# Environmental test question



## Dleg (Nov 14, 2006)

Here's a picture I took at our 3-year old, $12M landfill a couple of weeks ago. Test your solid waste acumen, and tell me what is wrong with this picture. There may be more than one correct answer.


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## RIP - VTEnviro (Nov 14, 2006)

I can't see the picture Dleg.

Hence I say the problem with your landfill, is that it's invisible.


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## Dleg (Nov 14, 2006)

Sapperslead: Nope. Think "operations".

VTEnviro &amp; jregieng: I hope you can see it now. I added it to one of my flickr pages and used the IMG button.


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## tmckeon_PE (Nov 14, 2006)

To begin with, where is the path for trucks to get in and out of the pit area?


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## Dleg (Nov 14, 2006)

The temporary road is kind of hidden, but it's there. That's not the problem. I'll share another photo from the opposite side of the landfill that shows it better, but it will raise another (easier) problem. You still need to answer the original question, but you get bonus points for pointing out the problem(s) this photo illustrates:


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## Guest (Nov 15, 2006)

From the first picture:

1. Owners/Operators of a landfill must constuct/maintain a control system to prevent stormwaters from running onto the active part of the landfill. The system must be designed for a 25-yr return period.

2. ** possible ** Daily cover requirement doesn't look like it is being met at the bottom of the picture since you have two areas of waste management and the one at the bottom of the picture looks "inactive".

From the 2nd picture:

1. Owners/Operators of a landfill must construct/maintain a surface water run-off

control system that can collect and control, at a minimum, the surface water

volume that results from a 24-hour, 25-year storm. The water must be managed in accordance with the Clean Water Act.

2. You got any wetlands around them thar trees ?? &lt;_&lt;

3. LFG monitoring ?? Picture might not pan out far enough to show.

That's my short response ... h43r:

Dleg --

Do you also do enforcement ? :tone:

JR


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## MetroRAFB (Nov 15, 2006)

Where are the steaming mounds of garbage? And the seagulls?


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## RIP - VTEnviro (Nov 15, 2006)

Now that I can see them you've already spilled the beans.

I was going to say daily cover for the first picture. And lake leachate on the second picture.

Also, where are the vents?


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## Guest (Nov 15, 2006)

> Now that I can see them you've already spilled the beans.
> I was going to say daily cover for the first picture. And lake leachate on the second picture.
> 
> Also, where are the vents?


Yeah, I was wondering about LFG too - don't see any flares in the picture.

I was also wondering if there Postclosure Financial Assurance was up to par. I am thinking it is not h43r: h43r: h43r: h43r:

Do I win a prize for correct answers ??!! 

JR


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## RIP - VTEnviro (Nov 15, 2006)

Yeah, you win a pint of collected leachate for your drinking pleasure.


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## Guest (Nov 15, 2006)

> Yeah, you win a pint of collected leachate for your drinking pleasure.


Icky !!

Did you TCLP the leachate ??!! h43r: h43r: h43r: h43r:

If not, that is transporting a hazardous waste without proper registration !

JR


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## Fudgey (Nov 15, 2006)

I had to poop real bad one day. But had to hold it in for a few hours for various reasons. Couldn't find a men's room, was on the road, just plain forgot at one point.

Does that count as carrying around hazardous waste?

Can someone really fine me for carrying around a couple mud monkeys without a permit?


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## Guest (Nov 15, 2006)

> I had to poop real bad one day. But had to hold it in for a few hours for various reasons. Couldn't find a men's room, was on the road, just plain forgot at one point.
> Does that count as carrying around hazardous waste?
> 
> Can someone really fine me for carrying around a couple mud monkeys without a permit?


From the anecdotal information you have provided fudgepump, you would be *OPERATING* a hazardous waste treatment, storage and disposal facility (TSDF) without a license. :ruh:

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

If you provide me with your place of business, I would be happy to come help you come back into compliance. h43r: h43r: h43r:

JR


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## Fudgey (Nov 15, 2006)

Well, when I finally did get the chance to go, it was in the bushes.

So if you're gonna bust me, it should be for for an unauthorized discharge of raw sewage, in this case a couple of chocolate hot dogs, as well.


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## Dleg (Nov 15, 2006)

Well,

jregieng hinted at it. VTEnviro pretty much nailed it. Fudgepump needs to eat more fiber, I think.

The only answers were the ones that were obvious from the pictures. You could even use your ENVRM to find the answers. In short, the answers cover the primary operating requirements for a landfill: daily cover, lift construction, and runoff/leachate management.

