SCS Engineers, in partnership with 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, SCS will collect at least 200 samples of waste from 12 waste disposal sites across the state for eight weeks.
Solid waste, recycling, and diversion planners need to differentiate between the composition and sources of waste to appropriately manage recycling and diversion programs. These programs help citizens and businesses make the most out of their waste material and help control the cost of waste management.
Waste diversion can positively impact communities’ environmental health, reduce the potential for soil and water contamination, and conserve resources while reducing landfill operation costs. Municipal solid waste, called MSW, typically contains valuable materials. The cost of manufacturing using virgin materials increases, but technology creates new avenues for reusing materials formerly thrown away. The pandemic has influenced what we are consuming and where we dispose of wastes, from home or the office, influencing materials markets.
WDNR uses the waste audit data to evaluate current waste diversion programs’ effectiveness to identify and quantify additional materials that Wisconsin could divert from its landfills and serve as a baseline to measure future efforts. By comparing the new data to a previous waste composition study, WDNR can measure the impact of existing recycling and hazardous waste management programs. The comparison further helps identify waste generation trends and how the waste stream is changing.
The waste characterization study separately analyzes the waste stream generated from various sources, including residential, industrial/commercial/institutional, construction & demolition. For solid waste, recycling and diversion planners, it is vital to differentiate waste sources to target programs properly.
All of this helps make recycling more effective and identifies ways to reduce and reuse a large percentage of what is landfilled.
Many items we throw away have continued value. Cell phones and electronics contain valuable materials, like gold, for example. Cardboard is exceptionally valuable now, as citizens and businesses are taking more deliveries at home. Organics such as food and yard waste can turn into compost. Aluminum and steel cans can be recycled over and over again to make new cans. According to the Aluminum Association’s Can Committee, making a new can from recycled aluminum takes 95% less energy and releases 95% fewer greenhouse gases than creating the same can without recycled material.
Betsy Powers is a Senior Project Manager and Civil Engineer in the SCS Madison, Wisconsin office. She has more than 22 years of civil and environmental consulting experience, including landfill design, permitting and construction, C&D and yard waste management, material recovery facility design and erosion control, and stormwater management. She serves on the Associated Recyclers of Wisconsin Board of Directors. Betsy is a registered professional engineer in Wisconsin.
The regulatory driver for reducing bird presence at landfills in Oregon is usually the need to reduce E. coli counts in stormwater as birds carry a range of diseases and landfills are bird feed grounds.
Large aggregations of birds, especially starlings, gulls, and crows can present economic, regulatory, and aesthetic challenges wherever they occur. Lasers have been successfully used to control birds for the agricultural, industrial, power, and commercial sectors for several years.
Lasers used for bird control typically emit green light, a color to which wildlife seem prone to see and react and range up to 500 milliwatts in power (Class 3B), which may equate to effective ranges of beyond 1000 feet. Lasers come in both handheld and automated versions. Handheld lasers allow more flexibility and control in terms of safety and application to particular birds, groups of birds, or situations. Modern automated bird control lasers are basically a security camera housing with a laser as payload instead of a camera, which is programmed to run the laser point along one-to-many set paths. Automated lasers are typically placed on poles or rooftops to allow for maximum range and a good focus for the laser spot on the ground.
We have been evaluating the potential use of handheld and automated lasers for solid waste applications for over a year, mainly for deterring birds from using landfills for feeding and loafing. The regulatory driver for reducing bird presence at landfills in Oregon is usually the need to reduce E. coli counts in stormwater. SCS recently teamed with Bird Control Group, a developer and manufacturer of laser units specifically designed for bird control, and Douglas County Department of Public works to install an automated laser at Roseburg Landfill, Roseburg, Oregon. Initial results are promising, with most birds leaving the site within a few hours of activating the laser.
The collection of daily bird presence data by landfill staff for the last year will help determine the short- and long-term effects of the recent laser installation. SCS will discuss the technology, safety, methodology, science, applications to the solid waste industry, and ongoing results and challenges of the Roseburg Landfill laser installation at the next SWANA NW Symposium, but you may contact SCS directly.
