environmental consulting

July 24, 2020

electric utilities and powerplants - scs engineers

Navigating the Permitting Process for CCR Impoundment Closures and Groundwater Monitoring Systems

Join us on Monday, July 27 from noon to 2 p.m. CDT to learn how SCS Engineers helps electric utilities overcome permitting obstacles at CCR impoundments and landfills. We offer the service nationwide.

Using case studies, we’ll highlight the permitting process and the keys to how electric utilities overcame obstacles to achieve the results they needed.

What you can expect to learn?

  • How long the permitting process takes
  • Specific steps in the permitting process
  • How to avoid permitting related delays
  • Permitting best practices

 

Registration and USWAG conference information here. This year’s event is a series of webinars USWAG is offering at no additional charge for members and affiliates. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted by Diane Samuels at 6:03 am

July 22, 2020

asp composting

SCS Engineers launched a successful new program enabling waste managers and facilities to pilot test Aerated Static Pile (ASP) composting before making a capital investment. There is a high interest in organic materials management (e.g., composting, anaerobic digestion), driven by state and local regulations for diversion of organics from disposal facilities and the desire to reduce carbon emissions.

The organic fraction of any waste stream is successfully compostable, including materials, such as food scraps, yard trimmings, food processing by-products, and biosolids. The organic fraction of the municipal waste stream, which includes food scraps, is about 30 percent by weight, so it is possible to divert a significant amount from landfilling. SCS helps waste managers evaluate their organic waste streams and whether composting is a viable solution for their circumstances. ASP composting is often the preferred method because it is fast, cost-efficient, and controls odors and emissions effectively.

SCS owns a covered ASP compost system that is mobile and can be set-up on sites within an area of 50 feet by 100 feet, or less. In the covered ASP compost system, process and odor control is pro-active with a shorter composting period. A pilot test allows waste managers to assess composting and to see if it is the right fit for their situation. The ASP system processes material batches in two months. Additional batches or “recipes” can test in 2-month intervals.

SCS’ services include the setup and operation of the mobile ASP system. The system can compost up to 50 tons of targeted material per batch. SCS provides all equipment and consulting services, along with the test reports with the process and lab data. The resulting report and data are useful information to supplement a feasibility study (e.g., the quality of the end-products for sale or community use).

Greg McCarron of SCS Engineers comments, “Virtually every town can develop and support a compost program that is locally based and directly beneficial to their community. Our mobile ASP system can provide proof of concept for our clients and the information that allows managers to make informed decisions.”

Covered ASP Pilot Program details.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted by Diane Samuels at 6:00 am

July 17, 2020

Cleaning Up Brownfields

Partial Reprint of EPA Press Release

Over the past three years alone, EPA has assessed 6,572 properties, completed cleanups at 638 properties, and made 2,900 properties ready for anticipated reuse. Over this same period, more than 43,000 jobs have been leveraged as a result of Brownfields’ actions.

EPA recently announced the selection of 155 grants for communities and tribes totaling over $65.6 million in EPA Brownfields funding through the agency’s Assessment, Revolving Loan Fund, and Cleanup Grant Programs. Many of the communities and tribes selected can potentially assess or clean up brownfield sites in census tracts designated as federal Opportunity Zones.

“Without redevelopment opportunities, urban and rural communities – even those with deep historic roots – can eventually wither,” said OLEM Assistant Administrator Peter Wright. “Brownfields remediation and revitalization support communities by investing in the redevelopment of existing properties in the community.”

Since EPA’s Brownfields Program began in 1995, it has provided nearly $1.6 billion in Brownfield funding to assess and clean up contaminated properties and return blighted properties to productive reuse.  EPA’s Brownfields funding has leveraged more than $32.6 billion in cleanup and redevelopment from both public and private sources, which in turn has produced more than 167,000 jobs. This is an average of nine jobs per $100,000 of EPA investment and more than $17 in private funding for each dollar of EPA Brownfield grant funding.

Brownfields grants have been shown to:

  • Increase Local Tax Revenue: A study of 48 Brownfields sites found that an estimated $29 million to $97 million in additional local tax revenue was generated in a single year after cleanup. This is two to seven times more than the $12.4 million EPA contributed to the cleanup of these sites.
  • Increase Residential Property Values: Another study found that property values of homes near revitalized Brownfields sites increased between 5 and 15 percent following cleanup.