In the first picture, there are two big problems:

1. Notice that ridiculous little "tarp" out in the middle of the waste pile in the foreground? That's the "alternative daily cover" that we approved a couple years back, to help conserve airspace. Back when the landfill was being managed properly by an experienced contractor, the working face was small enough to be covered by that one section of tarpaulin. Now that the contractor has been run off and our Public Works is running the joint, the situation has come to this. I literally laughed out loud when I saw this. They've got to be kidding. Right? Ugghh.

2. Notice the large area of uncovered trash all over the place. But it goes beyond the daily cover requirement. Check out the lift construction. Basically, there is no organized lift construction. The pile in the foreground is just that - a pile, spread all around horizontally. The "lift" in the background is a little better, but hardly. Not really a permit requirement, but just bad practice. These guys should know better - we've had George Savage himself out here several times to train them.

3. Bonus point: a) look at all the holes and tears in the alternative cover. Not very effective at meeting the vector or odor control requirements. But that may be hard to tell at the reduced scale.

In the second picture, the "lake" at the bottom illustrates another big problem:

4. Under previous management, the landfill was operated such that the lake in the picture was composed only of clean runoff from the unused cell 2. It could just be pumped into the unlined cell 3 for disposal (good perc rate). Now, however, the poor lift construction in cell 1 has directed all runoff from cell 1 into cell 2, which includes a number of surface leachate seeps. So that water is now leachate. Diluted leachate, to be sure, but leachate nonetheless. Which means that the other main landfill design/operating parameter of maintaining a depth of leachate no greater than 30 cm above the liner is not being met. (the HDPE liner is about 4 feet below the aggregate layer shown, which is maybe another 2 feet below the surface of the lake). And, even worse, the leachate pumps for cell 2 have been canibalized to fix the cell 1 pumps, so there is no way to fix the problem until another pump can be obtained, but you can't see that in the picture, so nevermind.

Good calls on all the other guesses, but if you can't see it from the picture, it doesn't count. But you're pretty much right. Anything that can be wrong IS wrong right now. I could go on and on, but I've got to run off for a meeting. :brick:

Edit - I just noticed that two of you asked where the vents are. There are none. The landfill opened up in 2003, and until now, I hdan't really thought about it. We had an experienced contractor running it for a while, and he said we wouldn't need to worry about it for a few more years. But he's been booted out now, so maybe I'd better start worrying about that now. Thanks for the heads up.


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## Guest (Nov 15, 2006)

Dleg --

I just got back into the swing of things for finishing up my thesis now that study for the PE Exam is mitigated for at least 8 weeks. 

My thesis research highlights results from an alternative cover field demonstration for a Subtitle C landfill. Essentially, the four year study measured the water balance for an alternative ET cover (primarily silt with a cover crop - sponge &amp; pump effect) and a conventional, prescriptive cover consisting of compacted clay. Funny thing, there was a severe drought 3 months into the field study causing each of the covers to severly desiccate and crack - so much so that the probes measuring water content in each lift would reflect sharp increases in water content right after a rain event. It is clear that each of the covers were leaking by 2nd year - a major problem in terms of modeling the water balance and showing &lt; 1.5 mm/yr flux. :true:

I just met with my advisor yesterday to square away the remaining details for an alternate course of action (no pun intended), so I can hopefully have a good draft in to him before the campus shuts down for Christams :woot: And then late January - early February defense would suit me just fine :congrats:

You said you approved the alternative cover. How did you accomplish demonstrating that the alternative cover was "equivalent" to a prescribed cover?

Just curious.

JR


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## Dleg (Nov 15, 2006)

Well, It's been a while but I think what I did was search around for other states alternative cover approvals, and basically go by "precedence." The type of tarpaulin material was something made for the purpose called 'Gryfolin' something or other, which I was able to find approvals for from a few other states. I also just followed the regulations for approving an alternative daily cover. (Remember, this is RCRA-D we're talking about. I don't know nuthin about subtitle C, except what I studied for the exam!)

Since I'm still in study mode, let's look it up. 40 CFR 258.21 part b (don't use a parenthesis b, or you get this: (B)) lays out the requirements for approving an alternative daily cover. The cover must be demonstrated to be able to "control disease vectors, fires, odors, blowing litter, and scavenging." A tarp can do all of those things except fire and scavenging prevention, as long as it is securely placed every night (they weight it down on the edges with used tires, and throw a few tires out into the middle too.)

