Did you know about 10 percent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are attributable to water and wastewater use, storage, distribution, and treatment? In today’s world, sustainability and efficient resource management are more critical than ever. Stakeholders and regulators require an understanding of a company’s water reduction goals and greenhouse gas emissions. Industrial users feel this pressure and may see enormous water bills due to inadequate water accounting and water losses between processes.
One powerful tool that can help companies achieve their water reduction goals, understand their water use, and lower their water bills is through submetering activities. Many facilities traditionally utilize a single meter, usually monitored by the utility provider for potable or process water, and can only see utilization after the monthly bill is received. These facilities are looking in the “rearview mirror” at their usage. Submetering involves measuring the flow or consumption of water (or other utilities) at locations within a facility, providing detailed insights into usage patterns as they occur, and identifying opportunities for conservation. Submetering can provide several benefits, including:
Real-time Monitoring: Connecting a submeter to an RMC/SCADA (remote monitoring and control/supervisory control and data acquisition) system enables real-time monitoring of water utilization. Clients can promptly set usage limits, be notified of excessive use, and implement corrective actions immediately remote from the facility.
Non-intrusive Solutions: One of the most attractive features is that RMC utilizes wireless and cellular communications and clamp-on metering types that are non-intrusive to process operations and utilize secured communication. With this in mind, a customer’s lean operations and maintenance teams can focus on production.
Cost Savings: By closely monitoring water usage, companies can identify and address leaks, inefficiencies, or wasteful practices. Correcting these can save significant costs by reducing water waste and minimizing operational expenses.
Sustainability: Submetering supports sustainable practices by helping industries reduce their environmental footprint. By optimizing water usage, companies contribute to water conservation efforts and demonstrate a commitment to environmental responsibility. Less water typically means lower greenhouse gas emissions from energy usage required to heat, treat, or move more water.
Customized Reporting: RMC submetering programs have reporting features that allow users to view customized dashboards and reports on water usage trends, efficiency improvements, and cost savings. These reports can be valuable for internal analysis and reporting to stakeholders.
Water Reduction, Stewardship, and Balancing
At a manufacturing facility, we audited and modeled the water balance for our client’s water stewardship plan under development, including identifying potential water savings in the evaluation. We temporarily used clamp-on ultrasonic flow meters for several days to measure flow rates in key locations. Our findings indicated significant losses at several vital locations that consumed large quantities of water. These locations did not have meters, which also created a data gap. This knowledge helped our client implement an appropriate solution, save operating costs, and identify that the existing wastewater system could not accommodate a proposed facility expansion.
Reputable Full-Service Environmental Specialists
If a facility is in a similar situation or is interested in evaluating water, energy, usage, or lowing GHG, an environmental engineer can design, furnish, and install customized submetering solutions tailored to each specific need. Utilizing state-of-the-art remote monitoring and control systems allows businesses to monitor live usage from any device, including cell phones, tablets, and PCs, and look for trends indicating certain processes or locations requiring attention. A reputable full-service firm will conduct an initial site evaluation and provide system implementation and ongoing support. They will have a track record of successful submetering projects that have helped clients save time, reduce costs, and improve their understanding of water usage.
Remember that by leveraging the power of submetering, you can achieve your water reduction goals, enhance sustainability, and optimize operations!
Related Resources for Business Conservation Efforts
About the Co-Authors:
Kokil Bansal is a Professional Engineer and SCS Project Manager responsible for providing environmental services, site redevelopment and sustainability planning for public and private clients. She is particularly adept at coordinating and managing new facilities and the redevelopment of contaminated sites.
David Hostetter, PE, LEED AP, CEM, is a Vice President of SCS Engineers and a Business Manager for SCS RMC (Remote Monitoring and Controls). He manages the group’s RMC work across the USA and internationally.
Steven Stewart, PE, is our National Expert and Director for Sustainability responsible for project development and also serves as client account manager for numerous clients including those with a sustainability focus.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency USEPA Landfill Technology Workshop will highlight the state of advancing technologies, including their ability to detect and quantify methane and discuss how these technologies might fit into a regulatory framework. SCS Engineers’ Phil Carrillo will participate in the workshop and experts Melissa Russo, Andy Sheppard, and David Greene will be available to answer questions.
Registration is closed, but if you were not able to register before the deadline, please contact Nan Albaladejo by email () or by phone (703-705-4438) to be registered manually (if space is available). Since the workshop appears fully booked, below are some resources regarding the proven and emerging landfill methane detection and measurement technology that could work for you and the challenges they help address.
