Landfills are complex systems with many pipes for liquids and landfill gas running in many different directions. Some of these pipes are at the bottom of the landfill, such as leachate collections pipes, leachate toe drain pipes, pressure release pipes, etc. Other pipes are near the final cover system, either below or above, and closely interact with the final cover geosynthetics. Many of these are for control of landfill gas or leachate seeps at the landfill surface. Pipes may include vertical gas wells, horizontal gas wells, condensate sumps, condensate force main, compressed air lines to gas well pumps and condensate sumps, seep control sumps, electric conduits to condensate sumps and seep control sumps, leachate recirculation force main, stormwater downchutes, etc.
When pipe locations are near the final cover geosynthetics, below or above, or penetrating the final cover, design plans should show details of how the pipes or associated components interact with the final cover components. Lack of sufficient information may cause difficulties years later when scheduling the construction of the final cover. Most often, it becomes evident that many of the pipes constructed years earlier are too short for extending through the final cover.
Another aspect of piping and their interaction with the final cover is conflicts among different pipes, more specifically conflicts among gas pipes and liquid carrying pipes, in and near the final cover system. Liquid carrying pipes may include stormwater downchutes, rainwater toe drain pipes, and leachate toe drain pipes. Stormwater downchutes are usually large diameter pipes extending from the top of the landfill to the perimeter stormwater system. Rainwater toe drain pipes – pipes that receive water from the final cover geocomposite drainage layer, and leachate toe drain pipes – to collect leachate seeps below the final cover geomembrane, are co-located at terraces on slopes and the toe of the slope near the perimeter berm.
A few design considerations can be useful as guidelines during the preparation of design sets to address the relative position of these pipes and the final cover geosynthetics or to avoid conflict among pipes.
The complexity of landfills varies from site to site, and issues related to conflicts among gas and liquids pipes, and pipes and final cover geosynthetics vary depending on the geometry and other landfill features involved at each location. The best way to resolve conflicts before construction is to have a coordinated effort among parties involved in the design to discuss and find solutions to every conflict at the design stage.
About the Author: Ali Khatami, Ph.D., PE, LEP, CGC, is a Project Director and a Vice President of SCS Engineers. He is also our National Expert for Landfill Design and Construction Quality Assurance. He has nearly 40 years of research and professional experience in mechanical, structural, and civil engineering.
Learn more at Landfill Engineering
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.
Our most recent Bulletin summarizes the 2020 Virginia State Plan for New Landfill EG approved by the USEPA on June 23, 2020.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved a Clean Air Act (CAA) section 111(d) plan submitted by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (VADEQ). This plan was submitted to fulfill the requirements of the CAA and in response to EPA’s promulgation of Emissions Guidelines and Compliance Times for municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills.
The Virginia plan establishes emission limits for existing MSW landfills and provides for the implementation and enforcement of those limits. Highlights of the plan are explained in a newly published SCS Technical Bulletin.
SCS Engineers will continue to post timely information, resources, and presentations to keep you well informed.
Leachate seeps from relatively wet landfills are a fact of life for some operators. Leachate seeps increase in intensity and frequency after a storm, and you’re wondering, how many seeps today; are they reaching the stormwater ditches, detention ponds, or wetlands?
We all deal with daily job challenges, but why not prepare better for this particular problem, given the consequences? Sitting back and waiting for a seep to appear and then scrambling to come up with a solution is obsolete and can be costly.
The timing of handling leachate seeps is as vital as submitting compliance data to regulatory agencies on time. Rapid mitigation of leachate seeps is essential before it turns into a compliance issue and exposing yourself to scrutiny by regulators. We all know that no compliance officer at the corporate office wants to hear from a facility the news of another compliance issue. To get a handle on managing leachate seeps, today’s operator has an arsenal of controls suited for different stages of a landfill’s operation. These controls may vary from the dry season to the wet season, as well.
As the landfill operator, you review the facility operation plan prepared by your engineer from the back to the front to make sure the document addresses all operations. The same document can also include descriptions of seep management controls. You simply request written solutions from your engineer, incorporating controls and guidelines into your operations plan. Your staff now has immediate means to combat the problem following the site operator’s direction using these pre-established guidelines.
With the controls in your facility operations plan, regulatory agencies won’t need to ask for the information. The operations plan has put forward a set of guidelines for the management of leachate seeps in your operations plan, and they became aware of these guidelines during the review of your document submitted to their office as part of intermittent or a renewal submittal. Inspectors are aware that your staff follows the guidelines when necessary; otherwise, non-compliance issues arise. Having an inspector observe a seep closing in on a stormwater ditch isn’t going to do much for your landfill’s standing. The regulators are well-informed and understand leachate seep prevention. They will work with you during the implementation of remediation measures based on the guidelines in the facility operations plan.
