Goats Save the Environment!

In Auburn, Washington 100 goats were set loose to clear a grassy area of several acres near a retention pond for a Supermall. It took the goats three weeks to clear the area for Glimcher Realty Trust. The animals and their herder cost the company $3,000 for the three weeks. Using landscapers, a company spokesperson says that the same project would have cost $40,000. And no chemicals or gas-powered equipment were necessary to run the goats. Apparently goats eat just about anything in front of them. The project was so successful that the goats were hired for a similar project at Sea-Tac International Airport. Saving money while doing their part to save the environment. It is great what a little ingenuity and a hundred goats can do.

California's AB32 and Green House Gas Reduction

The Terminator is now affectionately known as the Environmental Governor. A lot of what follows was directly copied from other articles, so I do not claim it as my own.

AB32 the “Global Warming Solutions Act” establishes mandates to reduce California statewide greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) back to 1990 levels by 2020, an approximately 30% reduction from forecasted emissions. On January 1, 2008, sectors identified as significant GHG emitters (electricity producers, petroleum refiners, and cement processors) are required to start tracking 2008 emissions. The California Air Resources Board (CARB) has been put in charge of implementation by January 1, 2012. However, they are also authorized to take earlier action.

AB32 will establish a local market for emissions trading, by setting a baseline and then receiving credit for producing less GHG than the baseline creating an emissions offset. Since carbon “cap and trade” markets are currently voluntary and unregulated, the nature and characteristics of carbon offsets vary significantly between willing buyers and sellers. CARB is preparing to endorse the CCAR’s Forestry Project Protocol for generating voluntary offsets, thereby providing a "seal of approval" for offsets generated using this protocol.

To qualify for greenhouse gas emission offsets, a reduction in GHG emissions must be deemed “real, permanent, measurable, verifiable, and additional”. “Additional” (similar to the concept of "surplus") means that the reduction in emissions reflect a deliberateness of purpose with regard to reducing GHG emissions and . That is, the reduction activity would not have taken place in the absence of offsets. Since energy efficiency is mandated by policy and subsidized by the government, any GHG reductions achieved through energy efficiency in California is unlikely to meet the criteria of “additionality”.

AB32 will have a broad reach within the environmental planning world. The current debate suggests that GHG now should have a significant consideration in the CEQA process. It seems as though many lawsuits will be following.

New Regs Ease UST FUND Acceptance

There are significant changes in the Permit Waver requirement of the California UST Petroleum Fund application process. Ceres Associates considers these significant changes because they represent the difference for two of our clients of getting on the FUND or not getting on the FUND. Prior to the recent court ruling, if you owned a property that had unknown tanks and contamination was found, you did not have access to the FUND, even though this seems to be contrary to the spirit of the law that created the FUND. However, based upon a recent court decision in Kelsoe v. State Water Resources Control Board, that concept has changed. It is the opinion of the Court of Appeals that a permit waver may be used to excuse permit noncompliance that occurred before January 1, 1990. In addition, under the Kelsoe Decision if noncompliance occurred after January 1, 1990 and certain conditions have been met then a permit waiver will be granted.

In addition to the Kelsoe Decision, there is Assembly Bill (AB) 1437 that becomes effective January 1, 2008. AB1437 states that permit compliance is satisfied if the claimant obtained a UST permit when the claimant became subject to UST permitting requirements, or when local regulators started issuing permits, whichever is later. In addition AB1437 states that if there are unknown tanks on a property, after reasonable due diligence is conducted and the claimant was unaware of the USTs, the claimant can claim permit compliance.

Obviously, we have simplified the two changes here. If you would like to know more, please give us a call.

