Recycling and reuse started in 1987 and continues today with cities embracing public-private partnerships with their recycling processors. They recognize the vital and interrelated role of both the public and private sectors in recovering recyclables. In the U.S., manufacturing and end-use markets are seeing more demand for recyclable materials. Companies are held accountable for misleading advertising instead of changing packaging or labeling how to recycle clearly.
Through leadership, innovation, and strategic planning, cities continue to help lead the way on recycling to achieve landfill diversion and provide for more environmentally and financially sustainable solid waste management systems for the next 30 years.
Read more from the authors of this up-lifting article, The Journey of Recycling, in the March edition of APWA.
When we care about our work, we ask this question because we want to contribute and to feel our contributions are valuable. At SCS, it’s important to know we belong too.
As an SCS employee-owner, you work alongside a team of experts – professionals, scientists, and technicians who enhance your sense of self and skills while growing your career. You have a common purpose while pursuing goals for your clients.
Plus, you share a passion knowing that every project and person on your team helps the environment and localities.
At SCS, we turn contaminated properties into safe, vibrant communities; help our clients deliver essential services and products in the most environmentally sustainable way; make workers and communities safer; build some of the most innovative technology on the market.
Whether your job is in the field, office, or sharing your experiences at conferences – we’re passionate about our teams. When life throws you a wonderful opportunity or a curveball, you have colleagues who “get” how you feel – their validation and support resonates on a deep level.
Why work at SCS Engineers? Why not; join a fast-growing, award-winning environmental firm − people who have an affinity for teamwork. And as employee-owners, who share in the profits.
Make a connection today – become an SCSer!
The City of Lincoln’s Transportation and Utilities (LTU) Department/Solid Waste Management Division manages all solid waste generated within its service area to protect the public’s health, safety, welfare, and environment. They do so cost-effectively and in compliance with its solid waste management plan, Solid Waste Plan 2040. The plan, updated in 2020 through a process facilitated by SCS Engineers, produces remarkably good results.
The City undertook a comprehensive residential and commercial recycling communication, education, engagement, and behavior change initiative.
Read more about Lincoln’s success and see results in this APWA article (March 2022 edition).
The Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA) recently featured Sam Rice of SCS Engineers in its monthly newsletter. Sam is a member of the SWANA Young Professionals (YP) group and also one of Waste 360’s 40-Under-40 winners this year.
Sam specifically focuses on developing remote monitoring and control (RMC), supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems, and control systems to meet his client’s environmental management needs. These technology solutions help the waste industry reduce environmental and health and safety risks, reduce cost, and improve the quality of life for workers in the industry and the communities surrounding our waste facilities.
The secret to his success is listening to the client’s needs and using technology to address those needs. Some specific ways that he has impacted the industry are below:
Sam takes on his client’s goals as his own, then develops and implements solutions. His approach is to attack any challenges with vigor, identify and act on ways to help improve things and jump in to help others when the need arises. His inquisitive mind helps him quickly identify and remedy issues that our clients are having; this helps keep their critical infrastructure online and operating at its highest capacity.
Sam routinely mentors others and helps his coworkers understand new technologies because he truly wants to see his coworkers and clients succeed. For example, a project he managed won two industry awards in 2020: an Environmental Business Journal Technology Merit Award and an Inductive Automation Firebrand Award which he shares with his client and coworkers.
SCS promotes leadership and ownership at every career stage, providing you with consistent opportunities to grow and learn. We offer an engaging and supportive environment, whether you’re interacting with senior leadership, out in the field with clients, or attending events.
Leading our YPs is the Young Professionals Planning Committee (YPPC), organizing and hosting educational and social events, providing mentorship opportunities, skills and leadership development, and much more.
As an employee-owned company, we know that ownership makes a difference. When you and I succeed, we all thrive. Hence, the YPPC strives to build technically savvy leaders and teams using in-house software, experts, and solutions. With an ever-growing environmental firm focusing on stewardship, we all play a role. Just like Sam!
Consider a career at SCS Engineers – click here!
The Environmental Journal Recognizes Firms Annually for Business Achievement in Growth, Technology, and Innovation.
Environmental Business Journal® (EBJ), a business research publication providing business intelligence to the environmental industry, is honoring SCS Engineers with three Business Achievement Awards for its innovative technologies and environmental achievements in 2021.