 

Background:

A Brownfield is a property for which the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant. The Brownfields program empowers local leaders and communities to transform underused and distressed properties into community assets across America. Brownfields funds assess and cleanup vacant, underused, and potentially contaminated properties so that property can be reused as housing, recreation, and open space, health facilities, social services, or commercial sites. There are estimated to be more than 450,000 Brownfields in the United States.

For more information on successful Brownfields program applications, site revitalization, and success stories nationwide visit Brownfields and Voluntary Remediation. If you’d rather jump right into a few success stories, click on these below:

Locate a Brownfields and remediation expert near you – SCS Staff

 

 

 

 

Posted by Diane Samuels at 6:00 am

July 15, 2020

SCS drone footage
Courtesy of SCS Engineers drone footage.

On July 7, 2020, the City of Brownsville Commission approved a recommendation by the Engineering and Public Works Department to continue an existing multi-year partnership with SCS Engineers. SCS is an environmental consulting and contracting firm that will serve the City for an additional five years. The environmental contracts support the Landfill Gas Collection and Control System (GCCS) expansion and provide landfill engineering, compliance, monitoring and operations assistance.

Project Director, J. Roy Murray, an SCS vice president, and the team’s principal consulting engineer will continue to serve the City’s citizens and staff. Mr. Murray has decades of experience in civil and environmental permitting, design, and construction at municipal solid waste landfills (MSW), including 20 years serving the Brownsville Landfill. Mr. Murray states:

The City staff and Commission continues to entrust SCS Engineers to help the landfill staff with the safe, efficient, and compliant operation of the landfill. We are honored by their trust. The City of Brownsville MSW Landfill Operations team serves the City well. The facility is the primary solid waste disposal site for surrounding communities, carefully engineered and maintained regularly even during severe weather and now a pandemic. The forethought of the Landfill Division, their leadership, and innovative practices provide the citizens with stellar services while protecting the environment.

The initial installation of the City Landfill’s Gas Collection and Control System (GCCS) completed in 2011, was part of an Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant the City received from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. SCS Engineers assisted with the application process, and as a result of the collaboration, the City received a $1.7 million grant to install a landfill gas collection system at the landfill. With GCCS operation, the City has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions. The landfill infrastructure and emission reductions were voluntary at the time, but the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) Air Quality rules and regulations, and EPA’s New Source Performance Standards, now require them.

The Gas Collection and Control System consists of 16 landfill gas extraction wells and currently provides coverage of 32 acres of the City Landfill’s disposal footprint. The City plans to expand the GCCS during 2021, to support landfill’s growth and stricter air permit regulations. The expansion includes 38 additional wells covering 120 acres of the landfill footprint. The new wells will integrate with the collection system and integrate with liquids management, leachate control, and stormwater systems, among others.

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 follow us on your preferred social media channel, or watch our 50th Anniversary video.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted by Diane Samuels at 10:55 am

July 13, 2020

industrial spill response

Are You Ready to Respond to a Spill? is Part II of the SCS Engineers SPCC series. Click to read Part I here.

Imagine you get a late-night call informing you that a transformer at one of your substations has failed, and as a result, 8,000 gallons of mineral oil spilled. Your next decisions are critical to timely industrial spill response, and taking the right steps will put you on a path to minimizing the environmental impact and your company’s liability. Do you know how you would respond?

If your facility has over 1,320 gallons of oil, your required SPCC Plan should contain spill response steps. If your facility has less than 1,320 gallons of oil, you may not have written spill response steps at all. Whether or not your facilities have SPCC Plans, consider the following tips, so you’re prepared for that late-night call.

Play Where Will a Spill Go?

If a spill occurs at one of your facilities, do you and your employees know where the spill will go? It’s typically easy to track flow paths at facilities in rural settings, but it can still be tricky if the site is pretty flat. Facilities in urban settings can be much more difficult to track. Sure, the spill will go into that storm sewer inlet 100 feet away from the transformer, but where will it go from there?

Critical hours can be lost during a spill because the response team is pulling manhole lids to determine the path of the spill. A little time spent upfront to determine where a spill would go can save a lot of time and headaches.

So take a peek down that inlet grate to see where the pipe goes. Or give a call to the local municipality. Many have GIS databases mapping the storm sewer system, and they can help determine the correct flow path that a spill would take. Knowing where to deploy your spill response materials is a critical step to spill response.