E-Waste Recycling - The Real Deal

Well I went to New Mexico, and saw a prototype of the e-waste recycling unit I wrote about a couple of months ago. This unit only consumes about a ton a day, but it works. You put the waste into a grinder which is fed into a machine that uses a technology the firm coined as "catylitic pyrolysis". What comes out is metals that can be separated by specific gravity or can come out as a glob, fibers, gas, and a bit of char. The gas is used to refuel the machine, and the fibers, metals, and char, are sold back into the marketplace. If you want to spend about $5M on a 25 ton per day unit you will make about 50% ROI, according to the firms financial model. If you want to spend $20 on a 150 ton per day unit your ROI will be closer to 100%. The manufacuter is in place, and the company is awaiting orders. I guess that is where Ceres Associates comes in - to go out and tell people about this equipment who might be interested in doing their part to save the environment while making a good deal of money. Truly the best of both worlds.

New Office in Davis

There are many exciting things happening around the company these days. We are opening a new office in Davis, California. It seems to be a good central location from which to better serve our north-central valley clients. There is quite a bit involved in opening a new office, please bear with any temporary inconveniences. Our main phone number will always be active and client service will be not be impaired in any way. By the end of November we will have a viable presence in Davis. We have also made initial strides at opening an office in Honolulu. We have some good client contacts there and it also looks like a good place from which to serve an ever expanding clientele.

USTs GALORE

We are in the midst of sending out a mass mailer, because recently we came across some information that said that there are still thousands of contaminated gas station sites out there. After getting some replys from our mailer, we have found a few pretty interesting data. 1) A lot of UST contamination owners are afraid to do anything about their sites because they fear the costs, 2) regulators are so busy some sites go unnoticed for years, even those with significant contamination, and 3) some consultants get the assessment into the monitoring stage and then use it as an annuity, just charging the client for sampling four times a year for years and years and years.
The first thing our company does is help you through the difficulties of getting on the Califorinia cleanup FUND. You pay the first $5000 and the state pays the rest. Then we can wake up the regulators and speed up the process of cleaning up your site. Finally, we will clean up the site as quickly as possible and get you a letter saying that "no further action is necessary". We will take on all of the burden and all of the stress and make it so that you do not have to hear from the regulators again.

Ultimate E-Waste Recycling

I recently met a gentleman. You know, one of those guys with a PhD from MIT in some obscur science. He is an inventor who gets a lot of government grants to perfect his inventions. He just has a lot of problems getting his inventions to market. So Ceres Associates is going to help him do so. Next month I will go to New Mexico to see one of his machines at work. I am told that he can take any e-waste such as computers, circuit boards, etc. and break them down to the molecular level. The machine then separates out the molecules. The plastics produce a gas that is used to fuel the machine, the fibers from the plastics, and the metals are separated and resold. There is 100 percent recovery. The inventor has financial models that show a very impressive return on investment(considerably more than 100%), if there is enough e-waste to keep the machine occupied. The machine does not create emissions. There are hundreds of companies that would be able to do very well (financially) with such an invention, especially if one throws in the possibility of carbon credits. This machine will not solve the global warming crisis, but it could be one inventor's gift to our children's future, if we can find an interested company.

Securities and Exchange Commission and the Environment

When all of those scandals hit the fan during the Enron blow-up days, Congress passed something called the Sarbannes-Oxley law, which was substantially telling publicly traded companies that corporate executives would be personally responsible for the accurate reporting of its financial resources. So enter into the mix the cost of company-owned contaminated properties and how to accurately report these properties in corporate financial documents.
Large companies like ConAgra, Safety Kleen, and Ashland Chemical have found themselves in big trouble with the SEC and some have faced criminal charges for their mishandling of financial records concerning their contaminated properties. Since Enron et al, the SEC is now turning its attention to environmental financial disclosures. The SEC has not come out with new initiatives, but corporate executives are now on notice due to the increased civil and criminal actions being brought by the SEC for those who do not comply with environmental reporting requirements.
Ceres Associates has the expertise to help corporations with FIN47 reporting obligations, and with accepting environmental liabilities under fixed price remediation programs. The undisputed knowledge king when it comes to understanding all three: environmental accounting practices, the legal part of environmental accounting practices, and environmental remediation is Gregory Rogers. Mr. Rogers is a CPA and a JD.