Compounded by rising labor costs and regulations, the three major challenges for landfill owners and operators are mitigating toxins, liquids, and greenhouse gases. Landfills and solid waste operations across North America use drones and remote monitoring and control applications to optimize operations and address these major challenges, including surface emissions monitoring.
Combine sensors with SCS drone-based technologies to monitor landfill gas (LFG) emissions and detect leaks, eliminating a significant portion of the manual effort from quarterly compliance while performing operations more safely and accurately. Captured emissions data is useful for optimizing well fields, tackling odor issues, and quantifying emissions for renewable natural gas projects.
In the videos below and USEPA Landfill Technology Workshop, a 2-day meeting sponsored by the agency focuses on developing (and benefits associated with) advanced methane monitoring technologies applied to landfill monitoring. SCS Engineers expert Phil Carrillo will participate in the Technology Panel Discussion, and expert Melissa Russo will attend and be available to answer questions.
USEPA Landfill Technology Workshop covers these topics as follows,
Free, on-demand video resources
Drones, sensors, LiDAR, weather, and IoT, our landfill technology experts demonstrate how technologies work together to investigate gas collection and control systems (GCCS), liquids, airspace, stormwater, weather, wellheads, flares, pumps, temperature, and other equipment. Technology can help reduce labor and reaction time by automating what once took many hands in the field.
Video: 2024 Landfill, RNG, and Compost Monitoring Technologies Based on successful client installations, the SCS RMC team shows how landfill and facility owners/operators can respond in hours to satellite imagery of methane plumes, adjust operations to control odors based on weather conditions and collect methane emissions data in a fraction of the time it takes with traditional ground monitoring.
Video: Optimizing Landfill Technologies for Greater Efficiencies Part 1. Using drones and GIS integration for managing landfill gases and liquids. These combinations of technologies can even help you see underground conditions. It’s like having x-ray vision to manage GCCS and support leachate management while maximizing well-field pull.
Video: Optimizing Landfill Technologies for Greater Efficiencies Part 2. Panelists explain which technology is best for what and when integrating these technologies better serves your purpose and budget.
Website: USEPA Landfill Methane Outreach Program (LMOP)
Website: SCS Remote Monitoring and Control®, SCS RMC®
Orange County Waste & Recycling (OCWR) hosted a landfill tour showcasing technologies used at the Frank R. Bowerman Landfill as part of the August California Resource Recovery Association (CRRA) Conference & Trade Show. SCS’s Remote Monitoring & Control (SCS RMC) demonstrated advanced technology that protects neighboring communities, workers, and the environment from methane naturally produced as waste decomposes.
Landfills use complex systems to achieve the appropriate balance and tuning of the gas collection and control system (GCCS) at a sufficient extraction rate. The rate optimizes the effectiveness and efficiency of the GCCS to minimize fugitive LFG emissions while simultaneously preventing air intrusion caused by overdrawing wells. The collection and control process minimizes the migration of subsurface gas and odors while operating in accordance with federal, state, and local air quality regulations and air quality permit requirements.
Each landfill is unique, but these new technologies can also help protect a landfill’s bottom liner and final cover systems by controlling the accumulation of pressure due to the presence of LFG within the waste mass. Landfills collecting LFG as fuel for a landfill gas-to-energy facility or renewable natural gas plant can better maintain high gas quality. Where applicable, the technologies can help remove heat to contain and manage subsurface reactions in elevated-temperature landfills.
At the OCWR Landfill Tour, there was much to monitor and measure, including operational parameters such as pressure, temperature, gas composition, flow rate, and liquid levels at individual wells. Collecting this information at each well is time-consuming, expensive, and sometimes difficult to collect on foot. SCS RMC demonstrated the evolution of technologies enabling continuous and remote collection and measuring multiple parameters in real-time with automated wells.
Evelyn Martinez scanned the demonstration area for LFG using a drone, demonstrating how drones quickly collect methane data to detect anomalies. A monitor displayed real-time drone data collection, and a second monitor showed real-time flare station data and past methane drone scans of the landfill.
Omar Rodriguez and Marco Quen demonstrated handheld methane detection instruments using optical, thermal, and other sensors and how automated wellheads utilize in-line sensor technology and do not require pulling a gas sample into an analyzer sensor. There was also an odor monitoring and reporting station, and the technology guru Phil Carrillo brought his robodog.
