Congratulations on joining SCS Engineers! You’ll work on projects alongside our employees and management in the next months. Jump in, ask questions, and take advantage of working with some of the finest environmental engineers, geologists, scientists, and consultants in the U.S. You are now part of a national team solving some of the most challenging problems for our planet and our society. You’ve got the smarts and the desire, and we’re here to help build your skills.
If you are interested in making a difference, find your fit here!
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.
Scrap facilities’ stormwater permits incorporate strict sampling requirements, numeric limits (generally referred to as benchmarks, numeric action levels, or numeric effluent limits), and mandated corrective actions. Furthermore, facilities face emerging challenges with increased regulatory scrutiny within environmental justice communities and communities implementing new stormwater utilities. Good planning can ease the operational, maintenance, and reporting requirements and provide positive results for your facility’s relationship with local communities and regulators.
If your facility is facing scrutiny or requires additional best management practices (BMPs) to meet stormwater permit requirements, follow this simple stepped approach:
Good planning and design create effective conveyance and treatment systems that improve stormwater quality and help you meet benchmark requirements. Proactive measures to plan for stormwater treatment systems will help existing scrap metal recycling facilities address corrective action and avoid Additional Implementation Measure (AIM) levels based on their benchmark monitoring results.
Need assistance with managing stormwater runoff at your scrap facility? Contact our Author, Scott Knoepke, to set up a meeting at the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries’ 2022 Safety and Environmental Conference. Or reach out anytime; SCS’s environmental professionals are nationwide.
The construction cranes dotting suburban and urban areas indicate many cities’ new residential, office, and commercial building developments. Mixed-use development continues rising in popularity; the pandemic accelerated a swing already in motion. But there are other factors at play here, and one may surprise you. Today, our blog discusses these two factors and how brownfield redevelopment can play a role in addressing both.
One: Sustainability
According to Architecture 2030, a non-profit, non-partisan organization established to transform the building sector away from being a major emitter of greenhouse gases, there is work to do. As with almost all industry segments, tracking and reducing their carbon footprint is considered an essential element of doing business. It’s important to Americans and shareholders.
Brownfield redevelopment presents adaptive reuse of existing buildings and properties and is a sustainable form of construction. Completing the due diligence and environmental studies associated with redevelopment shows brownfields can provide cost benefits from a development perspective and in excellent locations with existing infrastructure. The conversion of existing land or buildings, as opposed to new-build construction, is far more environmentally sustainable.
An EPA 2020 study examines and reports the environmental benefits that continue accruing when brownfield sites are redevelopment. The study finds that accomodating housing and job growth decreases the need for more roads and reduces emissions from commuting.
As population density increases, real estate prices continue to rise, and less land is available, mixed-use development is an economical choice for developers. It is also one of the best-case scenarios for end-users because it prioritizes practicality and sustainability. Many potential sites exist in desirable locations or emerging areas. They should be available below market value and may have been on the market for a long time. The development of Comm-22 is a great example of a mixed-use community. Businesses find brownfields attractive options because they are closer to their customers – good for business and the environment.
Two: Grant Programs and Offsetting Expenses
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has grant programs that can pay for the assessment and cleanup of brownfields, but these programs are only available to governmental and non-profit organizations. However, a private entity may be able to team with these eligible parties. The bipartisan Congressional action has delivered the single-largest investment in U.S. brownfields infrastructure. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law invests more than $1.5 billion through EPA’s highly successful Brownfields Program.
In addition, grants are available from some state agencies and the private sector through EPA regional programs – these are most often found within the transportation sector. Your environmental engineer or consultant can help you find funding; the firms with comprehensive environmental services keep watch as substantial federal infrastructure funding trickles down to the states in 2022 and next year. Note that each grant program will have its eligibility criteria, but many of these are designated for mixed-use developments supporting
Obtaining a grant or loan with the help of a qualified environmental consultant or an environmental attorney can be the difference in acquiring, cleaning up, and redeveloping a property. The grants don’t typically cover all the costs associated with the necessary cleanups, but they can cover most of these costs.
