Eco Solution Group, LLC

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by:   Staff Writer, Eco Solution Group, LLC

As the earth’s population grows, access to clean water is becoming more the challenge. Nontraditional methods of accessing clean water are being considered such as turning [recycle] urban waste-water into drinkable water.  Another consideration that is proving quite successful in many parts of the world is ocean salt water desalination or reverse osmosis, as mentioned by others. This method of “creating” commonly used drinking water is complex, impressive and probably more importantly when done correctly is a legitimate alternative to pumping water from groundwater aquifers.  Nevertheless, desalination or desalinization is a process that removes minerals from saline water. More generally, desalination may also refer to the removal of salts and minerals, as in soil desalination, which also happens to be a major issue for agricultural production.

Salt water is desalinated to produce fresh water suitable for human consumption or irrigation. One potential by-product of desalination is salt. Desalination is used on many seagoing ships and submarines. Most of the modern interest in desalination is focused on developing cost-effective ways of providing fresh water for human use. Along with recycled wastewater, this is one of the few rainfall-independent water sources.

Due to relatively high energy consumption, the costs of desalinating sea water are generally higher than the alternatives (fresh water from rivers or groundwater, water recycling and water conservation), but alternatives are not always available and rapid overdraw and depletion of reserves is a critical problem worldwide.

According to Christopher Gasson of Global Water Intelligence, "At the moment, around 1% of the world's population is dependent on desalinated water to meet their daily needs, but by 2025, the United Nations expects 14% of the world's population to be encountering water scarcity. Unless people get radically better at water conservation, the desalination industry has a very strong future indeed."

Desalination is particularly relevant in dry countries such as Australia, which traditionally have relied on collecting rainfall behind dams to provide their drinking water supplies. According to the International Desalination Association, in June 2011, 15,988 desalination plants operated worldwide, producing 66.5 million cubic meters per day, providing water for 300 million people.  This number has been updated to 78.4 million cubic meters by 2013, or 57% greater than just 5 years prior.

The single largest desalination project is Ras Al-Khair in Saudi Arabia, which produced 1,025,000 cubic meters per day in 2014, although this plant in Saudi Arabia is expected to be surpassed by a desal plant in California. The largest percent of desalinated water used in any country is in Israel, which produces 40% of its domestic water use from seawater desalination.

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Lead NAAQS Review - Analyses and Data Sets

PSA prepared by:   Staff Writer, Eco Solution Group, LLC

The Clean Air Act requires EPA to set national air quality standards for particulate matter and five other pollutants considered harmful to public health and the environment (the other pollutants are ozone, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and lead). The law also requires EPA to periodically review the standards to ensure that they provide adequate health and environmental protection, and to update those standards as necessary. 

Contact:      Halil Cakir                    [email protected]                    [phone]

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LandFills

 by:   Staff Writer, Eco Solution Group, LLC

In the previous month’s blog, we explored what the incineration process of urban waste management.  This month we look further at modern landfill within the urban waste management.  As the final contribution to a two part series on urban waste disposal processing, we hope these blogs has broaden your understand of what happens to common waste products in an urbanize community.

Modern landfills are well-engineered facilities that are located, designed, operated, and monitored to ensure compliance with federal regulations. Solid waste landfills must be designed to protect the environment from contaminants which may be present in the solid waste stream. The “landfill siting plan,” which prevents the siting of landfills in environmentally-sensitive areas, along with “on-site environmental monitoring systems,” which monitors for any sign of groundwater contamination and for landfill gas, provides additional safeguards. Furthermore, many new landfills collect potentially harmful landfill gas emissions and convert the gas into useful energy.

Municipal Solid Waste Landfills (MSWLFs) receive household waste. MSWLFs can also receive non-hazardous sludge, industrial solid waste, and construction and demolition debris. All MSWLFs must comply with the federal regulations or equivalent state regulations. View our website’s Resource page for more information.  Federal MSWLF standards include:

 Location Restrictions:  Ensure that landfills are built in suitable geological areas away from faults, wetlands, flood plains, or other restricted areas.

Composite Liners Requirements:  Includes a flexible membrane (geomembrane) overlaying two feet of compacted clay soil lining the bottom and sides of the landfill, protect groundwater and the underlying soil from leachate releases.

Leachate Collection and Removal Systems:  Sit on top of the composite liner and removes leachate from the landfill for treatment and disposal.

Operating Practices:  Include compacting and covering waste frequently with several inches of soil help reduce odor; control litter, insects, and rodents; and protect public health.

Groundwater Monitoring Requirements:  Requires testing groundwater wells to determine whether waste materials have escaped from the landfill.