Conduct a Mock Spill Drill

Try conducting a mock spill drill, so your employees understand your spill response procedures, where you keep spill response materials, and how to deploy those materials. Running through these items on a PowerPoint slide is a good start, but you can’t beat the hands-on activity of actually opening up the spill kit and laying down some boom. A spill drill can also help you identify potential issues with your planned response techniques.

Review Your Spill Kits

Spills kits, especially those stored in maintenance shops, are prone to dwindling inventories over time. While raiding the spill kit to wipe up a few drops of oil isn’t a bad idea, it is important to replenish the spill response materials for an emergency. Make sure your spill kits are stocked by keeping an inventory list taped to the top of the spill kit or just inside the lid.  Check the spill kit against the inventory list regularly and replenish missing items. Each spill kit should include personal protective equipment (PPE) appropriate for handling the types and amount of chemicals that the kit is expected to control. PPE should be in good working order. Replace any PPE that is expired or showing wear.

It is also important to understand that absorbent materials come in many styles and work in different ways. Teach your oil-handling employees when to use granular absorbent, or pads and mats, and the proper way to lay booms and socks to prevent spills from seeping through the cracks. If you use “oil-only” absorbents, help employees understand the situations in which these are preferable over a universal absorbent.

Know When You Need to Call for Help

Do you know when you will call for outside spill response assistance versus what your staff can handle internally? The answer can vary by facility type, spill scenario, the experience level of your staff, and spill response materials and equipment that you have available. It’s important to think through different scenarios and know your internal capabilities and limitations, and when you need to call a spill response contractor.

Do you know who you will call? And do you have an agreed-upon response time established with the contractor? Depending on your facility’s location, it could take hours for a spill response contractor to reach the site. Knowing that lag time will help you plan for steps that your internal resources can take until the spill response contractor arrives.

Don’t let spill preparedness slip down your to-do list again. Use these techniques, so you are ready when the next spill occurs.



Jared Omernik has 12 years of experience helping electric utility companies with environmental compliance.  Jared has extensive experience helping companies with SPCC compliance and SPCC Plan preparation.  For questions about the SPCC Rule or spill response or preparedness, contact Jared at
or find the nearest Environmental Engineers on our website.

 

 

 

 

Posted by Diane Samuels at 6:00 am

July 6, 2020

An American Public Works Association (APWA) publication,

Responsible Solid Waste Management

Responsible Solid Waste Management

No single waste management approach is suitable for managing all materials and MSW streams in all circumstances. The USEPA hierarchy places emphasis on reducing,
reusing, and recycling as key to sustainable materials management.  Citizens and elected officials are often surprised how technically complex solid waste management is, and once aware of the basics they better understand the associated costs. Responsible Solid Waste Management with colorful infographics and easy-to-grasp explanations, helps readers understand solid waste management from beginning to end.

The concept of integrated solid waste management is increasingly being used by states and local governments as they plan for the future. This management practice includes the source reduction of certain MSW streams and the recovery of generated waste for recycling or composting. It also includes environmentally sound management through combustion with energy recovery and landfilling practices that meet current standards or newly emerging waste conversion technologies.

Available on the APWA website or reach Michelle Leonard (co-author) or an MSW engineer nearby contacting SCS Engineers at .

Learn more about Sustainable Materials Management here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted by Diane Samuels at 6:01 am

July 3, 2020

From The Atlantic, Family Section

why do kids love garbage trucks

I, too, had a more-than-passing interest in the garbage truck as a kid; with palpable residual excitement, I can remember peeking through the window shutters of my parents’ front room to watch the vaguely menacing robotic arm jut out, snatch our garbage can, and dangle the can upside down over its back while the trash tumbled out. Why generations of kids have been so transfixed by the trash pickup, though, remains something of a mystery. So I asked parents, kids, child-development experts, waste-management professionals, and even the creator of a kids’ show about an anthropomorphized garbage truck for their insights. Together, we made our way—more aptly, lurched and rumbled our way—toward a unifying theory of why kids are so wild about garbage trucks.

Author ASHLEY FETTERS talks to several experts and the two foremost authorities—kids and garbage-truck drivers. Naturally, we never lost our fascination with the men and women in our industry.

Read the article here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted by Diane Samuels at 6:02 am

July 1, 2020

PFAS Chemicals

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 2020 USEPA Adds 172 PFAS Chemicals to EPCRA TRI Reporting Program. The new PFAS rule went into effect on June 22, 2020. However, the rule requires PFAS to be included in TRI reports submitted for all 2020 calendar year activity (i.e., January 1 through December 31). The deadline for submitting the 2020 TRI reports is July 1, 2021.

