Achieving Florida’s 75% Recycling Goal presents unique challenges and opportunities for policymakers and professional staff. Across the country, local governments who had become accustomed to receiving operational cost offsets from their recyclable materials are now paying higher fees to continue their recycling programs. Renewable News covers how Leon County and the city of Tallahassee are managing both through their partnership.
They are uncovering opportunities to improve upon current operations, including but not limited to potential changes to facilities, infrastructure, programs, and partnerships. New opportunities are helping both develop long-term policy strategies and recommendations to continue a financially viable recycling program and meet goals.
Read and share the article here.
Look, I get it. If a regulator walks in the front door, send your maintenance folks out the back door with a bucket of paint. We want to make the system look shiny and as new as we can get so that the regulator might cut us some slack. However, the issue is what happens when we don’t remove the lipstick, so to speak, and clean up the dirt (in this case, corrosion) underneath. Imagine what a celebrity would look like if they never washed off the makeup that they applied each day. Now take a look around your system. Do any of your pipes or valves, or even vessels, look like …
Keeping reading Lipstick on a Pig, Bill Lape’s latest article in the Epic Fail section of the RETA Breeze, to meet IIAR6 requirements before the regulator arrives.
Bill Lape is a Certified Industrial Refrigeration Operator, a Certified Refrigeration Service Technician, and a member of the National Board of Directors of the Refrigerating Engineers and Technicians Association. He writes regularly to guide businesses and workers using industrial refrigeration.
SCS Engineers, a top-tier ENR environmental consulting and construction firm, welcomes Professional Engineer Mary Kennamer to its environmental services team in Raleigh, N.C. As a Senior Project Professional, Mary is responsible for designing and engineering solutions to help landfills, manufacturers, and businesses comply with federal and state environmental regulations.
As a chemical engineer, Mary’s background and degree are useful to help North Carolina landfill owners prepare to meet more stringent federal and local air regulations. She will advise on air compliance issues, air permitting, compliance reporting, and consulting for landfills and manufacturing.
“Mary’s previous consulting experience and work with the US EPA is a tremendous asset and value for our landfill and manufacturing clients,” states Kenton Yang, the Raleigh office’s project director. “We’re excited to add another bright star to the Raleigh office.”
In order to permit new or expanding plants and facilities, there are complex environmental policies to meet. As an environmental and chemical engineer, Mary researches, plans, and completes the technical work for air permitting and compliance, SPCC, and due diligence that keeps owners in compliance and projects moving forward.
About SCS Engineers
SCS Engineers’ environmental solutions and technology directly result from our experience and dedication to solid waste management and other industries responsible for safeguarding the environment. For more information about SCS, please visit our website at www.scsengineers.com/, contact , follow us on your preferred social media, or watch our 50th Anniversary video.
SCS Engineers – Raleigh specializes in permitting and meeting comprehensive clean air, water, and soil goals and provides a range of services such as PFAS treatment, solid waste master planning, landfill technology, risk management, groundwater monitoring, pre-closure and landfill closures, and Brownfields remediation.
We all enjoy a success story, especially when it comes to reducing contamination in recyclable materials. Congratulations to the city and citizens for their Clean/Green campaign with its many benefits. Bill Bensing, Director of Public Services in Kirkwood, takes us through his journey in this timely APWA Reporter article.
Additional Resources:
As it does nationwide, Florida’s aspirational 75% recycling goal presents unique challenges and opportunities. Specifically, Florida municipal policymakers and professional staff are wrestling with contamination and changing global commodity markets that affect the financial viability of their recycling programs…
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources – WDNR is performing a waste sort to determine what’s in the trash going into Wisconsin’s landfills. During the waste audit, the team will collect at least 200 samples of waste from 12 waste disposal sites across the state for eight weeks. It’s a dirty …
Cities have begun to “right-size” their recycling systems by evaluating the usage of community recycling containers and reducing/redistributing containers to maximize the quantity of recyclables each site receives. Communities are evaluating curbside recycling programs to increase efficiency, and decreasing contamination is a priority…
Not long ago, a Utah food manufacturer turned to SCS with a persistent problem: high concentrations of fats, oils, and grease (FOG) in its wastewater— high enough to clog the city’s sewer line, knock it out of compliance, and cost it a steep surcharge year after year. As the plant worked toward a solution, its customers’ demand was growing; it reached a point where it had to expand to keep up, and that’s when the quandary came to a head. The meat processor couldn’t get a permit for expansion until the FOG was in check.