For fire control, what I did was require soil cover every 5 days - really the only fire control benefit to daily cover, aside from basic cover, is that it compartmentalizes the lifts. So we have slightly larger compartments now. (it also helps with the vector control)

Scavenging was taken care of already with a full perimeter fence and night watchman.

Odor could arguably be a problem, but our landfill is located far enough from any receptors that we deemed the "odor risk" to be worth the savings in airspace, which are huge. The last thing we need is to fill the landfill up any faster than it already is. They're gong to have to start construction on cells 3 and 4 in the next five years or so, and they haven't even begun planning or budgeting for it.


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## Guest (Nov 15, 2006)

> I also just followed the regulations for approving an alternative daily cover.


You did say *daily* cover :duhh:

My thesis project is looking at the final covers - the equivalency demonstration does apply to Subtitle D as well as Subtitle C. It just happens that this site was on the CERCLA NPL list - it was primarily used for MSW. 

Those final phases are going to be tough. Siting requirements + very little available land area ... wow !!! Somebody is going to be feeling that !! :tone:

Regards,

JR


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## Dleg (Nov 15, 2006)

Oh. That would explain it! I have to review the design for final cover of our old municipal landfill in the next few weeks. I think the designers were going to propose GCL on the side slopes (which will be kind of steep due to the site, right next to the ocean) and HPDE on the top.

Any wisdom to share on GCL as final cover material?


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## Guest (Nov 16, 2006)

I am by no means the most knowledgable person regarding GCLs - but I have certainly dealt with some design and construction issues.

I will send e-mail for responses - this thread could REALLY get stretched out 

Regards,

JR


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## RIP - VTEnviro (Nov 17, 2006)

New photo of the day. Tell me what's wrong with this observation well that's supposed to be monitoring leachate levels in a septic field.


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## Guest (Nov 17, 2006)

> New photo of the day. Tell me what's wrong with this observation well that's supposed to be monitoring leachate levels in a septic field.


I can't see it the posted image, hence that appears to be a good start 

JR


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## Dleg (Nov 17, 2006)

Ummm, there's no well? It's just a hole in the ground that they dug out today, for the inspection? (I was expecting a PVC pipe and cap).


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## RIP - VTEnviro (Nov 18, 2006)

This is a client of ours. They run a residential development that's connected to this leach field. The field is failing, and they're on the hook to monitor it until they get a public sewer installed.

They were to monitor leachate levels a couple times a week and report it to the state. Of course, they were always "dry". The state inspected the site one time and found this. You had an official looking PVC standpipe with cap sticking out of the ground. However, it was just for show as you can see here. The holes were a few inches deep.

The state was pissed. They made them install new wells based on a design prepared by an engineer and approved by them. They also made a PE (as opposed to your company's general field tech) inspect the installation and report on it to the state.


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## Guest (Nov 18, 2006)

> New photo of the day. Tell me what's wrong with this observation well that's supposed to be monitoring leachate levels in a septic field.


VT --

I can see the picture from home, but not from work. Got it now.

JR


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## Dleg (Nov 19, 2006)

That's hilarious.

:rotflmao

I'd be pissed too if I was the state inspector.


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## RIP - VTEnviro (Nov 19, 2006)

To make matters worse, the client was doubly pissed when he screwed up what type of work needed to be done and somehow mixed up "monitoring wells" with "test pits".

The contractor was prepared for the wrong type of work. I bet the client loved paying for his entire day, my entire day, and my mileage for a 240 mile round trip commute. :true:


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## Guest (Nov 20, 2006)

I don't have any nifty field visit photos to share these days :sniff:

I have been reassigned to Operation Paper Cut :rotfl: :rotfl:

After seeing these photographs, I think I need to arrage a few facility visits in December h43r: h43r: :GotPics:

JR


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## RIP - VTEnviro (Dec 4, 2006)

I had a field visit with the state fish and wildlife guy on Friday. He's concerned because we are going to have the discharge from our stormwater pond going to a deer wintering yard. He had some concerns over that. My first thought was, "deer like water too."

I found out his issues were how many trees would need to come out, and what kind of visual screening would be in place. He wanted us to put a bend in our discharge line so that there would not be a direct line of sight between the deer and anyone at the pond. Does he really think there will be tons of folks just hanging out by a SW pond?

All in all, he was pretty reasonable. The really fun part was the fact that it was absoultely pouring the whole time. Let's hear it for it for head to toe rain gear!


