturing industries providing strategic thinking related to project planning, regulatory strategy, and developing sustainability initiatives that deliver as planned. His experience includes energy efficiency measures, GHG reduction, carbon sequestration, water reuse and stewardship, and solid waste minimization and recycling programs. He has additional experience managing and performing permitting, compliance audits, developing environmental management systems, long-term environmental planning, environmental and sustainability capital projects. Steven has served as Environmental Manager and Capital Projects Portfolio manager at a large steel manufacturing facility which provides valuable experience to clients during project development and planning. Mr. Stewart is a licensed Professional Engineer in Alabama and Florida. You can reach him at or on LinkedIn.
Dr. Charles Hostetler is presenting on Wednesday, February 28th (11:00 am – 11:30 am, Century).
“Pore Space Conflicts: Class VI Injection into Previously Utilized Pore Space”
Class VI projects (involving underground injection control (UIC) wells for the geologic sequestration of carbon dioxide) can have a surprisingly large footprint in terms of the lateral extent of pore space occupied by supercritical carbon dioxide as well as pressure increases in the injection zone. A limited amount of subsurface pore space is available in certain economically important sedimentary basins and there can be difficulties in finding unutilized pore space.
Interactions among neighboring UIC projects can be an important consideration in the scoping and design of Class VI projects. Class VI project design has largely focused on examining the extent of the subsurface supercritical carbon dioxide plume and ensuring access to and control over the pore space physically occupied by the plume. The pressure buildup during injection also influences subsurface pore space. The existence of pressure buildup from neighboring injection projects can be an important limitation in efficiently utilizing pore space resources across multiple projects.
In this study, we examine the factors that affect the injectability of a supercritical carbon dioxide stream near a preexisting Class I (liquid waste) UIC well. We consider the factors that influence the pressure distribution in the injection zone, such as the compressibility of water and supercritical carbon dioxide, the properties of the aquifer materials, and the geometry of the injection zone and injection wells. We conclude by summarizing the general factors that should be considered in project scoping and Area of Review delineation—additional authors: Kacey Garber and Lindsey Hawksworth, SCS Engineers.
Additional Resources:
SCS Engineers is participating in Auburn University 2024 Civil & Environmental + Biosystems Engineering ASCE/ASABE Career Fair on February 13, 2024.
This event is a great opportunity for all students and alumni to connect with a diverse array of employers, from corporations to nonprofits, for internships, part-time, and full-time positions.
SCS is an employee-owned, award-winning environmental engineering, consulting, and construction firm with offices nationwide. We are seeking a wide variety of dedicated, hard-working professionals with Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) backgrounds.
Students can register on Handshake.com
Capturing carbon dioxide and injecting it into a Class VI well for permanent geologic carbon sequestration, or CO2 storage, is a practice that industry leaders use to decarbonize manufacturing processes. Manufacturers use CO2 storage to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and carbon footprint. There has been an uptick in proposed projects, both commercial hub-scale and single emitter-affiliated scale, particularly within the last year. The catalyst for the uptick in proposed projects is primarily the associated financial incentives, including federal tax credits and grant monies.
In this educational webinar, Professional Geologist Kacey Garber describes what manufacturers interested in geologic CO2 storage can expect the project landscape to look like in 2024. The video includes a discussion of the following:
Understanding the current project landscape and how and when future project opportunities might evolve is important for manufacturers considering the geologic storage of their CO2 stream, whether through a larger commercial hub or a smaller on-site project.
Additional Resources:
About the Presenter: Kacey Garber is a professional geologist experienced as a groundwater project manager for active and closed industrial client sites. Her responsibilities include groundwater monitoring and statistical analyses; reports and permit applications; designing sampling and analysis plans; special groundwater studies; and conducting groundwater well construction planning and design. She has also been involved in PFAS work groups and publishes on the topics of UIC and geologic carbon sequestration.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has launched a broad-ranging PFAS Strategic Roadmap aimed at effectively managing Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) in diverse environments, including air, water, soil, and wastewater systems. This roadmap underscores the EPA’s commitment to addressing the challenges posed by PFAS, a group of synthetic chemicals extensively used in various industrial and consumer products for their resistance to heat, water, and oil.
While over 10,000 PFAS variants are known, only a small proportion are currently under regulatory scrutiny, with the number of regulated PFAS varying across countries and regions.