Within 18 months, SCS Project Director Mark Pearson and his team of liquid management gurus had their client within acceptable discharge limits for the first time in years. Actually, the plant’s doing a lot better than meeting the city’s requirements. Its FOG concentrations, which had spiked to thousands of mg/L, are consistently down below the established discharge limit of 200 mg/L.
The scenario Pearson walked into is that the wastewater generation and pollutant loading were highly variable as flows fluctuated. Due to hydraulic limitations, the treatment system couldn’t keep up with volumes during peak flows. As a result, the influent (untreated wastewater) was discharged from the plant to the sewer to the municipal wastewater treatment plant. And because the system was overtaxed, it did not sufficiently break down the FOG, which exacerbated the problem, wreaking havoc with the city’s collection pipes.
After completing the initial assessment, Pearson’s team developed a multifaceted approach to debottleneck the system’s hydraulics and make other improvements to increase FOG removal efficiency.
Pearson; Dean Free, senior project manager; and Nathan Hamm, program lead for wastewater and liquids management, came up with a design that achieves two main goals: It eliminates uncontrolled discharge from the plant; it greatly reduces concentrations of FOG—cutting the contaminant load to the city. Not only is the client within discharge limits, but it’s also pushed through its most immediate barrier to expansion permit approval. And it’s improved its relationship with the city.
The solution is a complex one involving chemistry, mechanical engineering, and electrical engineering. But to pare a lot of fine details down to the nitty-gritty, Pearson says:
“We put in screens that remove solids in the wastewater. We constructed a 60,000-gallon tank to equalize the flow coming to the plant. We adjusted pH to help optimize the wastewater treatment chemicals’ effectiveness. We separated the influent tank from the effluent (treated water) pipes to solve a problem where the influent would overflow into the effluent through a perforated wall. The new piping setup makes overflow impossible. And to further fortify the system, we installed a lift station to capture previously untreated wastewater.”
As a bonus, the team installed a tank that the separated FOG residual is pumped to, then hauled to a compost facility for beneficial use.
Besides adding these system enhancements, the SCS team took capabilities further with a process control and instrumentation component. The technology monitors flow rates, temperatures, tank levels, and other conditions. It processes the data and automatically makes adjustments to achieve treatment goals, avoid production downtime, and enable operators to respond proactively should they see a red flag.
Comparing the old to the new way of monitoring and analyzing, Pearson says, “What our client had before was rudimentary information. And while they could monitor conditions, they had to walk around the plant. All of the operational data can be viewed on a screen now from one location. They have more data at their fingertips and more capability to make adjustments to avoid discharge exceedances.”
The wastewater treatment system upgrade was done as a design-build to speed the timeframe while also increasing efficiency. “We could immediately start rather than put it out to bid. We could do construction as we designed. And there was one entity and one point of responsibility. So what’s cool is we leverage both SCS engineering and construction capabilities to solve problems,” Hamm says.
He and his colleagues have the know-how to pivot on a dime if they have to, and there were a couple of times it was necessary, including when the client brought new management on board midway through the installation process. The new team preferred different instrumentation and had a specific scheme in mind.
“We were in the process of installing the original instruments. But we were able to incorporate their equipment preference midstream. We had to figure out how to get new instruments installed and ensure they were perfectly integrated with the computer control system that takes readings from the instruments. It was what they wanted, so we saw that they got it,” Pearson says.
While he and his co-workers’ jobs as project design and build engineers are done, they have not faded from the picture. They provide ongoing technical support when the client needs assistance with troubleshooting. The automated control system has helped.