TRI-Covered Industries include:

  • 212 Mining
  • 221 Utilities
  • 31 – 33 Manufacturing
  • All Other Miscellaneous Manufacturing (includes 1119, 1133, 2111, 4883, 5417, 8114)
  • 424 Merchant Wholesalers, Non-durable Goods
  • 425 Wholesale Electronic Markets and Agents Brokers
  • 511, 512, 519 Publishing
  • 562 Hazardous Waste
  • Federal Facilities

SCS Engineers will continue to post timely information, resources, and presentations to keep you well informed. These include additional guidance, industry reaction, and webinars for our clients.

Contact https://www.scsengineers.com for an Environmental Engineer near you.

 

 

 

 

 

Posted by Diane Samuels at 6:01 am

June 26, 2020

Dr. Gomathy Radhakrishna Iyer joined SCS Engineers in April 2019 as a Staff Professional working out of our Reston, Virginia office. She recently had the honor of delivering a presentation at the Global Waste Management Symposium in February. Learn more about Gomathy and her work as an engineer at SCS:

Dr. Gomathy Radhakrishna Iyer
Dr. Gomathy Radhakrishna Iyer presenting at GWMS.

 

Tell us about your responsibilities as a Staff Engineer at SCS Engineers.

  • I work on our Title V projects as well as Semi-Annual and Annual reporting for Landfill Gas emissions. I also help manage a project for a county in Virginia, one of our major clients, where we analyze their leachate collection system, determine the leachate sources, and analyze the characteristics of the liquid that enters the system. I am also working on a landfill design as part of a phased development for a landfill expansion project.

What attracted you to work at SCS?

  • I earned my Bachelors in Civil Engineering, a Masters in Environmental Science & Technology, and completed my PhD in Civil Engineering with a specialization in Landfills. I wanted to continue what I learned through those three and a half years. I’ve always wanted to work in the landfill industry. Landfills are beautiful, and whenever I am on a landfill, there’s just positive energy there! I was trying to find a suitable position that lined up with my training. SCS is an industry leader in solid waste and landfills, so of course, I wanted to come work here!

What is your favorite part of working at SCS?

  • My favorite part about working at SCS is that I’m able to do what I’m passionate about every day. My job doesn’t feel like work at all. I don’t mind working on weekends to collect samples or work on a design or a report because I’m doing what I love! Another major reason I love working at SCS Engineers is my team. My team is like my family! I have a great supervisor who is also a great mentor to me. The team is always there to help each other, and our supervisor knows how to push us to meet our goals.

What do you feel is your greatest achievement/contribution at SCS?

  • In my first few months here, I was given the opportunity to manage a project for a county in Virginia to evaluate leachate treatment options based on the characteristics of their leachate. We turned in a great report. We hope to work on additional projects with them in the future.

What was your greatest challenge at SCS, and how did you overcome that?

  • I’m originally from India, so when I first started my career, I was a little intimidated by the language barrier and lifestyle differences. But everyone at SCS Engineers was so friendly and made it easier for me to adapt to the environment. It became much easier for me to speak to new people.

What advice do you have for students who have recently graduated and are entering the engineering field?

  • In this current COVID-19 era, the landfill industry is one of the best and most stable industries compared to other industries. Solid waste will always be produced and needs to be treated. We are an essential business. For anyone graduating now or in the coming years, you should think about getting into a stable industry. Environmental engineering and solid waste industry are great careers everyone should look into for stability.

You recently made a presentation at the Global Waste Management Symposium. Tell me more about it, and how did it go?

  • I presented on my PhD topic, which was the sustainability of using un-composted grass clippings and biosolids as biocovers for biological methane removal on landfills. It was amazing to present as an SCSer. It was a big deal for me, and I was really looking forward to it. It was also a great honor that the CEO of SCS, Jim Walsh, attended my presentation! Presenting to my colleagues bonded me even more to SCS. This was also the moment when I realized the power of SCS. More than half of the attendees at the conference were from SCS. The conference also felt like a reunion since many of my previous professors and classmates were there. It was nice to present in front of all these researchers and professors.

What are your hobbies outside of SCS?

  • I am a singer, and I love Indian classical music, so I enjoy singing in my spare time. I also love painting and gardening.

 

 

 

 

 

Posted by Diane Samuels at 6:01 am

June 23, 2020

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted by Diane Samuels at 4:50 pm