TOO MUCH NITROGEN?

Fossil fuels have gotten the big press whenever global warming is spoken of, but they are not the only culprit. Now it is becoming clear that use of nitrogen based fertilizers also produce greenhouses gases that may be leading to climate change. A United Nations report suggests that in 1860 there was virtually no nitrogen produced by human activity. Last year it was estimated that agriculture, and fossil fuel combustion produced about 125 metric tonnes of nitrogen that has been deposited into the atmosphere. In addition to that there were approximately 113 million tonnes that come from natural sources.

All of this nitrogen in our atmosphere is disruptive to fragile ecosystems, contaminates water supplies, it is not good for general human health, and is apparently a contributor to global warning. That is what experts are saying.

A certain amount of nitrogen is not only good for you, it is essential to life. But when there is too much nitrogen bad things happen. Say for instance all this nitrogen goes into the atmosphere, rain brings it back down to earth, and weeds go “Yippee”, helping them to spread more quickly and take over – the native plants go away and so do the animals that use those native plants to survive.

Lake Tahoe was always known for its crystal clear blue waters. The lake is not so clear anymore, and one of the main causes appears to be an accumulation of nitrogen, which encourages the growth of algae. Then there are the more sensitive plants like fungi and lichen that die out with excess nitrogen. This is bad news for the flora and fauna that have developed symbiosis with the lichen and fungi.

I do not think that I will ever be the kind of guy who says the sky is falling. But if we have sufficient data to conclude that a certain substance that we over use is having a significant negative effect on our environment, then I am the kind of guy who says that we need to find a better more sustainable path.

Orchards & Pesticides: Solvable Problems

You’d be amazed just what percent of the Bay Area and greater Sacramento Area was formerly developed with orchards. What is particularly worrisome is that during this period of orchard development it was commonplace for farmers to utilize chlorinated pesticides for fruit protection. Not all sites are impaired, but it is important to know as much as you can about your site.

Although many of the compounds formerly used have since been banned, their residual concentrations still reside in the upper layers of the soil profile. And although it is true that these compounds are likely decreasing in concentration over time, due mostly to natural attenuation and chemical processes, it is also true that the concentrations that remain can be truly hazardous to current and future occupants. Though everyone has heard of DDT, there are also dieldrin, aldrin, and a whole host of more toxic compounds that have been used. You can't see this kind of contamination, only sampling of the soil can provide real world data for review.

If a site that was formerly orchards is being redeveloped for residential use, it is important to collect near surface soil samples to assess for the potential of residual pesticide contamination. We have found sites where –even though the site hasn’t been an orchard since the mid-1970s—the concentrations in the near surface soils exceed hazardous waste threshold criteria! The clean up of these compounds, which are primarily chlorinated pesticides, PCBs, arsenic, lead, and mercury, is usually off-hauling of contaminated materials and backfilling with imported soils. This is an easy and effective method of ensuring that future occupants are protected from historic uses. Most of these compounds affect children disproportionately more than their adult counterparts.

Not every site requires remediation, but knowing what is present either prior to purchase of the site, prior to redevelopment of the site, or prior to re-use of the site, is critical. Only on-site sampling and a trained consultant can guide what should be done. In most instances site conditions are OK, and even in these cases the results of sampling bring peace of mind.

Everyone involved in a transaction involving historic orchards has a stake in ensuring that future use of the site occurs alongside a responsibility to protect those future occupants.

Practical Redevelopment

For many cities redevelopment of downtown or other urban areas is a challenge. Although the challenge seems large, there are practical approaches to starting the redevelopment train, including funding for assessment and cleanup of contaminated sites.

Every city wants to show off their revitalization -- for many it's an imperative aspect to staying competitive in our modern world. Developers who are eager to work with cities many times run into contamination troubles (or a perception of such troubles) and back out. Who can blame them? But it leaves the City in a tight position with few options for moving forward. Redevelopment is costly in and of itself, without the added concerns of environmental contamination.