In the United States, the EPA concentrates regulatory and monitoring efforts on a select group of PFAS, primarily due to the scientific complexity of these compounds, analytical limitations, limited toxicity data, and the vast diversity of PFAS chemicals.
This SCS Engineers blog series, Navigating PFAS Compliance, delves into the regulations, management, and monitoring of PFAS at municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills, addressing environmental mediums including air, groundwater, wastewater (i.e., leachate), soil, and waste.
Landfill Regulations and Revisions Anticipated in 2024
Landfills are subject to various regulations, notably under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) for both hazardous and non-hazardous waste, the Clean Air Act (CAA) for air emissions, and the Clean Water Act (CWA) for water resource protection. The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), commonly known as Superfund, also plays a role in addressing contaminated landfill sites, particularly those that pre-date the promulgation of the RCRA Subtitle D program in the early 1990s.
Currently, RCRA does not have specific PFAS regulations for MSW landfills. However, the EPA is developing a rule to classify certain PFAS as “hazardous constituents” under RCRA. We anticipate the proposal in 2024.
Additionally, the EPA has already proposed listing two PFAS constituents – Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and Perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) as hazardous substances under CERCLA, a move that could impact environmental cleanup and liability, particularly for landfills with releases impacting groundwater and adjacent areas. We anticipate the final CERCLA hazardous substances listing in 2024.
The EPA is also revising Effluent Limitation Guidelines to limit PFAS discharges into municipal wastewater treatment facilities. These include amending the Landfills Point Source Category ELGs under Effluent Guidelines Program Plan 15.
While research directly characterizing PFAS in landfill gas is limited, the presence of semi-volatile PFAS in municipal solid waste suggests their occurrence in landfill gas. The EPA is formulating regulations to control PFAS air emissions from multiple sources (e.g., LFG systems), with specific details yet to be fully established.
Federal and State Policies Evolve
The regulatory landscape for PFAS is swiftly evolving, with numerous states setting or updating PFAS standards to address emerging concerns and research findings. States like Alaska, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont, and Washington have implemented various PFAS standards.
Managing PFAS in landfills requires a comprehensive approach that includes advanced treatment technologies, compliance with changing regulations, continuous monitoring of the regulatory landscape, and, where necessary, remediation.
This SCS blog series will explore and report PFAS issues across each regulatory category impacting MSW landfills, offering insights into compliance, management, and regulatory aspects. Feel free to contact the authors with questions or comments; we’re here to help.
Additional Resources:
About the Authors: Connect with our authors and experts at
Jeff Marshall, PE, is a Vice President of SCS Engineers, Environmental Services Practice Leader for SCS offices in the Mid-Atlantic region, and our National Expert on Emerging Contaminants and Innovative Technologies. His four decades of experience include a diversified background in project engineering and management, emphasizing environmental chemistry, hazardous materials, waste and human health risk issues. Focus areas include environmental permitting, regulatory compliance, and hazardous materials treatment and remediation. He is a licensed professional engineer in Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina.
Kacey Garber, PG, is presenting on Wednesday, February 28th (8:30 am – 9:00 am, Plaza).
Kacey will answer the question, How Might Co-Mingling UIC Waste Plumes Affect Class I UIC Operations and the Area of Review?
Class I UIC wells may be utilized to dispose of fluid wastes within deep geologic units, such as depleted hydrocarbon reservoirs or saline aquifers. Class I UIC wells may be located in the vicinity of other injection wells associated with disposal and/or hydrocarbon production. Injecting fluids leads to mixing with and displacement of native fluids within the reservoir. Because water is relatively incompressible, the mixing and displacement of fluids lead to a buildup of pressure within the reservoir. The magnitude of this pressure buildup is dependent on several factors, including the porosity and permeability of the reservoir, the density and viscosity of both the previous and present-day injectate and native fluids, and the thickness and lateral extent of the reservoir.
Elevated reservoir pressures resulting from injection can allow fluids to migrate upwards through open or improperly plugged artificial penetrations and/or fractures of the reservoir or confining zones, either of which would endanger overlying aquifers. As a result, agencies require Class I UIC permit applications to include calculations or modeling to assess what pressure thresholds would lead to aquifer endangerment. Many of these calculations do not allow realistic predictions of pressure buildup or plume extent in situations where co-mingling of waste plumes may occur. In this presentation, we assess the utility of computational flow modeling for complex injection scenarios where the co-mingling of waste plumes from neighboring operations might influence pressure buildup and overall plume extent.
