SCS develops 5-year landfill operations contract for California county

SCS Engineers, Long Beach, California, has announced a 5-year contract with the Solid Waste Management Division of California’s San Bernardino County Department of Public Works. SCS Field Services—the operations, maintenance and monitoring (OM&M) division of SCS Engineers—is providing landfill gas systems, OM&M, support services and other technologies to the county.

The county says that while its Solid Waste Management Division is managing growth in an environmentally conscientious manner, it is costly. The county has 40 landfill and disposal sites, a portion of which have active landfill gas extraction and treatment systems (LFGES). These systems collect and control landfill gas (LFG) and play a critical role in ensuring the ongoing safety of the environment, providing biogas and helping to keep greenhouse gases to a minimum.

LFGES’s are complex and individual to each site. They are operated, maintained and monitored in compliance with several regulatory requirements, including South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) and Mojave Desert Air Quality Management District (MDAQMD) regulations. The systems run in compliance with subpart 40 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) part 60, title 27 of the California Code of Regulations (CCR) and the California Assembly Bill 32.

SCS says it has provided technician support, compliance expertise and technology for the past nine years for the county. There have been no notices of violation (NOV), lost days of work or lost days of operation during that period, the company says.

The county is using SCS’s Ignition Perspective SCADA software. This technology is a part of the SCS remote monitoring and control (SCS RMC) system, which SCS says provides the county with a scalable, customized view of its landfill gas and related compliance systems that reduces OM&M costs.

The county is also using the SCS RMC Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) part 107-certified drone pilots, equipped with a drone fleet. The drones monitor methane, conduct infrared surveillance, perform 3D topographic modeling and provide landfill open-face stockpile calculations. The sensors and cameras provide high-resolution images with centimeter-level accuracy data that maintains environmental quality at a lower cost.

“Our performance-based process and technology with site-specific data provide a high level of certainty,” says Galen Petoyan, senior vice president at SCS.

Robert Legaspi, a vice president and regional manager at SCS, says, “This assurance allows regulators and the county to make informed decisions, now and in the future, benefiting the citizens of San Bernardino.”