“This is a robust and complex mechanical treatment system. If by chance, something was wrong, our client can transmit data that comes out of the process controller so we can work remotely to determine if process changes are needed. If they are, we can often make those changes from offsite, and quickly,” Hamm says.
But the SCS team also plans so that its client is equipped to ensure its success moving forward. They provide operator training. And they developed a standard operating and maintenance procedures manual and a checklist to track data and activities transferred from shift to shift, providing operators a standard and seamless way to communicate.
The busy Utah plant is on a good trajectory, with solid footing.
Says Pearson: “Before, they could not expand the plant or even continue their operations much longer if they did not get the FOG under control. Now they can operate continuously, discharge to the city, and they have potential to expand their plant because they are showing the regulators they can stay within their permit limits.”
Additional Resources and Case Studies:
According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), and the World Health Organization (WHO), noise is a serious health concern in the 21st century. Although Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is seemingly the least expensive and simplest control for noise, PPE is also the least effective. It relies on personnel to utilize the correct PPE at the appropriate times.
Approximately 22 million workers are exposed to hazardous noise levels each year in the United States, and over 10 million US workers have diagnosed Noise-Induced Hearing Loss (NIHL). (1) Industries with high numbers of workers exposed to loud sounds include construction, agriculture, mining, manufacturing, utilities, transportation, and the military. Excessive noise can lead to a range of health problems for all citizens, but a growing number of non-industrial workers, including restaurant and school employees, are experiencing this irreversible occupational hazard.
Noise in U.S. industry is an extremely difficult problem to monitor, acknowledges Craig Moulton, a senior industrial hygienist for OSHA. “Still,” he says, “OSHA does require that any employer with workers overexposed to noise provide protection for those employees against the harmful effects of noise. Additionally, employers must implement a continuing, effective hearing conservation program as outlined in OSHA’s Noise Standard.”
Sounding Out Realistic and Effective Solutions
SCS Engineers Industrial Hygienists utilize the hierarchy of controls when developing solutions that involve elimination, substitution, and engineering controls as the first steps to controlling excessive noise. Only when a solution cannot be identified or implemented from these controls do we look to administrative controls and PPE.
“When we design our investigations and remediation plans to address specific noise issues, we are also sensitive to the costs associated with expensive analytical testing,” states Jed Douglas, Industrial Hygiene National Expert. We find cost-effective and lasting solutions by:
SCS has completed numerous noise investigations and sampling for various facilities, such as schools, offices, warehouses, industrial and commercial buildings. SCS’s Industrial Hygienists help building owners, facility engineers, property managers, attorneys, insurance companies, and municipalities with investigations and remediation of the factors contributing to excessively loud noise, including area sampling and surveys of personal exposure for regulatory compliance. We can also help with hearing protection programs, medical monitoring programs, and the selection of PPE.
Additional Information
Noise pollution, also known as environmental noise or sound pollution, is the propagation of noise with ranging impacts on human or animal life activity. Machines, transport, and propagation systems mainly cause outdoor noise sources worldwide, including highways; construction activities; urban congestion; power generation; public transportation, recreational vehicles, home power tools, yard maintenance, and air cooling equipment.
Common sources contributing to harmful industrial loud noise:
Health effects from loud noise include:
When Doug Doerr got a call from a Colorado-based landfill operator with a hot gas probe at his site’s boundary, Doerr’s day kicked into high gear. Chasing down gas migration problems is nothing new in an SCS client manager’s life, but that reality makes the job no less complex. And in this scenario, he was dealing with a site that he occasionally got called to visit, so to understand the problem fast, he needed the site’s historical data and the current information to fully picture what was happening.
Doerr started with basic landfill gas information from the client: the monitoring probe’s location and a drawing of the gas collection system to determine where the probe was in relation to the gas system. But as you know, that is one small slice of a king-sized pie.
“All the LFG data that I would typically wade through to identify the problem can be overwhelming, but I had a recourse enabling me to get up to speed quickly. It didn’t take long to assess the problem,” he says. That recourse is a combination of quick teamwork from his peers nationwide and sophisticated technology developed by SCS practitioners for landfill owners and operators.