A new property owner can obtain an environmental insurance policy to cover cleanup requirements, third-party claims for bodily injury and property damage, and associated legal expenses resulting from pollution or contamination. These insurance policies are available with various term lengths and deductible amounts to satisfy the concerns of lenders or equity investors.
Other solutions include “insurance archaeology” to find old insurance policies that may have coverage for “pollution conditions.”
Comprehensive Environmental Support Keeps Redevelopment on Track
Mixed-use development provides a healthy, safe place to work, play, and live along with job creation. The most important risk management strategy is to keep the project on schedule. Your environmental engineer and consultant have a thorough understanding of the environmental issues on the site and how those issues can impact your redevelopment plans and bottom line. It is critical to have environmental and legal support experienced in identifying, anticipating, and managing risks on brownfields.
SCS evaluates brownfields by performing a Phase I Environmental Site Assessment (ESA) first to study historic site information and previous uses. SCS will perform a Phase II study if the Phase I ESA identifies potential issues (known as Recognized Environmental Conditions). Phase II includes collecting and analyzing samples (i.e., soil, soil vapor, and groundwater) to assess whether environmental impacts are present. If enough sampling is completed, the extent of the impacts can be estimated.
SCS Engineers has a long and successful track record with brownfields projects. Our clients appreciate the security of having comprehensive and experienced professionals who lower their risk keeping projects on schedule, safely remediating in-situ that lowers greenhouse gas emissions and can provide cost savings.
With proper planning and the help of a qualified environmental consultant, the mitigation or remediation of impacts can be incorporated into the acquisition and development processes and result in a vibrant, profitable project that is protective of human health and the environment.
About the Author: Luke Montague is a Vice President of SCS Engineers and a Project Director. He is a Professional Geologist and licensed contractor with two decades of experience in environmental consulting, general contracting, commercial and residential development, and property and asset management. He has performed and reviewed hundreds of Phase I environmental site assessments (ESAs), and has completed subsurface investigations, human health risk assessments, removal action work plans, site remediation activities, geotechnical investigations, asbestos and lead-based paint surveys, and asbestos air monitoring.
SCS Engineers is expanding its Phoenix, Arizona, office to meet the growing demand for sustainable environmental consulting and engineering. Recent employee-owners joining the firm are pictured upper left to right, including Samantha Montgomery, a technical associate; Mike Bradford, senior professional engineer; Cynthia Neitzel, a professional engineer; and Taylor Goins, field services working as part of SCS’s comprehensive team.
Montgomery’s focus is to prepare monthly, semi-annual, and annual greenhouse gas reports, along with processing and analyzing the data associated with those reports. She specializes in air quality compliance and permitting, particularly for landfills.
Bradford brings more than 20 years of experience in civil engineering and project management. He has been the principal engineer and engineer of record for a wide range of public and private sector capital projects in Arizona and across the country for solid waste landfills and other public works civil projects.
As a landfill project manager focusing on landfill gas collection and control systems and compliance reporting, Neitzel brings more than 20 years of experience. She has a background in landfill design, construction quality assurance, and air quality permitting and compliance.
Goins provides clients with landfill gas monitoring and other related environmental monitoring services, helping them reduce operational costs and protect air quality. He also operates and maintains other environmental pollution control systems.
“Mike and Cynthia bring invaluable experience creating and overseeing environmental solutions for municipalities and businesses, which provide essential services in our region,” said Pat Sullivan, senior vice president of SCS Engineers. “They, along with the rest of the team, join SCS to serve our clients who are actively seeking to protect public health and the environment as part of doing business, whether that’s remediating property, operating a landfill, lowering their carbon footprint, or running a fuel station.
SCS Engineers’ environmental solutions and technology directly result from our experience and dedication to our clients responsible for safeguarding the environment as they deliver their services and products. For more information about joining this remarkable national firm, please visit SCS Engineers Careers.