Shane Latimer, Ph.D., CES, SCS Engineers
Shane Latimer is an environmental planner, ecologist, and toxicologist with over 30 years of experience in environmental assessment, planning, permitting, implementation; and compliance; 24 years in the solid waste industry. His specialty is developing projects that challenge the interface between the built and natural environments, such as solid waste facilities, oil and gas infrastructure, mines, sewage treatment facilities, and similar developments. These projects often require careful assessments of alternatives, impacts, and opportunities to successfully navigate the applicable public regulatory processes (e.g., NEPA, local land use, etc.) and ensure environmental integrity.
Industrial stormwater discharge regulatory compliance defined by the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System – NPDES, and the Federal Multi-Sector General Permit – MSGP, slated for implementation in January 2021, will affect state Industrial General Permits. In the states where the EPA is the regulating body (New Mexico, New Hampshire, and West Virginia), the impact will be immediate.
California on the Rise, by Jonathan Meronek and Alissa Barrow, discusses the emerging general commonalties of “lessons learned” that can help dischargers successfully manage their stormwater programs.
Jonathan and Alissa explain best practices that help businesses understand and prepare ahead of the expected changes. The strategies can streamline preparation and response to minimize risk and help prevent fines and lawsuits.
About the Authors: Jonathan Meronek is a State of California IGP Qualified Industrial Stormwater Practitioner – QISP. With SCS Engineers for over 17 years, he leads Stormwater Management in the Southwest U.S. Alissa Barrow has 10 years of experience as an environmental professional specializing in environmental assessment, remediation, and compliance. Find a stormwater professional near you.
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The unsung hero at landfills with a landfill gas collection system is the humble Wellfield Technician. The position of Wellfield Technician is multifaceted; this individual needs to be well equipped to deal with constant changes. A good technician is capable of:
All while communicating effectively with those on their team, during all kinds of weather and changing conditions.
One practice that most good Technicians embrace is keeping effective field notes. Those not engaging in this practice should consider doing so. Field notes and comments added to a row of monitoring data can be of great future value to the technician and the rest of the team. Accurate and detailed field notes contain information that can help the project team when it comes time to diagnose, repair, or troubleshoot various wellfield issues.
Whether it’s a handwritten entry in a logbook, a comment stored in a field instrument, or notes saved in a smartphone, tablet, or computer, the information recorded in field notes is indispensable for the proper, efficient maintenance of the wellfield.
Technicians are hard-pressed to recall every detail during the hectic daily push to get the wellfield read, while multitasking and keeping up with items that pop up at a moment’s notice. By keeping track of this information through note-taking or SCSeTools®, the technician can be more efficient over time – they won’t be scratching their head, trying to remember a detail important to a task.
Examples of items we track in our database include: wellhead valve positions, surging in vacuum supply risers at wellheads, required maintenance of sample ports, flex hoses, audible wellhead leaks, ponding water around wells, surface cracks around a well, and borehole backfill material settlement.
Regardless of how recorded, save field notes as valuable points of reference.
Handwritten notes are entered into a preventative maintenance program or a wellfield database so that they are accessible for use in planning repairs or troubleshooting problems. Another option is to capture them automatically, even noting the GSI coordinates into a database such as SCSeTools, to save time and lessen transcription errors.
Once completing wellfield monitoring and tuning, technicians then use comments or notes as a punch-list to return to the wellfield − ready to perform maintenance or repairs. These are the actions that keep the landfill gas collection components operating efficiently, and clients’ happy.
About the Author: Ken Brynda is an SCS Field Services OM&M Compliance Manager in North Carolina. He is an active member of SWANA’s Landfill Gas and Biogas Technical Division, Field Practices Committee serving clients for over 30 years. Ken’s expertise includes the design, construction, operation and maintenance, evaluation, troubleshooting, and assessment of landfill gas collection and control systems and LFG-to-energy production facilities.
Learn more about Landfill Services here.
SCS Engineers’ Gomathy Radhakrishna Iyer explains, “The structure of PFAs is a carbon and fluorine bond, and that bond is considered one of the strongest in nature. For industry, Chlorofluorocarbons (CFC), a volatile derivative of methane, ethane, and propane, creates problems globally after they’ve been released. Chlorofluorocarbons are strong greenhouse gases and are also responsible for the destruction of stratospheric ozone.
