Discovering unexpected pockets of soft soils at the time of construction can delay your project and drive up costs for landfills, support features, and many other types of construction. If you don’t find them, building over them can result in unexpected settlement affecting a structure or building, or cause a slope stability problem for a berm or stockpile. You can avoid both of these scenarios with early investigation and appropriate construction planning.
While landfill development investigations typically require numerous soil borings within the proposed waste limits of the landfill, it’s common to overlook perimeter areas. Pockets of soft soil deposits can be associated with nearby existing wetlands, lakes, or rivers; with wind-blown silt or ancient lake deposits from periods of glaciation; or with fill placed during previous site uses.
The landfill perimeter areas may contain tanks for leachate or fuel, buildings, perimeter berms for screening or landscaping, stockpiles, and other features. A tank or building constructed over soft soils could experience unexpected settlement affecting the performance and value of the structure. The potential for a slope stability problem can increase for a large berm or stockpile built on soft soils.
The first step to avoid these problems and identify problem soils is to include perimeter areas in your subsurface investigation. Perform soil borings or test pit excavations at the locations of the proposed perimeter features such as tanks or berms. If you encounter soft soils, address them like this:
Contact SCS’s geotechnical engineers for more information on how to find and test soft soil areas early in a landfill’s project schedule, so you can effectively address associated construction issues in a way that considers cost and minimizes unexpected project delays.
The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) has awarded UNH the STARS Platinum rating in recognition of its sustainability achievements. STARS, the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System, measures and encourages sustainability in all aspects of higher education. The Platinum STAR is the highest possible rating and held by only a handful of higher education institutions in the world.
Some highlights of UNH’s sustainability achievements:
“UNH committed to use renewable energy and move toward a sustainable energy economy early,” said Steve Hamilton, Sr. Vice President of SCS Engineers – Energy Division. “The decision to convert landfill gases to renewable energy kick-started a very successful program which is paying off for the University and in the surrounding community.”
Benefits include:
They all use permitted grain elevators. According to Reuters, in 2017, the United States had 25 billion US bushels of storage capacity, a growth of 25% in the previous decade. Reuters Business News, April 11, 2017. There are a myriad of safety and permitting requirements for grain elevators; this article lists a few in Wisconsin.
Securing the proper air permits helps safeguard these facilities against the legal, financial, and reputational risks of non-compliance. The air permitting process can be complicated, but there are tools and people that can help.
Environmental engineering firms help guide companies through the process and offer direct support. States provide tools and support such as the self-serve tools on the WDNR website, for example, to help determine what level of permitting is applicable too. These State environmental sites provide the necessary permitting forms and backup calculations specific to the type of permit your facility may need to apply for. You may be able to submit an application online, and a certified engineer can do that for you as part of a permitting plan.
If you find the sites and requirements perplexing, ask a qualified environmental engineer to help. SCS Engineers professionals are recognized for their environmental permitting knowledge and are available to answer questions.
Learn more about air-permitting in Wisconsin or contact one of SCS Engineers’ local offices in a region near your facility.
These grants often target rural areas that don’t necessarily have the support needed to catch up in today’s world of rapid technological advances. A quick Google search shows that at the national level, the USDA offers a Solid Waste Management Grant which may be applied to the cost of program improvements such as landfill evaluations, technical assistance, or training. For this particular grant, any local government, academic institution, or nonprofit servicing an area with fewer than 10,000 people may apply.
This type of funding presents an opportunity for SCS to help address clients’ financial burdens. Awareness of the grants available is a common obstacle, but with some region-specific research, potential project identification, guidance and assistance with grant funding SCS can enhance your arsenal of services.
Here are some places to look for funding:
Contact the authors if you have questions: Ryan Duckett and Quinn Albertson, we’re always happy to help.
Pat Sullivan discusses two case studies that provide examples of two different approaches to odor management. The proactive approach resulted in a more positive outcome than the reactive approach. Although the odor issues never go away completely, the proactive facility has avoided lawsuits and regulatory enforcement and continues to have a positive working relationship with the community.