Engineering News Report publishes the ENR Top 500 List, which ranks global design/engineering firms by revenue. SCS Engineers again ranks in the top 100, moving up this year from #73 to #59. We thank our clients and our employee-owners for helping SCS continue to rank as a top-tier environmental services engineering, consultanting, and construction firm.
ENR is one of the premier companies tracking the A&E industry, and these rankings are closely followed as they publish throughout the year. SCS Engineers is also recognized in the Sewer & Waste List of Top 20 companies globally, ranking at #5, up from #10 the previous year.
Climate change and reducing our nation’s carbon footprint are important challenges facing our planet. SCS Engineers remains a leader in recovering and utilizing methane from landfills, a potent greenhouse gas. In the last decade, we’ve been expanding our role to include more utilization of biogas from agriculture, carbon sequestration, management of other greenhouse gas and environmental impacts for multiple sectors while reducing methane production in landfills by diverting organics.
SCS designs and supports innovative environmental solutions with our in-house award-winning technologies to help our clients. With more data and control available 24/7, our clients can make more informed decisions, operate more efficiently, running cleaner and safer while delivering essential services, products, and properties.
If you thrive in a friendly, collaborative, and client-focused company, SCS Engineers is the place for you, and we’re growing! We’re looking for field technicians to work collaboratively on our Field Services teams nationwide. Specific information is posted for each open position. Use our job search to find your desired location.
Under general supervision, our technicians operate, monitor, and maintain gas migration control and recovery systems, including gas well monitoring and adjustment, troubleshooting, and system repairs. These systems capture emissions that keep our planet cleaner. SCS clients entrust us with the management of more than 35 million metric tons of anthropogenic CO2e greenhouse gases every year. We collect and beneficially use or destroy enough to offset greenhouse gas emissions from 7.4 million passenger cars annually.
Become one of the growing engineers, consultants, scientists, and technicians helping private and public entities run cleaner and more efficiently. A very rewarding place to have a career!
There are no off-the-shelf landfill gas collection and control systems (GCCS). Rather these highly engineered components are configured precisely to tailor to each landfill’s needs. With intricate designs, these flexible high-dollar infrastructure systems take operators into the future to adapt to changing regulations around emissions and the evolving waste streams that affect gas production.
Building the right system and effectively forecasting requires a master plan, aka a road map. Your master plan not only maps a path forward, keeping operators on a solid footing by informing them on exactly what gas collection and destruction equipment to buy, when to buy it, and how to size it; they can serve other useful purposes.
“Over time, it’s not unusual for landfill operators to see symptoms of problems surface, whether emission exceedances or odor complaints. When we analyze the situations, the problems are most often caused by gas collection and control system deficiencies. We can avoid these deficiencies by working toward a facility master plan from the beginning. Then with major expansions or over, say, five years, we update the plan. “So, suppose you do not have currently have a master plan in place. In that case, we recommend preparing one to prevent what should be a planned event like flare installation from becoming more expensive problems,” says Vidhya Viswanathan, PE, an SCS Engineers Vice President.
Engineer and colleague to Viswanathan, Maura Dougherty, PE, echoes: there are powerful cost savings in a master plan. “This is a tool to layout where the site’s headed so that the equipment you are installing in the near term is relevant to what you will need down the road. Otherwise, you could end up installing then ripping out millions of dollars of infrastructure and having to start again.”
Modeling: where the site will produce gas and how much it will produce
Several metrics go into the model, which contributes to gas generation: waste tonnage per year and content of the stream, with close attention paid to changes in the waste stream, among others.
The beauty of your master plan is that it provides a framework to fall back on, with operators able to adjust the numbers to determine how they impact the model and, ultimately, if they need to make adjustments to the GCCS. It’s proving especially instrumental as landfill operators take in more types of wastes and ramp up for state regulations such as California’s SB1383 that ban landfilling organic waste (the largest contributor to landfill methane production).
Master plan schedule: plays a critical role as operators build out cells
It helps prevent bottlenecks during the permitting process through cell launch. And can serve as a financial planning tool.