What many cities do not understand is that there is ample funding for just these types of sites. Although there is no clear definition of a Brownfield, a simple definition is a site, whose development is being impeded by potential or actual contamination. We've all seen these sites throughout our cities -- the old gas stations, the old mills and factories, and even the vacant lot that nobody remembers what it used to be.

The US EPA offers assessment and cleanup grants (usually up to a total of $400,000 per applicant). These dollars are obtained through a proposal process that starts soon (due date is mid October 2007). Skilled environmental consultants can write the proposal (which is limited to 18 pages), and really good consultants understanding the ranking criteria used by the EPA. Many cities in our own area have received these grants, including the City of West Sacramento, Emeryville, Oakland, and many others.

These dollars are a great start to cleaning up sites that have been impacted or may be impacted by hazardous materials or petroleum products. Plus, these grants can be combined with other monies/services available through the US EPA (via the Target Brownfields Assessment program), the DTSC (via the Targeted Site Investigation program), as well as the State Water Board (via the LUFT Fund and the OSCA). It has been reported that nearly half of all Region IX applicants for Brownfield grants are successful.

Every city has environmentally impaired sites that are sitting idly by because the cost to assess and remediate these sites scares off developers and city planners alike. Please take the time to think about how federal and state grants can help your redevelopment plan as well as contribute to an overall environmental protection policy. Someone is going to get these dollars, why shouldn't it be you?

Consulting Culture

As we try to improve our business, I have been spending a lot of time thinking about the environmental services business from the viewpoint of the client. If any clients of environmental services are out there who want to respond (because after all you know better than I) please do so by emailing me or posting something to this site.

Environmental consulting firms come in all sorts of corporate cultures. But mostly they are spawned from an engineering or earth science firm. It is difficult for these types of firms to be creative. Oh you will see that they consider themselves creative from the verbage on their websites, but reality is different. So here are some things to watch for. Chargeable hours are very important, especially in larger firms. If you have a larger project billed on a monthly basis, you will note that you have hours charged by principals and seniors that you do not remember speaking with or who contributed to your project. Any open project is fair game within the office to meet chargeability quotas.

Chargeability is also important for lower level employees (as a matter of fact most firms require staff-level employees to be at least 90 percent billable). So if you call to find information for your project from someone who is not otherwise busy, you will find a half hour charged for a five minute phone call. The bottom line on this activity is that the client needs to feel comfortable with the honesty and integrity of the consultant. The activities listed here are not necessarily considered by the consultant to be dishonest. They are just a part of their culture. There are firms with fresh and vibrant cultures where you will be treated honestly. Talk to your consultant before you sign any agreement, feel comfortable with the people who are going to do your work before you even ask for a proposal.

More next time.

OSCA: Money for assessment prior to purchase

The Orphan Site Cleanup Account (OSCA) is a unique funding mechanism for LUST sites that are without financially viable RPs.

In fact, a key provision of the OSCA is that, where the site is otherwise eligible for reimbursement, the applicant need not already own the Property. That’s right, you don’t have to own the Property to get paid for the assessment of the site.

Here’s how that works: First an applicant (be it a developer, investor, or other) finds a LUST site that has not yet been adequately assessed and does not have a financially viable RP. Then, the applicant enters into a purchase agreement for the site, contingent upon the remediation costs being estimated within the cap of the OSCA. Once the agreement is in place, the applicant can get funds from the OSCA to do the assessment work on the site, which will allow the consultant to posit the anticipated remediation costs (with a margin of error). If the costs fall reasonably within the remaining OSCA funding limit, then the purchase moves forward. If not, the applicant walks away.

The beauty is that the applicant isn’t out of pocket for assessment expenses and has the potential to pick up a site that has a depressed price (due to the environmental contamination). The OSCA will pay for the remediation (up to their $1.5 million cap per site for assessment + remediation) once the applicant becomes the owner in fee.