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## Guest (Dec 4, 2006)

I have a Regulator-Industry workshop I will be attending next week in Sarasota. I even get to present a topic  While I am down in that part of the state, I decided to swing over to the east coast of FL to make some facility visits. Maybe I can get some pictures :GotPics:

Fish and game folks are a different breed. I had a situation at one of my sites where 1,4-dioxane appeared to be migrating off-site, into a wildlife management area. The 1,4-dioxane was present approximated 80 ft bls. The concern - Red Cockaded Woodpeckers. :true:

Everything turned out okay - no woodpeckers were harmed. :+1:

JR


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## RIP - VTEnviro (Dec 4, 2006)

I learned the hard way these F&amp;W guys are serious about this stuff. Very early in my engineering life, like 6 months out of college, I was at a site meeting with my boss and some guys from the state regarding a culvert we wanted to replace in a wetland/stream area.

One of the things they asked for was a separate, 18" diameter, lightly colored "critter crossing" for box turtles that supposedly inhabit the area. We got a real laugh out of it until we learned he was for real. :true:


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## Dleg (Dec 4, 2006)

I had a great field day yesterday. I spent 5 hours on the tailgate of my truck waiting for the Mayor of Saipan's heavy equipment crew to show up and clear some land where we are going to be installing passive soil gas probes with EPA this week. Every 30 minutes or so we would get a phone call "we'll be there in 30 minutes" until finally we didn't get any more phone calls. Oh well, maybe today.

But we didn't totally waste our time. We wandered off into the jungle on the other side of the clearing site and found a WWII Japanese air raid shelter carved into the limestone on the inner edge of a sinkhole that was partially filled with rusted out 55-gallon drums. There was a freshly dead chicken near the drums too. And, the drums had obvioulsy "bulged" before they rusted out. Do you think I should have been concerned?

(look at me during last week's hazmat safety refresher course!)


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## frazil (Dec 4, 2006)

I especially like the hazmat suit and flip flops combo! :lmao:


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## Dleg (Dec 5, 2006)

Yeah, me too! (didn't have enough booties for the class)


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## cement (Dec 6, 2006)

> found a WWII Japanese air raid shelter carved into the limestone on the inner edge of a sinkhole that was partially filled with rusted out 55-gallon drums.  There was a freshly dead chicken near the drums too.  And, the drums had obvioulsy "bulged" before they rusted out.  Do you think I should have been concerned?


I would have used a teriaki or perhaps a lemon pepper before grilling and it would be fine. but then I'm from Jersey...


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## RIP - VTEnviro (Dec 6, 2006)

^ no, no. A maple-habanero rub. But then I'm from Vermont...


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## cement (Dec 7, 2006)

wouldn't the sugar in the maple char early? you would not want your toxic waste marinated chicken done rare.


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## RIP - VTEnviro (Dec 7, 2006)

No if you only use a little in rou marinade you get the flavor without the burnt sugar problem. You don't just slather it on with a paint brush.

And as for the chicken being rare, I'm sure all the PCB and TCE in the toxic waste would kill the salmonella, so no worries!


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## cement (Dec 7, 2006)

along the lines of a seared ahi. another island delicacy! we will be sure to serve that at the continuing education seminar opening banquet. or maybe it should wait until the closing luncheon...


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## Dleg (Dec 11, 2006)

We do have something called chicken kelaguen here, which technically is not "cooked" but instead chemically cooked in a very acidic solution of vinegar and lemon, and then mixed with coconut, onion, hot peppers, and a few other spices. There's also deer kelaguen and beef kelaguen too. But most of the time, the chicken is cooked beforehand because people are afraid of food poisoning. I'm sure we could eliminate that concern with the proper solution of TCE, toluene and PCBs. Is it still food poisoning if it doesn't kick in for 15 years? :whatever:

The chicken had been thoroughly eaten when we returned the next day, by the way. Plus, I'm still alive and my genitals haven't fallen off, so I guess it wasn't too toxic. :???:


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## Guest (Dec 13, 2006)

That sounds akin to ceviche - fish that is "cooked" in the same manner. I have been tempted to try it, but always "chicken" out.

JR


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## RIP - VTEnviro (Dec 13, 2006)

I won passes to the Vermont Food and Wine Taste Extravaganza a few months back. Won 'em off the radio.

They ended up being worth about $900/person for the whole weekend. Fuckin' sweet.

I had a salmon ceviche at one of their food tasting events. One of the few things I actually liked.


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