SCS Engineers freely shares our articles and white papers without imposing on your privacy.
Click to read Part I of this two part series. We’ll let you know when Part II is published soon.
The authors of this article in Renewable News thought it would be interesting
to readers who are in the recycling industry to see the kind of commodity pricing issues that were discussed in a recent analysis for a large recycling project study.
The data on price variability and waste composition were used to prepare several scenarios in Pro Forma modeling to predict the “downside” of market shifts in project performance. In our experience, this provides stakeholders with good ideas of potential market risks and the potential sharing of anticipated revenues with high, medium, and low-end pricing of recyclables.
The U.S. is heavily dependent on the Chinese market for absorbing a major percentage of
recyclable paper and plastics we generate. So, potential changes to that market initiated by the Chinese is a cause for concern and for assessing contingencies. Officials for the Scrap Recycling Industries, China Scrap Plastics Association, and Bureau of International Recycling all indicated that China may be rolling out a new policy for expanding the list of banned materials and tightening the quality standards of recyclables coming into their country. Increasing knowledge of the markets and the impact on your program is a good way to get ahead of the potential impact of China’s new restrictions.
Increasing knowledge of the markets and the impact on your program is a good way to start getting ahead of the potential impact of China’s new restrictions.
Recycling and sustainable services including waste and financial analyses
Similar processing sites could be sited and operated across New York City. Organics comprise 31% of New York City’s waste stream, and a significant portion can be composted locally and returned to the environment to support green spaces. Decentralized community compost operations are part of the solution to recycling food scraps and diverting this material from landfills. Medium-sized community composting sites can exist in dense urban settings because they are neighborhood assets, as education centers, green spaces, and compost sources for community greening projects. With well-designed systems and appropriately-scaled equipment, they can be managed so that no odor or pest issues are created. These sites reduce carting distances and serve as an impetus for changing local land management practices by making high quality compost abundantly available.
Potential changes to the market initiated by the Chinese is cause for concern and for assessing contingencies. While the actual effect on the U.S. recycling market is not clear yet, it is recommended that public works officials keep a close eye on these developments in the near future. This may include asking your project managers to update their pro forma models for a recycling program to evaluate the partial or total temporary loss of these revenue streams.
This article points out some of the key market variables of which a public works director should be aware and of how many states have recently attempted to strengthen existing markets and develop new markets through a variety of institutional tools.
Read and share the article here.
On October 11, SCS Engineers’ David Hostetter and Phil Carrillo present several case studies during the webinar demonstrating how Remote Control Monitoring (RMC) has lifted the burden of data collection and facilitates the review and analysis of data for use in decision-making.
In this webinar, several case studies regarding remote monitoring and control (RMC) systems for landfill gas and leachate systems will be presented. This includes a description of integrated systems which are used for data collection and analysis and how they were used to identify, troubleshoot and solve real problems in an effective and efficient manner.SCS recognized this as an issue in the industry and developed systems to streamline the process using the latest technology to help perform routine, sometimes complex, data analysis, and to automatically push reports and alerts to operators, engineers, and project managers. This has been a dramatic change that removes human error while reviewing pages of data and allows people to focus on what really matters.
RMC systems give the ability to:
Watch Dave’s video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYezcobr1Cg
Dave explains how landfill owners/operators use SCS RMC® to view, operate, and control field equipment. The presentation covers how SCS RMC® helps to reduce operating costs – sending technicians to respond when necessary to alerts from flare systems, leachate systems, and air quality sensors. SCS helps manage all field resources and personnel better while enhancing reporting and data management too.
If your company stores oil-based inks and manages them as part of your facility’s Spill Prevention, Control and Countermeasures (SPCC) Plan, it may be feasible to use an impracticability determination as an alternative approach to comply.
Read the article by Chris Jimieson of SCS Engineers.
The high viscosity of oil-based inks can provide an opportunity for an alternative means of complying with the secondary containment requirements of the SPCC Rule. An impracticability determination can be an appropriate option for oil-based ink you store in single walled containers at print or similar facilities.
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