SCS Engineers is excited to announce that Vice President Sowmya Bulusu, who currently runs our Atlanta, Georgia office, is replacing Dan Cooper as the Solid Waste Director for the Southeast US as Dan takes on his new role leading the firm’s Solid Waste Management practice.
Sowmya Bulusu, PE, is a registered professional and geo-environmental engineer with two decades of experience as a project manager and design engineer for numerous landfills, environmental and civil engineering projects. Her work focuses on waste disposal facilities, landfill gas collection operations, and utilization systems, including siting, design, permitting, construction, and monitoring and maintenance. Sowmya’s expertise includes air permitting and compliance, renewable energy projects, and construction quality management to provide successful turn-key solutions.
When asked about her promotion, Sowmya says, “My career in solid waste management has provided me with valuable experience in addressing complex challenges. I am grateful for the mentorship I have received at SCS, which has contributed significantly to my professional development. As a leader in this role, I am eager to mentor, guide, and inspire my team to achieve new levels of excellence.”
Sowmya also serves on the SCS Sustainability Steering Committee – to help make us all operate cleaner and greener and as the Director of the SWANA Georgia Chapter. She earned her Bachelor of Technology in Civil Engineering and her Master of Science in Geo-environmental Engineering.
She is a disciplined leader who shares what she learns with her colleagues and others, including her culture as a professional Kuchipudi dancer. This major classical dance involves extensive stage movements and exacting footwork. From age 7, she practiced five days a week for up to three hours daily. Sowmya says the regimen and dance tours throughout India and the US taught her valuable skills that she uses today: time management, discipline, responsibility, and cooperation.
Business Unit Director Carlo Lebron says, “I am very excited for Sowmya to take the reins of the solid waste program and build upon Dan Cooper’s legacy. We have full confidence in her ability to lead and look forward to the new levels to which she will take our program.”
Related Resources:
Environmental professionals work to create more sustainable solutions, prevent pollution and accidents, and mitigate former unusable resources. As long as the world continues to consume, environmental consultants and engineers are going to be very valuable for a wide range of industries. Be at the heart of this industry working at SCS Engineers.
Do you really need to use a drinking straw? With most beverages, probably not! Make this one change and help America reduce the amount of plastic going into our landfills.
Click to learn more about Sustainable Materials Management.
The initiative to optimize the residential waste and recycling collection system for current and future operations exemplifies the County’s commitment to safe, efficient, and excellent civic services for residents.
The County of Sacramento, Department of Waste Management & Recycling (DWMR) is contracting with SCS Engineers to study and analyze how to optimize the routing, collection, and disposal of municipal solid waste, green waste, organics, and single-stream recycling in the unincorporated area of the county. The analyses will help Sacramento control costs, provide quality services to residents, and lower their carbon footprint.
Using a three-cart system, the DWMR provides weekly residential garbage collection, every other week recycling, green waste collection, and other waste collection services to approximately 155,000 residents in unincorporated Sacramento County.
Currently, vehicles cover 71 routes and collect a total of 151,000 tons of municipal solid waste, 77,000 tons of green waste and organics, and nearly 37, 000 tons of single-stream recycling annually. Materials go to appropriate locations, including the county-owned and operated North Area Recovery Station and the Waste Management owned and operated Sacramento Recycling Center and Transfer Station.
Approximately 60 percent of residential collection activity occurs in the northern half of unincorporated Sacramento County and 40 percent in the southern half. DWMR will use SCS Engineers’ comprehensive analyses and the current residential waste collection and disposal operations to identify options for charting a path forward that will optimize collection efficiencies and reduce collection costs. The analyses examine these areas, as follows:
Regulatory compliance, including comprehensive, cost-effective adherence to all applicable known and anticipated regulations and ordinances
Financial and contractual controls, such as long-term agreements with haulers, processors, contractors, key suppliers, and vendors; infrastructure maintenance and construction
Route logistics and vehicle controls, for example, the number of routes, type of vehicles, safety, carbon footprint reductions, workloads
Community satisfaction with clear communications, ease of disposal, overall convenience, and other factors to continuously improve residential service
The SCS analyses include a model for creating alternative collection scenarios for waste and recycling operations and performing cost modeling. The model gives the County the benefit of insight into many potential options while considering various technology, best practices of the operations staff and fleet crews, and rate structures. The SCS model is in use in cities and counties across the U.S.
“The data and the way it is analyzed and interpreted will lay the foundation for collecting waste and recycling in the unincorporated area of the County,” stated Tracie Bills of SCS Engineers. “The cost savings and environmental benefits are significant supporting Sacramento residents into the future.”
SCS Engineers met a tight, non-negotiable regulatory deadline to get the new plant on-line while meeting non-toxic effluent standards.
Everyone enjoys before and after pictures; just look at the results New Hanover County’s program is producing. This and other County programs are helping this North Carolina county reduce reliance on landfill disposal while creating a comprehensive and sustainable solid waste management system that is protective of the environment.
In 2016 a new wastewater treatment plant was commissioned at the New Hanover County Landfill. The new facility processes approximately 65,000 gallons per day (GPD) of leachate using state-of-the-art ultrafiltration (UF) and reverse osmosis (RO) technologies to meet or exceed federal and state treatment standards.
The raw leachate is pre-treated in an existing aerobic lagoon followed by a sequencing batch reactor (SBR) to reduce organic constituents. The pretreated effluent then flows into the membrane system. Using state-of-the-art membrane filtration technology, including ultrafiltration (UF) pictured at lower left, and a reverse osmosis (RO) system, pictured lower right, to produce crystal clear, effluent discharged to an upper tributary of the Cape Fear River.
The new facility can process 75,000 GPD and the Wastewater treated through the new system meets state Drinking Water standards for quality.
Tough surface water discharge standards and predictable performance in cold weather drove the design to use UF/RO systems. The results are impressive; metals including arsenic are BDL, ammonia <0.2 ppm, and TSS < 2 ppm. The system produces approximately 13,000 GPD of RO concentrate that is pumped to the working face and safely disposed of in the landfill. The County has certified operators that have played a big role in getting the plant shaken down and running smoothly.
“New Hanover County is an industry leader in adopting proven technologies to better manage solid waste, and protect the environment. This kind of planning and approach can benefit many other public works departments,” stated Bruce Clark, PE, BCES, LEED AP®, and SCS Engineers National Expert on Waste Conversion.
As Joe Suleyman, the County’s Environmental Management Director put it, “Let’s face it – people move to New Hanover County because they love to be in, on, or near the water. Our technical staff is composed of very talented folks who have environmental science and biology backgrounds. They believe in what they’re doing to help protect our delicate coastal environment, and this state-of-the-art system is a huge stride towards meeting our own expectations and those of the citizens we serve.”
See more case studies, services, and professionals on the SCS Engineers – Liquids Management Website
We hope you find this Waste360 article helpful.
http://www.waste360.com/fleets-technology/what-s-next-route-optimization
Other related articles of interest include financing and rate studies see Solid Waste Management Services at SCS Engineers.
Rogoff will be leading a panel at this year’s WasteExpo in New Orleans. The session on Route Optimization Management will take place on Monday 8 at 9:00 AM. See more presentations and topics at Waste Expo 2017.