About OCWR
OCWR manages one of the nation’s premier solid waste disposal systems, serving residents and businesses in the County’s 34 cities and unincorporated areas. The three active landfills, including the Frank R Bowerman Landfill, reflect environmental engineering at its best and are among the largest in the state – annually receiving more than 4 million tons of solid waste.
These state-of-the-art facilities take pride in being good neighbors. The landfills use sanitary and environmentally friendly operational methods and advanced technologies that have earned them multiple awards for their modern management techniques, regulatory compliance, and environmental practices, including noise reduction and visual screening techniques, natural habitat planting and re-seeding, the use of falcons and hawks to reduce the number of scavenger birds, and weed abatement provided by real goats.
OCWR currently operates greeneries in Irvine, San Juan Capistrano, and Brea. The full-circle recycling program starts with curbside residential collection of green and organic waste transformed into high-quality compost and mulch and returned to the community as a free resource to enrich gardens and landscaping. Composting helps reduce greenhouse gasses and preserves future landfill capacity.
OCWR’s Renewable Energy Program manages the beneficial reuse of landfill gas through power-generation partnerships that produce 380,000 megawatt-hours of electricity annually.
The SCS RMC team sends thanks to OCWR for helping to educate the public, agencies, and the waste management industry on the benefits and uses of modern landfill technology at work!
Landfill Technology Resources:
Thermal inspections are a key component of maintenance programs because they help extend your flares’ lifespan and help avoid asset failure that causes downtime or non-compliance. These industrial inspections are now safer, more precise, and more reliable.
Capturing accurate readings with drones equipped with state-of-the-art thermal sensors can detect and identify thermal discrepancies and unseen issues in flare systems. This modern approach provides your facility with rapid, accurate assessments, pinpointing potential faults before they escalate into costly problems or shutdowns.
Non-invasive Thermal Inspections
By integrating high-resolution thermal imaging, SCS drones inspect flares from a safe distance, eliminating the need for direct human interaction with potentially hazardous environments. The method is particularly efficient in industrial applications, such as detecting heat leaks, finding electrical problems, inspecting equipment, and monitoring temperatures in hard-to-access locations.
SCS RMC’s drone technology increases worker safety and covers extensive areas quickly without compromising on details important for decision–making. The data and resulting visual information are in your hands immediately, providing your staff with actionable information to reduce downtime and identify unseen issues accurately for continuous operational flow and compliance.
Industries reliant on flare systems, including oil and gas, chemical manufacturing, and landfills, can expect service that integrates seamlessly into existing operations, supported by a team of experts dedicated to excellence.
Additional Resources, Videos, and Articles:
David Hostetter from SCS Engineers and Dennis Siegel from WM (Waste Management) join Inductive Automation to talk about the unique processes and challenges within the waste management industry, from residential to the engineering and life cycles of landfills. They discuss how operational improvements in this essential service and its environmental footprint are making the industry more sustainable. They dive into the 24/7 maintenance and monitoring of landfills, adjusting to changing conditions in real-time, reducing cost, generating renewable energy, improving the health and safety of operators, and being proactive in a changing world. These landfill systems, such as WM’s Connected Landfills are improving connectivity, mobility, and visualization by using data science to facilitate better decisions.
Visit the SCS RMC site. Learn more about Sustainability in Waste Management.
Great innovations take shape when people with shared ambitions, high energy, and creative juices pool their talents and gusto. Meet two professionals at SCS Engineers, who, through their mutual entrepreneurial spirits, found a resourceful way to create landfill efficiencies for operators — saving time and money. Here’s the story of Chris Carver and Joy Stephens — and a service they helped develop, leveraging cutting-edge technology that’s been a game changer for landfill efficiency.
Chris Carver joined SCS Engineers soon after coming out of the military, where he served as an infantry soldier, protecting our country from threats on the ground. Brand new to landfill operations, the now 17-year SCS veteran started out dropping pipes and installing gas collection and control system (GCCS) components.
“But I was hungry to know how all the pieces fit together. I wanted to understand what made these complex systems work and everything they could do,” Carver recalls.
The more he asked, the more he learned, and with that knowledge came new opportunities. He climbed from laborer to field technician to landfill project manager. And, finally, to tech guru, building and managing powerful databases.
Not long after he’d moved into the IT space, Carver met Joy Stephens; a teacher turned environmental scientist who also did some data processing. They would enter a working relationship about shared learning and feed on each other’s curiosity and knowledge. Their synergy would play a key role in SCS’s GIS services integration with SCS RMC®. By leveraging GIS technology, the duo created site-specific, detailed digital maps that enable operators to visualize what’s happening in the field in real-time. Landfill and environmental staff are continually informed, allowing immediate action when needed. The operation is supporting about 117 patrons around the country and growing quickly.