EBJ is recognizing SCS with an Environmental Business Achievement Award for the firm’s scientists, engineers, and consultants producing technologies and creating sustainable programs that help run industrial operations and essential public services more efficiently. These solutions reduce greenhouse gases and environmental impacts while increasing worker safety. The agricultural, food processing, and manufacturing sectors find SCS’ technologies and sustainability programs valuable.
The firm’s environmental technologies are receiving recognition with two Information Technology Awards for SCSeTools® and the SCS Remote Monitoring and Control® (RMC) Drone Program.
SCSeTools is a data management platform built by landfill practitioners that helps capture more methane and reduce operational and compliance costs on one-third of the landfills in the U.S.
The RMC drones fly with cameras and technology support safer, cleaner operations for industry, energy, and waste management with real-time greenhouse gas detection, mapping, temperature readings, and volumetrics.
EBJ recognized SCS Engineers in previous years for its remote monitoring and control technology, composting solutions, commercial and residential land remediation, and renewable natural gas plants.
Jim Walsh, President and CEO of SCS Engineers, said, “Thanks to our clients, SCS Engineers has received these awards and industry recognition for research and technology innovations; our greatest reward is client satisfaction.”
“In a year of economic recovery in 2021 that still posed its own challenges, it is a testament to the resilience of the environmental industry and its leaders in business and innovation to have such a fine constellation of winners of the annual EBJ Awards,” said Grant Ferrier, president of Environmental Business International Incorporated.
SCS Engineers will officially receive the EBJ Business Achievement awards at the Environmental Industry Summit XX this month.
The Monterey Bay Chapter of the American Public Works Association (APWA) showed their appreciation of Tim Flanagan’s work at its General Meeting this week. The APWA’s Awards Committee and Board of Directors recognized Tim for his involvement with an extensive range of public works projects that greatly influence the community and continue positively impacting the environment.
Philip Edwards, Award Director, wrote in a letter to Tim, “Your support over the years of the Monterey Bay Chapter of APWA has been especially commendable and appreciated. We are pleased to recognize your outstanding work.”
Flanagan recognized the value of sustainable waste management long before others in the industry and played a key role in developing a pilot anaerobic digestion facility, which processes food waste and other organics into energy. This facility was the first in California to process organics from the municipal solid waste stream.
As the General Manager of the Monterey Regional Waste Management District (MRWMD), he acted as a leader in sustainable solid waste management and resource recovery. The Solid Waste Association of North America recognizes his work and the MRWMD as one of the “Best Solid Waste Systems in North America.”
In 2021, Flanagan initiated the partnership with the Veteran’s Transition Center of Monterey County with The Last Chance Mercantile. This public/non-profit partnership that Flanagan helped create has the benefit of providing stable jobs for our Veterans in transition and the reuse of recovered items instead of landfilling them.
Tim Flanagan continues making significant contributions in North America and globally. He does so as an SCS employee-owner. The award-winning environmental consulting and engineering firm has a history of innovation – a perfect fit for Tim to continue advancing programs in the region and across the U.S.
SCS Engineers Senior Vice President Michelle Leonard said, “This is the expert you want advising you on how to collect, transport, valorize, recover, and reuse various types of waste in a manner that does not jeopardize the environment, human health, or future generations.”
Environmental industry leader
At SCS Engineers, we empower you with skills, experience, and energy to make a difference every day. As an employee-owned engineering consulting and contracting firm, we’re driven by a purpose to protect the air, water, and soil. We’ve been at the forefront of sustainable environmental solutions for more than 50 years.
Employee-owned
As an employee-owner, you help make our business better and build wealth for your retirement. Through our Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP), you’ll gain a financial stake in the business without investing your own money. When the business performs well, so does the value of your shares.
Supporting your career growth
Continual learning and innovation are fundamental to our business. We support skill development, license, and professional certification. There’s always room to grow when you’re ready to take your career to the next level.
Recognized for excellence
Our professionals are on the front line delivering engineering services for public and private sector customers. We’ve built deep bench strength, and the company is continually ranked nationally as a research and technology innovation leader.