“I queried our in-house landfill gas technical group (engineers, geotechnical experts, and field personnel). And got over 25 responses within several hours with suggestions, one of which came from Ken Brynda in SCS Field Services, who leveraged DataServices to help me identify and narrow down the potential cause of the problem,” recalls Doerr.
DataServices, a module of the SCS eTools® digital platform, collects, stores, manages and analyzes large volumes of continuously accumulating landfill gas data for individual sites or multiple landfills. The module provides a quick method to view landfill gas scenarios.
The beauty of it is that it generates maps and charts to visualize every well and every probe. These system components are viewed in relation to one another and in relation to the perimeter, where the methane on that Colorado site flowed. Further, SCS Field Services’ landfill gas gurus, such as Ken Brynda, plug-in specific parameters that keep a close watch on any well or a group of wells.
“I logged into DataServices and pulled data from the five wells closest to the hot probe, which showed we had vacuum, flow, and gas quality, indicating the wells were pulling hard enough. I shared the results with our landfill gas technical group responders in a table and range map I’d created. And they started chiming in,” Brynda recalls.
As responders viewed initial results from their respective bases around the country, Brynda churned out more information in a few hours, running point charts to capture the balance gas, methane, flow, temperature, supply vacuum, and the vacuum applied to each well. He looked for trends that narrow down cause and point to solutions.
Eliminating the Possibilities – Rule Out Well System Malfunctions
“It can take days if we’d had to do it the old school way with spreadsheets laid out in a lot of rows. But we could identify the potential problem in a matter of hours, backed by a comprehensive evaluation for the landfill operator in eight hours,” Doerr says.
When Field Services staff work to solve a problem with a probe, they look for an outlier, something from a group of wells that’s not behaving like the other wells. In this case, Brynda determined that the wells near the hot probe were functioning properly. DataServices eliminated potential problems by slicing through and analyzing large chunks of data confirming the system was working efficiently.
Next, we observed that the wells are likely too far away to pull gas back from waste, adjacent to the probe in question, where there are no wells.
“DataServices helped rule out malfunctions, and that’s a big deal because if you can confirm the landfill system is working properly, you have narrowed your focus and can look toward other possibilities, ultimately leading to corrective options,” Doerr says. Brynda and Doerr suggested putting in temporary wells in that area to avoid odor migration and health and safety issues.
Doerr continues watching the situation and is prepared with a several-point action plan to mitigate exceedances and avoid falling out of compliance. “We continue watching the data to ensure the gas collection system continues to function well. Should there be issues again, we’re able to fully identify the gas migration pathways and anything in the system that looks out of the ordinary,” Doerr says.
If the client decides to add wells in time, data from the expanded infrastructure will be added to the app and monitored. “As the number of wells grows, DataServices grows with it, adding any, and as much, monitoring and collection data as the operator wants. DataServices will always be in the background to monitor, collect and analyze LFG data in real-time, whenever we need it,” he says. Being able to store, organize, dissect and analyze unlimited volumes of information from one location is powerful. And not just because it helps operators identify problems as they are happening, but because it and our teams can support them in looking for trends over time. Keeping an eye on the activities that keep the systems in balance is less costly.
For Doerr, who spends time in the field but longer hours with his clients, DataServices and the ability to interact quickly with experts like Brynda help SCS deliver more value to clients. “As much as I’d love to master DataServices, I need to focus all of my time on my clients’ business and goals; having support from Field Services and DataServices makes us all more efficient.”
Landfill Technologies and Comprehensive Expertise
SCS eTools® and SCS DataServices®, now with SCS MobileTools® for viewing data and charts anywhere; available to pull landfill data into DataServices for analyzing. You can customize and focus on exactly what you need fast. As Doug and Ken emphasize, it’s info that you likely already have, but may not be able to use quickly for troubleshooting.
SCS RMC®, remote monitoring and control of landfill equipment and systems.