Closure and Post-closure Care Requirements: Include covering landfills and providing long-term care of closed landfills.

Corrective Action Provisions:  Control and clean up landfill releases and achieves groundwater protection standards.

Financial Assurance:  Provides funding for environmental protection during and after landfill closure (i.e., closure and post-closure care).

Some materials may be banned from disposal in municipal solid waste landfills including common household items such as paints, cleaners/chemicals, motor oil, batteries, and pesticides. Leftover portions of these products are called household hazardous waste. These products, if mishandled, can be dangerous to your health and the environment. Many municipal landfills have a household hazardous waste drop-off station for these materials.

MSWLFs can also receive household appliances (also known as white goods) that are no longer needed. Many of these appliances, such as refrigerators or window air conditioners, rely on ozone-depleting refrigerants and their substitutes. MSWLFs have to follow federal disposal procedures for household appliances that use refrigerants. EPA has general information on how refrigerants can damage the ozone layer and consumer information on the specifics of disposing of these appliances. r

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Waste Incineration

by:  Staff Writer, Eco Solution Group, LLC 

Have you ever wondered whatever happens to the all that waste that is generated and collected for disposal in your local communities and communities throughout the world.  In 2014, it is estimated that there are 318.9 million people living in the USA; and 7.125 billion people worldwide in 2013.  All those people creating/generating all that waist.  Their areas with public sanitation systems in place, where does it goes?  How is it managed?  Well in the next two blog postings, we will attempt to explain some of what happens when urban waist items is incinerated versus when it is placed in a land-fill.

Incineration is a waste treatment process that involves the combustion of organic substances contained in waste materials. Incineration and other high-temperature waste treatment systems are described as "thermal treatment". Incineration of waste materials converts the waste into ash, flue gas, and heat. The ash is mostly formed by the inorganic constituents of the waste, and may take the form of solid lumps or particulates carried by the flue gas. The flue gases must be cleaned of gaseous and particulate pollutants before they are dispersed into the atmosphere. In some cases, the heat generated by incineration can be used to generate electric power.

Incineration with energy recovery is one of several waste-to-energy (WtE) technologies such as gasification, pyrolysis and anaerobic digestion. While incineration and gasification technologies are similar in principle, the energy product from incineration is high-temperature heat whereas combustible gas is often the main energy product from gasification. Incineration and gasification may also be implemented without energy and materials recovery.

In several countries, there are still concerns from experts and local communities about the environmental impact of incinerators.

Arguments Against Incineration:

The Scottish Protection Agency's (SEPA), although there is no conclusive evidence of non-occupational health effects from incinerators were found in the existing literature, "small but important effects might be virtually impossible to detect".

The highly toxic fly ash must be safely disposed of.

The health effects of dioxin and furan emissions from old incinerators.

Incinerators emit varying levels of heavy metals such as vanadium, manganese, chromium, nickel, arsenic, mercury, lead, and cadmium, which can be toxic at very minute levels.

Incinerator Bottom Ash (IBA) has elevated levels of heavy metals with ecotoxicity concerns if not reused properly.

Erection of incinerators competes with the development and introduction of other emerging technologies.

Building and operating waste processing plants such as incinerators requires long contract periods to recover initial investment costs, causing a long term lock-in.

Incinerators produce fine particles in the furnace; even with modern particle filtering of the flue gases, a small part of these is emitted to the atmosphere.

Local communities often opposes the idea of locating waste processing plants, like incinerators in their vicinity.

Prevention, waste minimization, reuse and recycling of waste should all be preferred to incineration according to the waste hierarchy.

Incineration causes less CO2 reduction than other emerging EfW and CHP technology combinations for treating residual mixed waste.

Some incinerators are visually undesirable.

If reusable waste fractions are handled in waste processing plants such as incinerators in developing nations, it would cut out viable work for local economies.

The reduced levels of emissions from municipal waste incinerators and waste to energy plants from historical peaks are largely the product of the proficient use of emission control technology.

In some countries, incinerators built just a few decades ago often did not include a materials separation to remove hazardous, bulky or recyclable materials before combustion. These facilities tended to risk the health of the plant workers and the local environment due to inadequate levels of gas cleaning and combustion process control. Most of these facilities did not generate electricity.

Incinerators reduce the solid mass of the original waste by 80–85% and the volume (already compressed somewhat in garbage trucks) by 95–96%, depending on composition and degree of recovery of materials such as metals from the ash for recycling.  This means that while incineration does not completely replace land-filling, it significantly reduces the necessary volume for disposal. Garbage trucks often reduce the volume of waste in a built-in compressor before delivery to the incinerator. Alternatively, at landfills, the volume of the uncompressed garbage is reduced by approximately 70% by using a stationary steel compressor, though with a significant energy cost. In many countries, simpler waste compaction is a common practice for compaction at landfills.