Exceptional benefits
In addition to our collaborative culture and employee ownership, we offer outstanding benefits to support our employees’ well-being, financial health, and wellness. Our Student Debt Employer Contribution benefit helps pay off college loans faster.
SCS Engineers is an EOE/V/D Employer
Become one of the engineers, consultants, scientists, and technicians that help private and public entities run cleaner and more efficiently. A very rewarding place to have a career!
Recent changes to regulatory guidance in California are arguably making obtaining closure on sites with vapor intrusion health risk concerns more difficult to achieve. The Draft Cal-EPA Supplemental Vapor Intrusion Guidance (DSVIG) suggests changes to the methods in which vapor phase transport and potential health risks are modeled and calculated for occupants of buildings with known soil or groundwater contamination beneath them. These changes, which result from a multi-year working group collaboration, recommend a more extensive and site-specific data collection effort. They include indoor air quality calculation methods relying on EPA work and guidance and empirically derived attenuation factors (AFs) which some would argue lead to overestimating potential health risks.
The consequences of the DSVIG are potentially significant if adopted as is and appear likely to result in more sites being “screened in” with vapor intrusion issues and more sites requiring mitigation. The impact, resultant costs, and possibly detrimental secondary effects include decreases in affordable housing production, particularly in urban infill areas. And while none would argue with appropriate protection of health risk, the question is whether the studies and empirical data used to support the DSVIG represents the best available science and is truly representative and predictive of risk.
The DSVIG adopts an attenuation rate of 0.03 for the flux of both soil and sub-slab vapor to indoor air based on a previous 2012 EPA Study comprised of empirical data collected from buildings arguably not representative of modern construction in California. The development of a reliable screening level attenuation factor for California based on high-quality, recent, California-specific data:
1) Will be protective of human health, as no toxicological imperative or basis supports a call for accelerated or immediate action (as evidenced by the fact that the DSVIG workgroup commenced its work in 2014 and issued the review draft in 2020).
2) Will ensure California’s environmental policy satisfies the gold standard for data quality and insightful analysis in which the state once took pride.
3) Will not unnecessarily decimate the California housing development market. The empirically derived screening level AF in the DSVIG is overly conservative based on the available data. More accurate empirical data and measurement methods for site-specific measurement are available.
Oversimplifying the VI health risk assessment methods has constrained the environmental community’s ability to apply science-based health risk screenings, often resulting in costs associated with additional environmental assessment and mitigation. An additional revision to the DSVIG to utilize a screening level AF more reflective of the current California data and building specifications could save state resources, increase infill development by reducing urban sprawl, promote housing development, all while protecting human health.
Take a deeper dive into this topic in the Daily Transcript article Vapor intrusion rules hamper infill projects.
The Department of Toxic Substances Control’s Office of Brownfields’ Equitable Communities Revitalization Grant (ECRG) provides funds to incentivize cleanup and investment in disadvantaged areas of California. ECRG is setting a new path for land use that will have immediate and lasting benefits for communities, parks and green spaces, commercial enterprises, and housing.
Apply for grant funding to help Californian government units, nonprofit organizations, and Tribes assess, clean up and reuse idled and contaminated properties in the state’s environmental justice communities.
The application deadline is April 4, 2022.
Don’t miss this unique opportunity for grant assistance to clean up and revitalize our communities.
EPA Requires Reporting on Releases and Other Waste Management of Certain PFAS, Including PFBS
As part of EPA’s Strategic Roadmap, the Agency announced the automatic addition of four per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) to the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) list.
As of January 1, 2022, facilities that are subject to reporting requirements for these chemicals should start tracking their activities involving these PFAS as required by Section 313 of the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act. Reporting forms for these PFAS will be due to EPA by July 1, 2023, for the calendar year 2022 data.
In April 2021:
EPA previously updated the Code of Federal Regulations with PFAS that were added to the TRI on January 1, 2021, under section 7321(c) of the NDAA and regulated by an existing significant new use rule (SNUR) under the Toxic Substances Control Act (see 40 CFR 721.10536).
In addition to continuing to add PFAS to the TRI, the EPA will soon announce a series of PFAS test orders requiring PFAS manufacturers to provide the Agency with toxicity data and information on PFAS.
If you have questions or concerns about reporting requirements, contact one of our environmental chemistry – hazardous materials/waste professionals at .