Comprehensive Landfill Services
On March 1, 2021, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) proposed several amendments to air quality regulations pertaining to the regulation of New Jersey Hazardous Air Pollutants (NJHAPs) as well as fumigation operations. The NJHAP regulations changes could significantly impact MSW landfills because they include proposed changes to hydrogen sulfide regulation as a NJHAP.
Key changes are summarized as follows:
Several potential implications could result from these proposed changes, including:
A virtual public hearing regarding the proposed changes is scheduled for April 8, 2021, at 4:00 PM (ET). A link to the virtual public hearing will be posted at http://www.state.nj.us/dep/aqm/curformp.html.
Written comments are due no later than April 30, 2021, to www.nj.gov/dep/rules/comments.
View the proposed changes may be viewed at https://www.nj.gov/dep/rules/proposals/20210301a.pdf
Please direct questions to your SCS Project Manager or one of our local professionals:
Our industry is in a period of a rapid transition to digital data management, but particularly on landfills. Often you read that the latest technology, whether by a brilliant programmer or rolling out as part of a takeover, is innovative. Linking technology and innovation is becoming commonplace, but they are not the same. Innovation is a human process requiring experimentation and iteration to solve landfill issues that often have nothing to do with computers or mobile phones. Landfill technology or apps are tools.
Innovation takes a team of diverse expertise, different perspectives with a constant desire to learn, and most importantly, the primary desire to make landfill operations more efficient and safe. Innovators use technology when and how it makes sense to improve environmental management, profitability, and care for employees and the local community. Lower cost solutions for the vast amount of data collection completed faster and without human error come from people with hands-on in-the-field experience. When it comes to landfill technology, its value is clear when a landfill practitioner demonstrates how the particular technology fits into a solution. The nice part is they also get to the point and skip the tech-speak and jargon.
The Landfill Technology Evolution Started Here in 2003
Back in 2003, SCS couldn’t find technology that would enable our engineers and technicians to support landfill operations as we desired. Proving the proverb “necessity is the mother of invention,” we developed a database for our use. Its value in the field was immediate, and SCS continued to adapt and develop SCS DataServices® and SCS MobileTools®, basing refinements on each landfill and client need. It took people in the waste industry to make the right technology tools for the industry.
Meet Oliver Early, SCS’s DataServices and MobileTools Product Manager. Oliver started his career managing landfill operations. He became interested in technology because it got results for him as a landfill manager of 15 facilities. By combining a comprehensive investigation of physical landfill systems, such as landfill gas collection and control and other environmental monitoring and control systems with evaluations of compliance areas, he improved his landfill system performance and substantially increased power plant production. He used multivariate data techniques, including time series and network analysis, to scrutinize and refine results. Merging DataServices capabilities under Oliver’s guidance took SCS’s original internal database to a timesaving product for all landfills, not just the landfills SCS operates.
The platform, called SCS eTools®, includes modules for leachate, groundwater, DataServices, and the newest application SCS MobileTools, free for those using DataServices. The technology is currently in use on over 630 landfills nationwide and benefits all of SCS’s design, build, and operations work.
For example, if methane readings at a gas probe are elevated, that’s an indication of a potential LFG migration issue. While expertise is great – it could take hours to diagnose and mitigate. With DataServices, you could run an evaluation of the existing well field in a few minutes, ruling out issues with current wells. With the touch of a button, you can share the information with your team and focus on potential mitigation recommendations.
Remote Monitoring and Control Technology Didn’t Happen Overnight Either
The best and most innovative solutions come from combining the stakeholders’ experiences and thoughts. Let’s meet a few of the people who lead other landfill innovations.
In addition to being a licensed drone pilot herself, flying over 100 landfills, Business Manager Melissa Russo uses SCS Remote Monitoring and Control (RMC) technology to support her landfill clients. Her contributions increase safety and lower environmental risk using unmanned aerial vehicles to gather field data at a lower cost. Melissa developed SCS’s national drone and geographic information systems (GIS) programs to respond to her clients’ needs for expensive regulatory and operating challenges. As a result, capturing more (methane) greenhouse gas instead of releasing it into the atmosphere provides the obvious environmental benefits, and landfill personnel have better and safer working conditions.