The most publicized of these compounds are those used as coolants in refrigeration and air conditioners, as propellants in spray cans and similar products, and as solvents for industrial purposes. Chlorofluorocarbons are far less abundant than carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Still, they are 10,000 times more potent as a greenhouse gas and can remain in the atmosphere for more than 45 to 100 years. Reference
Iyer continues, “PFAS has the same kind of carbon-fluorine bond as CFC but linked to several C-F bonds like a chain making them even more inert and hard to degrade. Breaking this bond is what makes finding effective leachate treatments challenging, but certainly possible.”
It takes a savvy engineer to design safe and effective systems. We’re very proud of our Young Professionals like Gomathy – they’re smart and continue learning with the guidance of our VEPs – very experienced professionals.
Open positions at SCS Engineers for YPs and VEPs
President, Michele Nestor
Vice President, Denise Wessels
Secretary, Tom Lock
Treasurer, Matthew Foltz
Private Sector Directors: Jill Hamill, Carolyn Witwer
Public Sector Directors: Scott McGrath and Scot Sample
Young Professionals Director: Brandon Comer
Chapter International Board Member: Robert Watts
The Solid Waste Association of North America – SWANA organization is comprised of public and private sector professionals committed to advancing solid waste management, safety, and resource management through their shared emphasis on education, advocacy, and research. Keystone SWANA serves industry professionals through technical conferences, certifications, publications, and a large offering of technical training courses which in turn keep our communities and environmental resources healthier.
SWANA is offering educational sessions as a webinar series with CEUs available from August through November. Register for just a few or pay one flat fee to participate in as many as you would like.
This week’s Webinar is on Thursday, October 1 at 10:00 am ET, 1 CEU.
State-of-the industry practices pertaining to the design, construction, operations, monitoring, and data analytics of LFG collection and control systems, as well as investigation of the quantity (mass flux) of fugitive (uncollected) LFG emissions.
Webinar Schedule and Registration
This 1 hour SWANA Training includes topics on Landfill Gas Emissions. Register through the VRA/SWANA Webinar Series. If you’d like to learn more about the services and technologies discussed during this session, try one of these links:
SCS periodically prepares Technical Bulletins to highlight items of interest to our clients and friends who have signed up to receive them. We also publish these on our website at https://www.scsengineers.com/publications/technical-bulletins/.
Our most recent Bulletin summarizes the
This Bulletin provides information on these revisions, as follows:
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” We’ve all heard that proverb before, and it’s true – it’s generally easier to stop something from happening than to repair the damage after it has happened.
This is almost always the case when it comes to environmental incidents – it is cheaper to prevent the incident from occurring than paying for the cleanup and impacts the incident caused. Many of SCS’s service areas are specifically focused on prevention and optimization – doing the job in ways that are better, safer, and more protective of human health and the environment.
Environmental insurance is a product that most SCS clients likely have in place in some form to protect their facilities, employees, and neighbors from the harmful impacts of incidents that can introduce contamination into the air, soil, groundwater, or surface water. The types of coverage provided by environmental insurance policies vary in both extent and cost, and many factors, one of which being risk, drive those costs. When an insurance company is underwriting coverage for a new or existing client, the risk associated with that coverage is carefully evaluated. What the client (insured) does, how they do it, their safety record, their history of previous environmental issues, and other factors are all taken into consideration when writing an environmental insurance policy and the associated premium and deductible are determined.
To reduce the up-front costs (the premium) associated with carrying the necessary and appropriate amount of environmental insurance, the insured can do several things. One is to increase their deductible, but in the event of an incident, that could end up costing the insured more on the back end (i.e., costs expended to investigate and remediate an incident). Insureds, their brokers, and the insurers will work closely to balance premium costs and deductibles so that the costs associated with addressing an incident are not detrimental.
An insured shouldn’t reduce the type and amount of coverage – that could put them in a bad financial (and legal!) position. A more prudent choice, one that has many potential positive aspects and makes sound business sense, is reducing risk and therefore the costs associated with an environmental insurance policy that is based on coverage and risk.