It sounds like a scam, but it’s not. The OSCA represents the State of California, who has an interest in seeing orphan sites cleaned up. Such efforts protect groundwater resources and inevitably lead to economic development (through the eventual redevelopment of the site). In this sense all parties to the transaction win.

Referral Business Building

The other day Ryan and I gave a short presentation to a group of commercial real estate brokers at TRI Commercial in Sacramento. There were 20 commercial real estate brokers in the room. If you are in the Central Valley of California and need a real estate broker, I would highly recommend this group. They work together as a team, they ask the right questions and they are motivated to meet their client expectations. The presentation went well, and I think that both they and us learned quite a bit about each others’ businesses. I thought it was an interesting presentation because it help me reinforce a recent assessment about how business grow.

No longer can you make a few cold calls and get a contract for a new project. The information age has changed all that. Clients are now well-armed with enough information to make a decision as to if you have the knowledge and capabilities to inform them and help them achieve their goals. In addition to that, clients want their vendors to be a part of the project. Clients want their vendors to be a part of a team that has the common goal of accomplishing the project. I had heard about these concepts in a set of tapes on “Word of Mouth” marketing. My company is just starting to understand these ideas, and trying to break out of that mold of being a stolid engineering consulting firm. If you want to learn more you can go to the word of mouth marketing association website, or go to the guy whose cd’s I found to be fascinating – George Silverman. If you are not familiar, and you have been stuck in the old model of marketing and business development, you will find there is a new way to better serve your clients, and George can point you there. At my company we prefer to use the terminology Referral Business Building, but that is just us.

The CERCLA Loop: Who should be liable?

The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) has a very strict approach to assigning liability: “the liability of an owner or operator or other responsible person under this section shall be the full and total costs of response and damages” 42 USC §9607(c)(2).

An important policy is forwarded by this Congressional action, namely that environmental contamination is a national problem. In so recognizing the enormity of the problem, Congress apparently sought to clean up sites and preserve the environmental quality of this Nation for future generations. Whether for better or worse, that clean up comes at the expense of “owners or operators” whether or not their direct actions contributed to the contamination.

I can appreciate that Congress sought out the polluters who were causing the degradation of the environment, but I wonder if their vague language was intended. Clearly the courts have read “owner or operator” broad, at times including banks, brokers, and other title holders. We must presume that Congress is “ok” with this approach, since they could easily over rule the courts by changing the statute to reflect their true intent.

What should be the respective liability of parties to a contamination plume? What if someone only “owned” the site, but didn’t contribute directly to contamination? CERCLA does have some built in defenses. Does the strict liability actual change practices? How many people actually know that there is a CERCLA defense? These questions are all necessary parts of shaping our national environmental policy toward more responsible business practices and reasonable liability attachments.

A Better Tomorrow

Whether you believe that the actions of humans on this planet are causing the ice to melt and the seas to rise or not, we probably mostly agree that it would be nice to treat the space in which we live with some respect. It is likely that we all agree that it would be better to use fuels that are renewable to provide us electricity. It would be better to capture chemicals before they contaminate our air and groundwater supplies. It would be better to reduce air pollution so that our citizenry can live longer, more productive lives.
Do not think that you are powerless to do something about creating a better environment in which to live. Every gallon of fuel that you do not use is a step toward a cleaner environment. Every time you reuse a plastic bag or toss a plastic bottle into the recycling bin instead of the garbage is a step toward a cleaner environment. When you use rechargeable batteries instead of disposable batteries, you are headed to a cleaner tomorrow. If you are building a house and install photovoltaic cells to help provide your electricity you are helping to extend the lives of your grandchildren. One small step at a time taken by hundreds of thousands of individuals has a huge impact. So let’s all take one step today, and encourage others to do so. It will make us all a little happier.

Why Banks require a Phase I

Why do banks force borrowers to get a Phase I ESA? Although the bank may be thinking about the borrower’s potential liability under CERLCA, it’s really all about risk to the lender.