Viswanathan explains: “Equipment production can take six months, and permitting can sometimes take up to 18 months. So, it becomes important to have a good sense of timing to free up capital for exactly what is needed, when it is needed.
You leverage your master plan to estimate design needs and costs based on how many standard cubic feet per minute of gas you expect. You figure out what you need in the way of length and size of pipe, number of wells, blowers, even flares, and how frequently components will need replacement.”
The data also serves as a budgeting tool beyond guiding field spending decisions. The information that informs the master plan also provides capital expense information to your financial modeling and economic analyses. The more information you have, the more accurately you can determine tipping fees to get a larger return on investments ─ useful when making a case to city councils for budget approval.
It takes a team
Not long ago, Dougherty worked on a landfill-gas-to-energy facility for a site that had yet to develop collection infrastructure to support it. There was a lot of work to do; it was to be a large project. To start, she created a five-year plan, then set to work on a 25-year master plan to take her client further. But first, Dougherty brought every professional into the room who might touch on the project.
“We had to consider what would be most effective from design, operational, and safety perspectives. And there were a lot of engineered pieces, so we had to make sure they would fit together and function well to accomplish this,” she says.
The team worked from a spreadsheet that tracked each part and decision, and Dougherty had every player involved in the process check it whenever they were ready to take another step. “It’s how we can plan out to prevent potential problems. For example, we were discussing the blower design. We learned that one of the vendor’s components would pressurize at a level, creating a potentially dangerous situation in this scenario. We could proactively engineer around the potential problem.
By the time we were ready to begin construction, we had a thoroughly vetted plan and buy-in from the whole team on the final design. We were confident it was safe, efficient, and would meet site-specific needs for years to come,” Dougherty says.
Viswanathan, Dougherty, and their SCS colleagues often team for projects, as they have similar yet different perspectives working on multiple sites and bring that collective experience to the table. “What’s exciting about working on landfill gas systems is that even though there are universal tenants of engineering designs, every site is unique,” Dougherty says.
“We’ve seen different scenarios month to month, year on year. So, collectively we’ve seen any number of conditions that may require more nimble engineering or responses on the ground. Teaming makes us stronger and better able to achieve.”
Keeping the plan and your goals in sight
When operators have a master plan in place and do routine design and construction, keeping that plan in sight, the payoff is a system that serves them well and costs less. They can prepare early for capturing their gas, use the plan to install gas collection infrastructure on a timely basis, and help guide them through post-closure.
When we think of farming, most of us think of fresh air, big skies, and acres of open land. One of the oldest industries is transforming to meet the increasing demand for commercially grown produce, wine, hemp, and cannabis with emerging agriculture odor management strategies.
Agricultural commerce brings jobs but also a few unwelcome odors. Hemp farms have distinct odors, vineyards spray elemental sulfur smelling of rotten eggs on wine grapes, and cannabis facilities can smell at different stages of plant growth. Even a farm growing cut flowers, when fertilized, will have a measurable smell.
Air Quality
A wine’s aroma is usually floral, citrus, or earthy, and Thanksgiving Day is the smell of home and hearth. However, getting these agricultural products grown and processed can sometimes be smelly. Many environmental technologies are being adapted for use in agriculture. Some are the result of industrial risk management and even landfill technologies for controlling odors and maintaining good air quality. As with landfills, they work best when designed for a specific site with site-specific wind conditions and site-specific distances from the nearest neighbors.
Hemp and cannabis growing facilities, both indoors and out, get odor complaints, so operators plan ahead to manage them. Odor intrusion for facilities coexisting in dense urban areas or com-mingled with other industries nearby tends to get more complaints, where the odor source is more complicated to pinpoint. On larger tracts, greenhouses, and small farms, air-misting systems or air blocking vegetation are more common.
“We can assess the potential concentration (odor strength) using known chemical surrogates emitting from cannabis. However, this approach has considerable weaknesses since many of the odor-causing compounds are difficult to detect at concentrations near their odor detection thresholds,” says Paul Schafer of SCS Engineers. “The ratios of emitted compounds are variable based on cannabis strain and time in the plants’ lifecycle, drying/curing/processing method, and varying atmospheric chemistry following emission.”