SCS Engineers develops proprietary remote monitoring and control software for landfills, manufacturing, and industrial facilities called SCS RMC®. The software provides remote real-time viewing, analysis, and control of equipment and systems critical to safe operations and production. A network of sensors and Machine-to-Machine (M2M) applications enable operations teams to be alerted immediately (via cell phones, computers, tablets) of any operational issues that could potentially result in an environmental incident.
The application reduces reaction time, labor costs, and potential associated impacts. In this case, SCS RMC® puts the client’s decision-making in front of a problem rather than reacting to potential aftermaths, proactively reducing the potential environmental risks of their operations.
SCS’s service areas, including those listed here, are particularly focused on providing our clients with assistance in designing, building, and maintaining sustainable solutions, reducing risk, and helping to foresee and adapt to environmental, social, and regulatory changes:
SCS’s professionals are available to assist our clients in their discussions with brokers and insurers regarding how our environmental services and technologies can potentially reduce risks associated with their operations. We do this by providing creative and cost-effective solutions and guidance that can prevent environmental incidents from occurring and reducing the nature and extent of associated impacts.
We can help you select and implement the “ounce of prevention” so that you won’t have to face the “pound of cure.” This will proactively reduce operational risks, which can, in turn, help facilitate the positive brokering of more favorable environmental insurance coverage, premiums, and deductibles.
About the Author: Michael Schmidt is an accomplished leader with nearly 30 years of progressively-responsible experience in the environmental consulting and environmental insurance industries, with specific experience focusing on the evaluation of environmental risks and liabilities associated with insurance claims and underwriting, site investigation and remediation, due diligence, and project management.
Shown here COMM22, developed by BRIDGE-Housing, is an award-winning mixed-use, mixed-income, transit-oriented development located at Commercial and 22nd streets in San Diego. SCS’s environmental remediation of the property to ensure human health and the environment were protected as cost-effectively as possible enabled the four-phase development project; supporting both the social and business goals of our client and the community.
Local governments and non-profits use Brownfields grants to complete environmental assessments, redevelopment planning, and environmental cleanup. The grant opportunities available now are as follows:
Brownfields Assessment Grant– for Brownfields inventories, environmental assessment, redevelopment planning, and cleanup planning. Funding amounts of $300,000 for community-wide and $600,000 for coalitions.
Brownfields Cleanup Grant– for environmental cleanup of a specific property or properties, currently owned by the applicant. Funding amounts up to $500,000
Brownfields Multi-Purpose Grant-for a range of activities including redevelopment planning, inventories, environmental assessment, and environmental cleanup. Funding amounts up to $800,000.
SCS Engineers has provided grant writing and implementation services for over $10 million in successful Brownfields grant applications including an 80% success rate for first-time applications and over 90% success rate for second round applications. Our Brownfields team is ready to support your grant application effort too. We will work with you to understand the EPA Brownfields grant opportunities and support your development of a successful proposal.
SCS Engineers is a national environmental consulting and contracting company with local experts. We serve as Brownfields’ consultants for many public and private sector clients. Find more inspiration and economic redevelopment successes across our nation:
Contact Dan Johnson, Mr. Johnson brings 35 years of experience and over 200 EPA contracts he’s managed to support your grant application. He is a nationally recognized Brownfield expert and author; current practices regarding environmental assessments; speaks or chairs numerous conferences on hazardous waste issues related to real estate transactions and Brownfields redevelopment.
Contact Amy Dzialowski, Ms. Dzialowski is a nationally recognized expert in Brownfields redevelopment, site reuse, and planning. She has supported grant applications and Brownfield implementation for dozens of communities.
Contact Ray Tierney, Mr. Tierney is a Professional Geologist with over 30 years of experience in environmental and sustainability engineering and has helped a wide range of organizations control and reduce their legacy environmental impacts and liabilities, lower their costs, obtain grants for Brownfields, and implement cost-saving practices.
Kirk Blevins, Mr. Blevins is experienced in land development and redevelopment support, due diligence for property transactions, Brownfield redevelopment, environmental compliance auditing, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) sites.
Find a Brownfields consultant near you, try our staff directory where you can search by specialty, city, and state.
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