Depending on the sensor or camera attached, her pilots can monitor methane concentrations using a tunable diode laser, measure and map surface temperatures to mitigate elevated temperature conditions, or create topography, aerial imagery, and estimate filling volumes. Operators can view, detect and measure changes over time, gaining insight into critical infrastructures such as water infiltration, liquid flow, and vegetation distributions. Melissa’s use of GIS provides a low-cost solution to data management and sharing between field and office.
Melissa is an innovator who genuinely cares about our industry, taking the time to listen and truly understand her clients’ challenges and long-term goals. Only then does she devise customized solutions, regardless of whether it uses technology or not. See Melissa at work.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is Bang for Your Buck
SCS RMC’s Business Manager is David Hostetter. His experience includes remote monitoring and controls systems engineering, construction, and operation; landfill gas and leachate engineering; and mechanical engineering. Dave’s focus is on automating remote process control of landfill systems, landfill gas blower/flare stations, wellfield vacuum and flow, along with leachate and groundwater pumping systems, weather equipment, and air monitors.
As a landfill gas engineer, his impetus was to avoid production downtime and keep operations within regulatory mandates. He wanted his clients to see what was happening at any given time and be alerted to atypical conditions. As a landfill engineer, he knows that “prevention is better than cure,” as long as it’s cost-effective. Dave’s solution is to leverage the Internet of Things through SCS RMC systems. Each piece of equipment you want to monitor gets a sensor. His team configures each sensor or group of sensors to parameters based on his operator’s business needs and environmental reporting responsibilities. A local wireless network communicates with a base station providing continuous readings from each sensor.
RMC sends alerts if readings are outside an acceptable range or if an environmental threshold is nearing exceedance. Alerts go to the landfill’s designated staff or technicians via smartphones, computers, or tablets. From these devices, users access their interface to control, start, stop, and reset field systems and analyze system operation. They can also view data, graphs, tables, alarms, and reports.
That’s more than convenience; it saves labor dollars spent to diagnose and reset these systems and is especially valuable for remote landfills. By design, clients can enable custom authorization levels for their systems. Naturally, the analytical tools are easy to use, understand, and report, as he explains in his video.
Albert Einstein Said…
“You can’t solve a problem on the same level that it was created. You have to rise above it to the next level.” We’re not comparing ourselves to Einstein, but all three SCSers leading their teams know that compliance policy never stops changing, and landfills are unique beasts made up of complex systems that need balance to perform. Performance is based on daily decisions and landfill readings generating enormous amounts of data. SCS’s job is to make your job better by collecting those millions of data bits for analysis faster, helping landfill operators use the intelligence to identify the cause and appropriate response to hundreds of issues that are part of landfill or facility management.
The backbone of every service at SCS Engineers is to design and develop based on our clients’ specific needs. As innovators, our mission is to leverage proven technology to meet those needs. As our founders did, we strive to understand our clients’ current and future needs, then develop or integrate the appropriate technology to meet those needs.
SCS is one of the most experienced and successful environmental compliance, design-build, operations, and maintenance firms in the United States. No stand-alone technology company can substitute for our knowledge and hands-on experience with innovative landfill design, build, and operations.
Visit SCS Engineers to discover SCS eTools and SCS RMC capabilities. You’ll find case studies, technology awards, and more resources for using technology to manage labor, liquids, air monitoring, groundwater, volume, GHGs, and more
EBJ presented awards earlier this month for notable solutions and response to Covid-19, in addition to new technologies and recognition of environmental firms celebrating 50+ years. The publication, EBJ Vol XXXIV No 1&2: 2021 Executive Review & 2020 EBJ Business Achievement Awards & Lifetime Achievement Awards is online here.
We thank EBJ and Grant Ferrier for getting so many influential environmental leaders into one forum. Grant is EBJ’s Editor and Founder. He and Jim Walsh had a fun exchange during the event when EBJ recognized SCS’s longevity and commitment to the environmental industry for 50 years. The presentation included a short Q&A with Grant and Jim Walsh in addition to the multiple awards presented for SCS solutions.
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