Carver and Stephens met while working at a Tennessee landfill.
He oversaw field operations, monitoring and managing liquid levels, gas extraction wells, and surface emissions. And he was facilitating the transition to a digital platform to manage and use the field data better.
Stephens processed the data and helped him prepare operations, monitoring, and maintenance reports, which Carver used to identify trends and determine how to improve field operations. She generated those reports mainly from the field tech’s handwritten notes in those days.
In between their office dialogues, Stephens would follow him into the field, curious to see how he and the landfill techs worked.
“We began talking about how we could collect more and different types of data and use it to make the field techs’ and operators’ jobs easier while boosting their efficiency,” she says.
Plenty has transpired since those early conversations, and they continue to take their work further, dedicated now to SCS’s GIS Services, launched under the company’s Remote Monitoring Control Group.
Today, Carver and Stephens make digital forms and maps –Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology (aka SMART)—the smartest they can be.
As the system grows in sophistication, clients tap into more information, in more detail, on GCCS, liquid management, and other landfill operations.
Stephens’ bailiwick is creating the smart forms field techs fill out from an app and upload to the cloud, replacing those cumbersome logbooks they used to lug, then bring to her. She also designs maps that connect to and pull information from the forms to visualize the information. She’s a mavin at capturing specific data points that operators look for and formatting the maps to deliver easy-to-read visuals of a lot of information.
Carver’s job is to manage the behind-the-scenes workings of the software to ensure the smart forms and maps perform as designed. There’s a lot of organizing and processing that goes on.
It requires fluency in multiple programming languages to customize functionality for each client. He may need to build in constraints and immediately visible liquid level calculations, write scripts to pull meteorological data from a weather station into a smart form, or script to automate tedious tasks such as parsing temperature probe data.
Stepping back in time, Carver says, “When Joy and I started working together, I was the Google maps guy. I incorporated data in Google maps to guide the field techs to the site locations needing their attention. Then Joy said, have you heard of GIS?”
It was more sophisticated. It could pick up on site-specific details that Google maps couldn’t.
“She showed me how the mapping and visualization worked. We could see liquid column heights in gas wells, fluctuating gas quality, and other actionable details. We would actually be able to monitor the overall health of each well and multiple other operations. I fell in love with it,” Carver says.
That’s when Stephens began creating maps connecting to the digital forms she’d been developing, allowing Carver to identify where to focus quickly.
“It helped me increase efficiency in the field, and our projects gained traction,” he says.
Stephens, like Carver, continually seeks to know more.
“In those early days when I went out in the field with Chris, I’d ask a ton of questions to understand better what information to capture and incorporate into the forms. Why are we monitoring this? What constitutes good gas quality? Why is it important to know liquid levels?” Stephens reflects.
They were the same questions Carver had asked years before, and he was impressed.
“I wanted a smart, curious partner who would move things along. And that is Joy,” says the equally curious and ambitious techie who taught himself how to code when building a website for his son’s baseball team.
As colleagues and friends, they have taken GIS capabilities beyond monitoring and analyzing field conditions. Now the system connects to IoT technology, enabling operators to take action remotely, whether increasing or reducing gas flow or turning dewatering pumps on or off, among measures.
They have mastered another skill set to capture and layer in more data. They’ve become drone pilots, flying unmanned aircraft over landfills to record methane emissions-related information from locations hard or unsafe to reach by foot.
As co-pilots, they share another interest beyond teaching, learning, and making technology do what they want.
It’s a time to experience their mutual affinity for the outdoors, take in their surroundings, and reassert that what they do is more than worthwhile.
“The top deck of the landfill, where Joy and I do our drone flights, is one of the most beautiful places. Depending on the part of the country, you see the woodland and mountains for miles. And get spectacular views of the town,” Carver says.
Stephens recalls an especially memorable flight on the East Coast getting methane emissions readings.
“We were gazing upward, and a pair of bald eagles on the landfill were soaring above us. It was one of those moments where we just looked at each other in awe.”
Later they talked about how that moment reminded them of what they do and why they do it.
“There is this incredible world around us. In responsibly managing landfills, with their important role in keeping communities clean and capturing climate-impacting methane, we help to preserve that world,” Stephens says.
Carver chimes in: “I think sometimes people lose sight of the fact that when we are gone, we leave this planet to our kids. Whatever we can do to improve it for them and their kids … that’s a good motivator for me.”