Incineration has particularly strong benefits for the treatment of certain waste types in niche areas such as clinical wastes and certain hazardous wastes where pathogens and toxins can be destroyed by high temperatures. Examples include chemical multi-product plants with diverse toxic or very toxic wastewater streams, which cannot be routed to a conventional wastewater treatment plant.

Waste combustion is particularly popular in countries such as Japan where land is a rare resource. Denmark and Sweden have been leaders in using the energy generated from incineration for more than a century, in localized combined heat and power facilities supporting district heating schemes. In 2005, waste incineration produced 4.8% of the electricity consumption and 13.7% of the total domestic heat consumption in Denmark.  A number of other European countries rely heavily on incineration for handling municipal waste, in particular Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Germany and France. 

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The National Exposure Research Laboratory (NERL)

by:  Staff Writer, Eco Solution Group, LLC 

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's National Exposure Research Laboratory (NERL) is a national laboratory that conducts research and development to find improved methods, measurements, and models to assess and predict exposures of humans and ecosystems to pollutants and other conditions in air, water, soil, and food. It is one of three national laboratories that conduct research for EPA's Office of Research and Development.

To understand better, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or sometimes USEPA) is an agency of the U.S. federal government which was created for the purpose of protecting human health and the environment by writing and enforcing regulations based on laws passed by Congress.  The EPA was proposed by President Richard Nixon and began operations on the very day it was founded; December 2, 1970, after President Nixon signed an executive order. The order establishing the EPA was ratified by committee hearings in the House and Senate.  The agency is led by its Administrator, who is appointed by the president and approved by Congress. The current administrator is Gina McCarthy. The EPA is not a Cabinet department, but the administrator is normally given cabinet rank.

Headquarters in Washington, D.C., the EPA has regional offices for each of the agency's ten regions, and 27 laboratories. The agency conducts environmental assessment, research, and education. It has the responsibility of maintaining and enforcing national standards under a variety of environmental laws, in consultation with state, tribal, and local governments. It delegates some permitting, monitoring, and enforcement responsibility to U.S. states and the federally recognized tribes. EPA enforcement powers include fines, sanctions, and other measures. The agency also works with industries and all levels of government in a wide variety of voluntary pollution prevention programs and energy conservation efforts.

The agency has approximately 15,193 full-time employees and engages many more people on a contractual basis. More than half of EPA human resources are engineers, scientists, and environmental protection specialists; other groups include legal, public affairs, financial, and information technologists.

Therefore, the EPA’s National Exposure Research Laboratory (NERL) supports EPA’s mission to protect human health and the environment by developing and applying innovations in exposure science. Exposure science sets the context for understanding and solving real-world problems, and is used to help answer three fundamental questions:

Is there a risk?

If so, how to reduce/mitigate/prevent     the risk?

Has actions already taken     been successful in reducing risk?

 Headquartered in Research Triangle Park, N.C., NERL has an in-house workforce of more than 340 scientists, engineers and staff across six divisions in four locations: RTP, North Carolina; Cincinnati, Ohio; Athens, Georgia; and Las Vegas, Nevada.

NERL is internationally recognized as the leader in environmental exposure science. Their multidisciplinary expertise enables the laboratory to bring cutting-edge research and technology to the field of exposure science to address the Agency’s priority environmental problems.

Below are NERL’s scientific capability niches:

Analytical/Monitoring Methods Development: Research     conducted in either the laboratory or field that is used to develop,     refine or evaluate tools to quantify, measure, or sample stressors in the   environment or in receptors.

Indicators/Indices of Exposure: Research conducted to determine how to combine measurements, data and/or models in a way that     succinctly describes or characterizes the state or change of exposure.

Exposure/Dose Process Characterization: Research including field and laboratory studies and data analysis conducted to better understand and gain knowledge about fate and transport, exposure and dose in real world instances. This research is primarily hypothesis driven, and includes collection of data to elucidate the important processes in models, inputs to models, and data to evaluate models. This research is applied to both human and ecological systems.

Decision Support Tools: Research activities to assemble data, analytical and predictive tools and knowledge into a useable format for analysts and decision makers.

Predictive Modeling: Research to develop, evaluate, and apply first principle, statistical, or stochastic models. This includes models for environmental characterization, personal exposure and dose, and mechanistic elucidation but does not include source apportionment models.

Source Apportionment/Environmental Forensics: Research where source apportionment or environmental forensics tools are developed and applied in real world instances to identify important sources and pathways for exposure.