Kacey Garber is an experienced groundwater project manager for active and closed industrial clients, including routine groundwater monitoring and statistical analyses; reports and permit applications; designing sampling and analysis plans; special groundwater studies; and conducting groundwater well construction planning and design. She has also been involved in PFAS work groups and publishes on the topics of UIC and geologic sequestration. Ms. Garber has a Masters degree in Geoscience.
Additional Resources:
SCS Engineers is participating in the Georgia Tech ASCE/AEES 2024 Spring Civil and Environmental Engineering Career Fair on Thursday, February 1st, 2024.
Each year, Georgia Tech American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and Association of Environmental Engineers and Scientists (AEES) co-host the Spring Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) Career Fair. This event is a great opportunity for all students and alumni to connect with a diverse array of employers, from corporations to nonprofits, for internships, part-time, and full-time positions. For company representatives who will be attending the career fair, this link contains valuable logistical information like times, parking, and table space details.
SCS is an employee-owned, award-winning environmental engineering, consulting, and construction firm with offices nationwide. We are seeking a wide variety of dedicated, hard-working professionals with Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) backgrounds.
Wastewater treatment is crucial to safeguard our water resources and the environment. Additionally, recycling wastewater is an excellent way to conserve this valuable resource, especially important for citizens and industry in the near future. At SCS Engineers, we specialize in the sustainable collection, treatment, and reuse of wastewater for municipalities and industries—our Landfill Leachate and Industrial Wastewater Treatment practice designs and implements these solutions.
SCS is excited to announce that Kerim Temel, PE, has joined the practice as a project director and wastewater treatment services leader. Based in Virginia Beach, Virginia, Kerim will provide technical project support and guidance for municipal and industrial wastewater treatment, landfill leachate treatment, groundwater remediation, and treatment systems operations and maintenance (O&M) across SCS. He has extensive experience treating complex wastewater from various industries, including landfills, pharmaceuticals, food and beverages, and chemical manufacturers. He has expertise in treating conventional and emerging contaminants such as Perfluoroalkyl Substances—PFAS. Temel’s skills include alternative evaluations, characterization, treatability testing, process design, confirmation testing, system evaluations, startup and training, and system optimization and troubleshooting.
Josh Strickland has recently joined SCS Engineers as a project professional based in Mobile, Alabama. He holds an academic background in chemical engineering and has gained experience in the oil and gas, manufacturing, and solid waste industries. Strickland primarily focuses on process engineering and supports project execution through process and mechanical design improvements. These improvements significantly enhance safety, design, production, processing, sizing, and equipment procurements while positively impacting collaboration.
SCS has a proven history of helping clients overcome their wastewater management issues. Treating and reusing wastewater is complex, but it is essential for many of our clients’ operations, sustainability objectives, and financial performance. With the addition of Kerim and Josh to SCS’s team, we have strengthened our technical expertise and capacity to tackle these challenges. ~ Nathan, Hamm, senior vice president and SCS’s national expert on Liquids Management.
This protocol applies to greenhouse gas reduction projects that divert eligible organic waste or agro-industrial wastewater streams that otherwise would have gone to uncontrolled anaerobic storage, treatment, and disposal systems (solid waste landfills, onsite anaerobic wastewater treatment facilities, etc.).
Projects that involve co-digestion of eligible organic waste streams with livestock manure are also eligible if they comply with the Livestock Project Protocol, diverting waste to a biogas control system (BCS). The protocol accepts several technologies, including:
Project Eligibility
The protocol stipulates the following requirements:
Project Exclusions
Protocol excludes the following activities:
Project Outcomes
A project is eligible to receive credits for ten years from the start date or until project activity is required by law. Applications for a second 10-year eligibility period are available. Only two AD facilities have registered with the Climate Action Reserve (CAR). CAR has awarded these projects a total of 224,655 CRTs, valued at approximately $700,000. In 2022, CAR awarded 22,257 CRTs to these projects. At a market price of $3.00/CRT, 22,257 CRTs have a value of $66,771.
Credit Feasibility
Understanding the technology and navigating protocol requirements can take time and effort. That’s where we come in. Contact SCS Engineers at or Greg McCarron on LinkedIn to learn how your project may qualify.
Additional Resources
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