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While performing methane reduction operations and monitoring at the Anchorage Regional Landfill in Alaska, members of the SCS RMC drone team met some pretty amazing people, including Shane Christiansen who works for the Municipality of Anchorage. The RMC team got to know Shane and learned how he and his business partner, Tim Harrington, are helping disabled children.
Shane and Tim run an organization called Children Leaving Tracks (CLT) that has the mission of providing mobile technologies to young people with limited mobility, allowing them to participate more fully in everyday activities with their peers. They believe that providing improved mobility can expand the physical and mental well-being of these kids and offer them greater freedom and quality of life.
Moved by Shane and Tim’s passion and dedication, SCS made a donation, which will provide “Electric All-Terrain Trikes” to three children! “Everyone deserves to have these experiences in life, but unfortunately this kind of technology is not always covered by insurance companies,” says Shane. “This means that some people go their entire life without getting to enjoy all that it has to offer. They don’t have the freedom to [move about] as they please.”
Although still in the early stages, Children Leaving Tracks seeks financial and in-kind donations from sponsors and networking partners. They are working toward creating a corporate/private collaboration that has the single mission of helping disabled children become more mobile for their health and personal growth.
CLT uses funding to run the organization to supply and finance Track Chairs and Electric Trikes. Donations cover the costs of purchasing and shipping these chairs to the kids who need them. Shane and Tim are registering Children Leaving Tracks as a 501c3 non-profit company; they are also starting a parent company aimed to be the primary funding arm that will supply a percentage of revenues from more recreational products it plans to develop.
The ultimate goal is to change the lives of hundreds of children by opening up their world through greater mobility and freedom. The organization helps youngsters gain confidence, better mental and physical health, and create greater opportunities to expand their individual talents. Kudos to Children Leaving Tracks!
Learn more about how this inspirational organization uses new technology to make life better; or to help, please contact Shane Christiansen at 1-907-529-5153.
If you would like to know more about using technology to improve the environment, ask SCS click here.
SCS Engineers shows you in this short video featuring SCS Remote Monitoring & Control technology built for landfill owners and operators, solar farms, and for use on pipelines by SCS Engineers, landfill and environmental practitioners.
The Central Penn Business Journal selected SCS Engineers’ David P. Hostetter, PE, LEED AP, and CEM, as a 2021 Forty Under 40 recipient. The Journal editors recognize young individuals for successful professional accomplishments, community service, and commitment to inspiring positive change.
Hostetter combines his engineering expertise with technology to reduce industrial environmental impacts in Pennsylvania. As the Business Manager for SCS’s Remote Monitoring and Controls (RMC), he is responsible for managing and building environmental solutions to identify and reduce potential greenhouse gas emissions, which protects the health and welfare of workers and air and water qualities.
Dave believes that it is his responsibility to give back to other young professionals through mentoring. He says, “I was blessed to have Tom Conrad, a co-founder of SCS Engineers, mentor me at the beginning of my career with SCS.” Now retired, Tom Conrad is also receiving recognition for his lifelong work protecting the environment.
The local and global communities also benefit from Hostetter’s work as a small-group leader and children’s Sunday-school teacher at his church in Lancaster and co-sponsorship of the Eagle Scout’s construction of a disc golf course in northern Lancaster County. He has served with Habitat for Humanity and worked with Cure International to perform an energy audit of an overseas hospital.
Suzanne Fischer-Huettner, Senior Group Publisher of the Central Penn Business Journal, said, “These honorees help to make Central Pennsylvania a wonderful place to live and to work. The Central Penn Business Journal is pleased to celebrate their accomplishments.”
A celebration of these young professionals is scheduled on October 14 in Harrisburg, pending health precautions. The Journal will profile all of the Honorees in its October 15 edition available online at CPBJ.com.
David Hostetter from SCS Engineers® and Dennis Siegel from Waste Management® are the feature speakers on Inductive Conversations, a podcast about the unique processes and challenges within the waste management industry, from residential to the engineering and life cycles of landfills.
Dave and Dennis discuss how operational improvements are being made in this essential service and its environmental footprint. They dive into the 24/7 maintenance and monitoring of landfills, adjusting to changing conditions in real-time, reducing cost, generating renewable energy, improving the health and safety of operators, and being proactive in a changing world. We also hear about an Ignition-based solution called Connected Landfills that improves connectivity, mobility, and visualization by using data science to facilitate better decisions.
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