A reliable engineer will suggest, even emphasize, these measures to clients. You, as the operator, are not only prepared, but your site engineer and staff are too. Significant unexpected expenses associated with managing leachate seeps are a thing of the past, and inspectors can be confident that your management of leachate control is appropriate.
About the Author: Ali Khatami, Ph.D., PE, LEP, CGC, is a Project Director and a Vice President of SCS Engineers. He is also our National Expert for Landfill Design and Construction Quality Assurance. He has nearly 40 years of research and professional experience in mechanical, structural, and civil engineering.
Learn more at Landfill Engineering
The men and women of the solid waste industry have been continuing their jobs throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. In recognition of their hard work and sacrifice, SWANA is collaborating with Glad to support sanitation workers across the United States and Canada personally affected by COVID-19 through the Sanitation Workers Support Fund (Fund). The Fund is providing financial assistance to eligible front-line solid waste and recycling collection workers in the United States and Canada adversely impacted by COVID-19.
“The solid waste industry is considered essential, and its workers have been on the front line, without failure, making sure waste is collected and disposed of since the onset of COVID-19. This fund is an important recognition of their contribution to our communities, and is a way of providing support when they are personally impacted by the pandemic,” stated Suzanne Sturgeon, Health & Safety Program Manager for SCS Field Services and SWANA Safety Committee Chair.
It’s important to make sure we recycle right, not just recycle often! It’s exciting to see all the new products made from the bags and the technology used to sort them – but how individuals’ recycle does matter.
It doesn’t take many plastic bags to get wrapped up in the recycling equipment, causing the equipment to work inefficiently and forcing it to shut down multiple times every day. The facility staff must enter or climb on the screening equipment to cut away bags as in this video.
If you use a plastic bag to collect your recyclables, empty the recyclables into your recycle bin and reuse the bag or recycle it at your grocery or retail store. Don’t mix plastic bottles with plastic bags – that’s what causes safety and efficiency problems in the first place.
Most grocery stores and retail stores such as Walmart, Target, and Lowes have recycling bins for this type of plastic. If you are not reusing the bags, take them to a drop off location, which is probably the same store where you got them.
Find the stores nearest you by visiting this site – a list of all the store drop-off locations in your zip code.
More than just your plastic retail bags can often be recycled, but it’s good to check with your drop-off to see what’s accepted. Examples of what often can be recycled include:
Now, if you are on the other end of the consumer chain and looking to provide a program for your school, community, or solid waste planning area, there is no need to start from scratch! Many other such entities have already developed successful recycling programs and are more than happy to share what they have done. Additionally, end-users in need of this material are also ready and willing to assist with setting up programs, such as the one found here. Plastics wraps, bags, and film may not be going away any time soon, but as long as they are here, there is great reuse for them!
About the Author: Christine Collier is an SCS Senior Project Professional in Des Moines, Iowa. She has over 18 years of experience in the Iowa solid waste industry. She has spent most of her career as both a client and project manager working directly with clients to ensure their projects were being completed on schedule and within budget. Her focus has been on working as a member of the client’s team as an advocate for their best interest. Through her career, she has become an expert in Iowa’s solid waste regulations and compliance requirements. She has BS and MS degrees from Iowa State University in Civil Engineering with an environmental emphasis and is a licensed Iowa Professional Engineer.
Providing a safe work environment is always essential, but never more so than now. Meeting PSM/RMP compliance deadlines, providing ammonia refrigeration operator training, and maintaining critical safety systems are key components in a safe work environment for facility employees.
Safety systems, such as ammonia leak detection systems, must remain operational as required under the following regulatory criteria:
• OSHA 29 CFR 5189, Process Safety Management (PSM) Section (j)(2)(C) Mechanical Integrity
• EPA’s 40 CFR Part 68, Risk Management Program (RMP) Part 68.73
• EPA General Duty Clause
• RAGAGEP – IIAR Standard 6
These criteria require companies to comply with the manufacturer’s recommendations for maintenance and calibration of ammonia detection systems. Calibrating ammonia sensors on a frequency determined in these same recommendations keeps your business compliant. We all know that compliance is non-negotiable as the ammonia detection system is a life-safety device.
Dedicating itself to providing a variety of online training and virtual meetings, the SCS Tracer Environmental team ensures your systems meet all regulatory obligations. When site visits are necessary; our teams and your facility members use a CDC-based safety protocol meeting state and local requirements, and facility requirements.
For assistance with ammonia sensor calibrations, please contact Mark Carlyle.
In this time of pandemics and stay-at-home orders across the country, much thought has been given to the concept of doing more work remotely. As employees have been required to work from home, the popularity of various business collaboration platforms, such as Zoom, has exploded. As businesses have come to rely on these platforms to continue their essential activities, the idea of utilizing these platforms to conduct remote PSM/RMP activities such as process hazard analyses (PHAs) for our ammonia refrigeration and other highly hazardous chemical processes has grown to a fever pitch.