Although banks have been given a way out of CERCLA liability, they are not immune to the potential downfalls of an environmentally impaired site. True, if they follow through with the CERCLA requirements, the lender won’t be held liable for the actual clean up of the site, but once the site has entered the realm of regulatory oversight, there is little that can be done with the site until clean up has met human and ecological health risk criteria.

A lender is concerned about the very real potential that a defaulting borrower may skip town, leaving a contaminated site behind. These sites are financial drains. Though there are ways to dealing with this issue, many lenders want to avoid the possibility. One way to potentially avoid this – a Phase I ESA.

The Phase I will give the lender a historical view of the Property, and if done correctly will provide an analysis of the potential for historical and current uses of the Property (with a special focus on hazardous materials and wastes) to adversely impact the environmental quality of the Property. The lender can use such a report to determine their potential risk of taking the site back (i.e. just how likely is it that Company X is going to skip town leaving me with their site?) and combine that information with the potential that the use of the site may impact the environment (i.e. just how likely is it that Company X and the three prior occupants used hazardous materials?).

A real situation occurred recently where a lender was loaning on an office building. Without more the lender would have thought all was good to go (thinking that office meant “clean”). However, the Phase I revealed that historically the site was used to operate a dry cleaning facility. The lender chose to further investigate by having Ceres Associates collect soil and groundwater samples. In the end the loan was refused because the site was already contaminated. But for the Phase I, the lender would never have known the potential risk of loaning on the site.

The Phase I provides a critical piece of the lending puzzle, especially when it comes to risk potential associated with individual loans.

The New Environmental Due Diligence

The world of environmental due diligence has been put in a tizzy by the US EPA. At the end of 2005 the EPA finally put together their guidelines for what constitutes All Appropriate Inquiry (AAI, a term first coined in 1984 in the Superfund Amendment Reauthorization Act, SARA). So this is now the only guideline to use while conducting a Phase I that will allow the new owner of a property to avoid federal liability under CERCLA (Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act, 1980). So as a potential property owner this will affect you, and you should be aware of the AAI regulations, because it is unlikely that your bank will let you know. You see banks do not have much liability under CERCLA, so they are not really interested in the new regulations. What they are interested in is whether or not the property has environmental contamination that would lessen the real property value. These are separate issues entirely. Of course, AAI is a little more involved that other levels of environmental due diligence and will cost more. Talk to your local environmental consultant about what is right for you or you can email me at nickpatz@ceresassociates.com or phone me at 707 748-3170.

Composting in Napa

Recently our company has been introduced to composting and waste water odor problems in the Napa Valley. Grape growing necessitates waste organic material. How you get rid of that material can sometimes be a large concern to your winery neighbors. If you are outside on a nice sunny day overlooking the vineyards of the valley it should be a memorable experience. But if you are in that same situation and the prevalent odor in the air is of sewage then there are some concerns. Composting is a simple practice, and excessive odors have simple solutions. Wastewater issues are sometimes a bit more complex, but once the specific problem is found, the solutions are normally fairly simple to implement also. We have a client which is a very high end winery, and they have a neighbor who composts and has a waste water pond. The neighbor is not well versed in how they take care of their wastes, and the odors flowing into the tasting room and veranda of our client are significant, and so the issue also becomes economic because tastings and onsite sales decrease. So the problem then is not only solving the odor issue, but how to get a neighbor to implement odor control that does not effect his tasting room, because the prevailing wind is in the opposite direction. We are considering how to solve this problem now.

Reinventing Ourselves

Ceres Associates is going through an interesting time right now, we are in the process of reinventing ourselves. It is a sincere effort to reach out to our client base and provide them what they really need and what they really want. Instead of being that old-school environmental engineering firm, like most of our industry represents, we want to become the Virgin Airlines of our industry, a company that offers substance and fun. We can do most of this on our own, and we expect that it will take some time. If there is anyone with some great ideas on how we can be the company that clients want to hire, we would love to hear them.

