SCS Engineers wins 2 contracts from City of San Diego

Dive Brief:

SCS Engineers was been awarded two contracts with the City of San Diego: one to assist with operations, monitoring, and maintenance (OM&M) of the Arizona Street and South Chollas Landfill Gas Collection System; the other to comply with requirements of AB 32, which requires California to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.
Under the OM&M contract, SCS will provide operations monitoring of the LFG collection system wellfields, LFG flare monitoring, perimeter gas migration probe monitoring, landfill flare source testing, and multiple other services to protect the health and safety of the public and the environment.
Additionally, under the GHG contract, SCS will provide emissions calculations, LFG modeling, instantaneous and integrated surface modeling, and multiple other services designed to protect the health and safety of the public and the environment.

Dive Insight:

According to SCS consultants, AB 32 is the first regulatory program in the country to take a comprehensive, long-term approach to addressing climate change. On a federal level, the EPA has proposed revisions of the Emissions Guidelines and Compliance Times for Municipal Solid Waste Landfills, to which SWANA and the NWRA have submitted joint comments.

In addition to AB 32, the state of California has passed multiple bills to increase waste diversion, promote recycling, and create a safer environment in the state.

Michelle Leonard, vice president of SCS Engineers and president of SWANA, has been working on solid waste projects in San Diego County for years. She notes that AB 939 — the state's integrated waste management act to divert 25% waste by 1995 and 50% waste by 2000 — was when she began to fully focus on the waste industry.

"When [AB 939] came into effect, that was really when I did the full dive into solid waste and we helped many cities and counties to write their initial plan on how they were going to meet the 25% and 50% diversion requirements," Leonard told Waste Dive. "I recruited a number of industry experts on recycling and landfilling and all of the things that went into planning for AB 939 and 50% diversion. That’s really how I got deeply involved in solid waste and I kind of never looked back from there."

Efforts such as AB 32 allow organizations like SCS Engineers to offer expertise to improve operations in the waste industry.