There are many arguments in favor of a remote PHA. First, it allows us to safely maintain social distancing as required with the current state of emergency due to COVID-19. Second, it allows for more team members to participate while avoiding travel time and costs.
While the first argument supporting remote PHAs cannot be disputed, the reduction in travel costs is often offset by the added time that is required to conduct a thorough PHA over business collaboration video conferencing. There are often technical glitches with the computers or video conferencing platforms that need to be dealt with throughout the PHA. Correcting these issues consumes valuable time, time that is still needed for the discussion of the hazards of the process.
Another time factor that comes into play when conducting a PHA through video conferencing is “Zoom Fatigue.” “Zoom Fatigue” is real. It is challenging to remain focused and engaged in a video conference for more than about six hours at a time. This requires more days to complete the PHA properly. An argument against this six-hour limit is to simply “take more breaks.” While taking more breaks is certainly an option, meeting over a remote platform makes it difficult, if not impossible, to corral team members and get them back on task. In addition to trying to corral team members from breaks, an online platform makes the team members extremely susceptible to the desire to multi-task. More often than not, attendees are involved in checking and responding to emails, answering phone calls, or even addressing in-person issues when on a video/conference call, instead of giving full attention to the task at hand. This makes team engagement difficult and dramatically reduces the effectiveness, and hence the quality, of the PHA.
Team member engagement is driven by the facilitator. Most facilitators rely on eye contact, body movement, and voice inflection to help keep the team members engaged in the discussion. This is difficult at best over a video link. It is downright impossible if any of the team members do not have a video connection and only participate in an audio connection.
Sharing of documents and information is more time consuming using a remote platform. First, any documents that are not in an electronic format must be scanned in order for the team to look at them. Often a scanner is not available or cannot handle the physical size of the document. This leads to attempts to share the document using cell phone cameras. This method is time-consuming at best and often unreadable at worst. Second, it is often impossible due to screen size and resolution to look at multiple documents simultaneously over a video link. When the team is gathered around a conference room table, they can very quickly scan multiple large drawings and collaborate on interpreting them.
It is necessary for the team members to understand the basics of the methodology being used to conduct the PHA. This is why at least one team member must be knowledgeable in the methodology, so that they may guide the team. This guidance is more difficult for the facilitator to provide, given the reduced engagement experienced over a video link. It is often difficult for the facilitator to identify a look of confusion, frustration, or boredom over a video link. It is much easier to do so when sitting across from each other at a conference table.
Finally, perhaps the biggest pitfall associated with a remote PHA is the loss of the ability to take “field trips.” Often, when discussing a hazard or failure scenario, there is ambiguity in the documentation, and memories are vague. When conducting a PHA on site, the team can get up from the table and walk out and look at the area in question. With a remote PHA, this capability is lost. If someone from the site is participating via the remote video link, they could go out and take photos of the area in question and come back and share them with the team. This is not ideal since often pictures don’t tell the whole story, and things may be missed if people only see the picture.
PHAs conducted remotely over a video conferencing link are a viable option for certain types of PHAs. For instance, when conducting a limited scope PHA for a change being conducted under Management of Change, a remote PHA may be a good option. This would depend upon the quality of the available documents supporting the proposed change. When a PHA is being revalidated, and the previous PHA had not been cited for deficiencies in its conduct, a remote PHA may be a good option, providing that a portion of the team members who are knowledgeable of the process being analyzed took part in the previous PHA.
There are many instances where a facility should think long and hard about the potential pitfalls of conducting a process hazard analysis over a remote video conferencing link. If the facility has no existing PHA, if the previous PHA methodology and level of thoroughness were cited by regulators, or if the proposed PHA team consists of few members who took part in the previous PHA, then an on-site PHA should be strongly considered.
About the Author: Bill Lape is a Project Director for SCS’s Risk Management Group in our SCS Tracer Environmental Division. His expertise is in the development and deployment of standardized Risk Management and Process Safety Management (PSM) Programs, including process safety program implementation and PSM support to manufacturing facilities that utilize ammonia as a refrigerant. Prior to joining SCS, he served as Director of EHS Programs and Compliance for Dean Foods where he directed a team of professionals who provided PSM/RMP support, as well as support for stormwater, wastewater, and air permitting at the company’s facilities.
Congratulations to Jeanne Lemaster for recently earning her Masters and Ph.D. in NanoEngineering from the University of California, San Diego. While pursuing her doctorate, Jeanne worked part-time as a Project Professional on the Risk Management team with the specialty group SCS Tracer Environmental and has since returned to full time.