Some proposed cannabis greenhouses filing for a permit use an internal carbon filtration system to prevent fugitive pot odors from becoming a neighborhood nuisance. This indoor odor-control system would replace outdoor air-misting systems used by some greenhouse operations and commonly at landfills. The outdoor systems neutralize smells by changing the molecular structure of escaping vapors and work best when designed to work with air patterns. They are useful when there is a larger buffer zone because odors typically rise or flow in patterns.
Production hubs on larger acreage, even property utilized for agriculture for decades, require remediation. Many firms use modern greenhouse structures encompassing hundreds of thousands of square feet with processing plants. Schafer explains “As an odor and air monitoring expert and environmental engineering consultant, my job is to assess how various environmental technologies work under specific conditions to these companies and at times to the public. We use and investigate specialized technologies for industrial or agricultural use because they require specialized odor reduction, are safe, and can be successfully utilized to manage air quality and odors.”
As farming, businesses, and housing coexist across the nation, SCS’s water, soil, and air management teams are tweaking environmental technologies to help communities and new-age farmers remain good neighbors. Schafer who is the firm’s Ambient Air Monitoring expert puts it this way, “As engineers and consultants, we help communities and industry thrive together.”
Stormwater Management
Farmers or growers strive to include more ethical and sustainable growing practices, such as higher standards for water use and purifying their wastewater for reuse. As urban areas grow and farmland shrinks, stormwater management is essential to help new-age farmers operate sustainably and meet growing stormwater regulations that protect water supplies and the environment.
These aren’t the only greenhouses we work in.
The proven sustainable environmental solutions SCS Engineers offers to the agricultural, construction, extraction, manufacturing sectors, and municipalities help them attain their cleaner operating goals. As an environmental consulting and construction firm, we produce measurable technologies and programs that capture and reduce more greenhouse gases for private and public clients than any other environmental firm in the Americas.
The San Diego Business Journal named two SCS Engineers professionals among the Top 50 Influential Women in Engineering for 2022. The Journal recognized Vidhya Viswanathan and Jennifer Morton for their career achievements and status among San Diego’s top women in the engineering field. Both women have advanced their careers with award-winning projects for their clients, value their involvement in industry associations, and serve as thought leaders in environmental engineering.
“We congratulate Vidhya and Jennifer on this outstanding recognition,” said Pat Sullivan, SCS senior vice president. “In addition to being leaders at SCS, both women have a proven track record advancing the environmental engineering field for all engineers and especially students and girls aspiring to become engineers and geologists in the future.”
As a Vice President and the Southwest Director of Engineering, Vidhya Viswanathan leads the firm’s solid waste engineering operations in California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and New Mexico. Viswanathan spent the last several years at SCS broadening her client base in the Southwest and expanding her expertise from solid waste and environmental engineering to include renewable energy, recycling, and organics management. In addition to leading engineering operations in the Southwest, Viswanathan leads SCS’s strategic initiative on composting systems and facilities. Viswanathan is active in solid waste and renewables industry associations and has won awards for her projects as a rising young professional.
Jennifer Bauer Morton is a licensed professional geologist working in the environmental consulting industry for over 16 years, supporting commercial real estate transactions and site cleanups. As a geologist, Morton has supported numerous assessment and remediation projects at contaminated properties throughout Southern California. She has worked with environmental engineers to develop remediation systems used to clean up soil and groundwater and has developed site mitigation plans which help to keep the community safe from contamination. Morton also served as Vice-President and then President of the San Diego Association of Geologists and was the editor of Coast to Cactus: Geology and Tectonics, San Diego to the Salton Trough, a guidebook accompanying the group’s 2014 field trip.
About SCS Engineers
SCS Engineers’ environmental solutions and technology directly result from our experience and dedication to industries responsible for safeguarding the environment as they deliver services and products. For more information about us, please visit the SCS Engineers website, or watch our video to see what we can do for your community.
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