Need Funding, try the OSCA

When a property owner finds out that a underground storage tank (UST) is located on their property, they usually have a mild reaction -- perhaps a cough. But when that same owner is then told that the UST leaked and may costs $100,000s to fix. . . well, they do more than just cough.

Though, in California, the UST Clean-up Fund does provide an incredible amount ($1.5 million) of financial assistance, if the site/owner doesn't meet the Fund's strict guidelines they are DENIED. Here's where the Orphan Site Clean-up Account (OSCA) comes to the rescue. The OSCA (a sub-part to the Fund) is designed to pay for assessment and remediation of sites impacted from petroleum-fuel USTs. The OSCA has the same $1.5 million limit as the Fund, but the strict permitting requirements are foregone.

The key to the OSCA is there can't be financially viable Responsible Parties (RPs) in the title history of the Property. Though it hasn't come to it, the OSCA does provide for priorities of assignment where the property lies within a set distance of sensitive sites, located in a HUD zone, or is a Brownsfield site. Payments from the OSCA are much quicker than the Fund, and all reasonable costs associated with work required by the local regulator are reimbursed (this includes the removal of the problem UST).

The great thing about this funding mechanism is that now property owners with leaking UST issues have financial support to get their sites to closure. The OSCA is a powerful tool for developers and property owners who are looking to redevelop former gas stations, Brownsfield sites, and other infill locations. Don’t shy away from that next property because the Phase I indicates the potential for a UST; do some additional due diligence and perhaps you may find a property that is truly a diamond in the rough.

Click here to apply.

We Need Some Good People

What is it about this industry that makes it so difficult to find good registered employees. Ceres Associates is poised to take on some substantial growth, but we do not want to take on the growth unless we have the right people to sustain that expansion. Not only that, any new employee would have to be fun to be around. Work hard and have fun that’s what we do. Maybe by putting out this simple blog, someone out there somewhere who fits the bill will say “hey, that’s the company for me,” and send a resume to nickpatz@ceresassociates.com. Professional Geologists and Engineers who want to work in the Los Angeles Area or the San Francisco Bay Area, we are looking for you.

Global Warming - A Thing of the Past

There are a lot of concerns with global warming these days. The concept of global warming gets very complex. Politics plays a role, and whenever that happens emotions often take over from knowledge and intelligence. I do not claim to be an expert in how and why climates change. My expertise is in reducing harmful chemicals in the air, soil, and water. In the United States alone two million tons of methane emissions are generated annually by our landfills. Of course, there are many other harmful chemicals being emitted from our landfills, but using methane alone, kind of ads a perspective to the problem. Methane, of course, is a significant green house gas designated by experts as being partially responsible for global warming. So there is a big problem with the way we manage our wastes in the United States. The problem is much worse on a global scale. But there are good and reasonable solutions.

One day landfills will be a thing of the past. There are several technologies that will combust debris, and reduce the amount of trash that needs to buried by 90 percent or greater. In the United States we use the oldest method of all and that is called mass burn. However, significant research is being conducted in this country, as well as in places were a lot of landfill space is not available. Emerging technologies include pyrolysis, gasification, and plasma arc to name a few. It is not too important to describe these in detail, but suffice it to say that these are not burning technologies they are transformational. They transform organic material into gas, and inorganic material to a molten glob, with a little bit of char remaining. The char and the inorganic materials can be reused. The gases are separated out. The bad gases are destroyed or filtered, the good gases are used to power boilers to create electricity.

Of course, these new technologies are relatively expensive. But as the concern for global warming becomes greater, and the technological world looks for ways to shield us from a warmer climate, reducing waste by greater than 90 percent and producing electricity from our waste seems to be a pretty good way to proceed. After all, in using these technologies we will not only significantly reduce greenhouse gases resulting from garbage, but we will produce electricity that currently takes non-renewable resources that are said to add to the problem of climate change. We can accomplish this all with garbage. Isn’t that something?