Jeanne has been a part of SCS’s team for over seven years. Dr. Lemaster is responsible for the documentation of Process Safety Management Programs (PSM) / Risk Management Programs (RMP) / California Accidental Release Prevention Programs (CalARP) projects for regulated facilities using hazardous materials. Her work includes preparing the program documentation for compliance with the PSM/RMP/CalARP regulations, leading Process Hazard Analyses (PHA) studies, completing Hazard Assessments, providing CalARP implementation training, developing Piping and Instrumentation Diagrams, conducting Seismic Assessments, and producing technical reports for clients.
Jeanne is affiliated with the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AICHE), Refrigerating Engineers and Technicians Association (RETA), and the American Chemical Society (ACS).
Nanoengineers like Jeanne, provide scientific and technical expertise to scientists, engineers, technologists, technicians, or others, using their knowledge of chemical, analytical, and biological processes as applied to micro and nanoscale systems. Nanosystems Engineers also design nanosystems with components such as nanocatalysts or nanofiltration devices to clean specific pollutants from hazardous waste sites. They also design nano-enabled products with reduced toxicity, increased durability, or improved energy efficiency.
Matt Brokaw, P.E. joins the SCS Engineers new office at 3801 Lake Boone Trail, Suite 430, Raleigh, NC 27607, Tel: +1-919-662-3015
SCS Engineers, a top-tier ENR environmental consulting and construction firm, opened a larger office in Raleigh, North Carolina, in late May. The move centralizes the team closer to their clients’ sites to provide full-services. The new office accommodates new team members, including Matt Brokaw. Matt joins the SCS professionals who provide environmental services for solid waste management for the benefit of municipal and private landfills, public works, and recycling.
As a Senior Project Professional, Matt is responsible for the engineering and design of environmental solutions, with a primary focus in solid waste, stormwater management and planning, and erosion and sediment control critical to permitting compliant facilities and ultimately protecting natural resources. Extending the life of a landfill and adding airspace is often critical for the communities SCS clients serve.
The new SCS Raleigh location supports the growing demand for full-service environmental solutions supported by a mix of professionals. As specialized teams, they can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, capture landfill gases, create renewable energy from by-products, and optimize utilities and businesses using environmental practices that are economically feasible. The firm specializes in permitting for and meeting comprehensive clean air, water, and soil goals. It 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.
About SCS Engineers
SCS Engineers’ environmental solutions and technology are a direct result of 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.
Circulated with permission from EREF – Press Release
For years, the public has considered recycling to be one of the best methods of preserving the environment and preventing valuable materials from going to the landfill. Coupled with this is the misconception that landfills are actually harmful to the environment.
As a result of this misunderstanding, consumers, driven to do their sustainable part by avoiding the trash can, discard their items in the recycling bin with little regard or understanding of what does and does not belong in that bin. Thanks to this wish-cycling and confusion, consumers unknowingly create more contamination, rendering some of the material un-recyclable, as well as dangerous conditions for solid waste and scrap recycling facilities.
With these stressors already weighing on facilities, fires at material recovery facilities are on the rise, with records set in July, August, and September of 2019 for reported fires.
Despite the recent increase in MRF fires, there is little data and evidence to explain how and why these fires spark. To fill in this data gap, the Environmental Research & Education Foundation (EREF), in collaboration with the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI), National Waste & Recycling Association (NWRA) and the Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA) have partnered on a study to determine the causes and frequency of MRF fires in the U.S.
The primary objective of this effort is to compile information that summarizes the following information about fires at MRFs and scrap recycling facilities and in collection vehicles:
Key industry organizations have rallied around the issue, with the project stakeholders representing a significant portion of the scrap and recycling industry. “These fires present a major risk to worker safety. For years, NWRA has fought to improve worker safety in the waste industry,” said Darrell Smith, President and CEO of NWRA. “This study will better inform our efforts.”
“The recycling industry is taking a proactive approach to addressing the growing concern of fires at scrap facilities,” said Robin Wiener, President of ISRI. “While this includes the implementation of new technologies, workforce safety initiatives, and public outreach on proper recycling, identifying the causes of fires is the first step to finding a solution to prevent them. The survey will help identify the root causes which we can then use to better direct resources to prevent future fires.”
“The information gleaned from this study has the potential to save facility owners money, reduce material loss and, more importantly, increase worker safety,” said David Biderman, Executive Director and CEO of SWANA. “We’re excited about the impact this research can have on the industry.”
A critical component of the study is a survey of recycling and scrap facilities, which recently went live. “Such information is critical and benefits the entire industry, as fires serve to further financial pressure on an already strained industry,” noted Bryan Staley, President and CEO of EREF.
To participate in the survey, please visit the project website. Survey Closes May 29, 2020
Project sponsorships are available! To sponsor this project, please contact Bryan Staley at .
EREF is a 501(c)3 class charity that funds and directs scientific research and educational initiatives for waste management practices to benefit industry participants and the communities they serve. For more complete information on EREF funded research, its scholarship program and how to donate to this great cause, visit erefdn.org.
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