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The Ambassadors

by:  Staff Writer, Eco Solution Group, LLC

On Sunday, August 30, 2015 at 10:10 PM; the long awaited email arrived with the subject line that read: “Congratulations, ECO Solution Group, LLC, you’re a Weather-Ready Nation Ambassador!” These were welcomed words that went on to avow, “Welcome to the NOAA Weather-Ready Nation Ambassador™ initiative. Your organization has been accepted as a NOAA Weather-Ready Nation Ambassador.”  Putting it mildly, we are very excited to be name amongst those who are now our fellow National Ambassadors.

The Weather-Ready Nation Ambassador initiative is an effort to formally recognize NOAA partners who are improving the nation’s readiness against extreme weather, water, and climate events. As a Weather-Ready Nation Ambassador, Eco Solution Group, LLC is committed to working with NOAA and other Ambassadors to strengthen national resilience against extreme weather.

We are proud to partner with NOAA in his initiative to improve the nation’s readiness, responsiveness, and overall resilience against extreme weather, water, and climate events.  Also, we look forward to working with communities, businesses, and people to improve conditions that can be life-saving and prevent or limit devastating economic losses.

 About Weather-Ready Nation Ambassadors™

The Weather-Ready Nation Ambassador™ initiative is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) effort to formally recognize NOAA partners who are improving the nation’s readiness, responsiveness, and overall resilience against extreme weather, water, and climate events. As a WRN Ambassador, partners commit to working with NOAA and other Ambassadors to strengthen national resilience against extreme weather. In effect, the WRN Ambassador initiative helps unify the efforts across government, non-profits, academia, and private industry toward making the nation more ready, responsive, and resilient against extreme environmental hazards. Weather-Ready Nation (WRN) is a strategic outcome where society’s response should be equal to the risk from all extreme weather, water, and climate hazards.

The WRN Ambassador initiative is a:

Unifying effort;

Action-oriented;

Inclusive; and

Force multiplier (i.e., new partnerships lead to even more partnership opportunities).

WRN Ambassadors serve a pivotal role in affecting societal change — helping to build a nation that is ready, responsive, and resilient to the impacts of extreme weather and water events.

To be officially recognized as a WRN Ambassador, an organization must commit to:

Promoting Weather-Ready Nation messages and themes to their stakeholders;

Engaging with NOAA personnel on potential collaboration opportunities;

Sharing their success stories of preparedness and resiliency;

Serving as an example by educating employees on workplace preparedness

As a WRN Ambassador, you will serve as a change agent and leader in your community. You will inspire others to be better informed and prepared, helping to minimize or even avoid the impacts of these natural disasters.

To support your efforts, NOAA can:Provide outreach content about creating a Weather-Ready Nation;

Explore innovative approaches for collaboration with your organization;

Assist with StormReady®/TsunamiReady™ opportunities for communities;

Recognize your organization as a WRN Ambassador; and

Share the WRN Ambassador logo for your use.

Building a Weather-Ready Nation requires more than government alone. It requires the entire Weather Enterprise to provide information for better community, business, and personal decision making, and innovative partnerships across all segments of society. We must involve everyone in an effort to move people – and society – toward heeding warnings, taking action, and influencing their circles of family, friends, and social network to act appropriately.

The WRN Ambassador initiative is the connecting hub of a vast network of federal, state, and local government agencies; emergency managers and city planners; researchers, the media; the insurance industry; nonprofit organizations; the private sector; and many others who are working together to address the impacts of extreme weather on daily life.

Together we will inform and empower communities, businesses, and people to make pre-event decisions that can be life-saving and prevent or limit devastating economic losses. We are a nation of many communities, and it is only through connected communities that we will achieve this goal.

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Ecosystems Affecting You

by:  Staff Writer, Eco Solution Group, LLC 

In this month’s blog posting, we thought it was the perfect time to “kinda” break it down and define what the term “Ecosystems” and how it affects us all.  The objective of this post is to bring those who are on the outer fringes with regards to their lack of understanding the delicate balance of our Earth home environment; to heighten their knowledge of the importance of each of our responsibility towards maintaining the Earth’s ecosystem balance for generations to come.

An ecosystem is all the living organisms in an area, along with their environment. It is in fact a community of living organisms in conjunction with the nonliving components of their environment such as air, water, mineral soil and so much more; interacting as a system. Let’s take for example a river in which its surrounds includes birds, fish, bugs, algae and bacteria living in that river, as well as the rocks, sand, soil, and water in that river. These biotic (living organisms) and abiotic components (non-living chemical and physical parts of the environment that affect living organisms and the functioning of ecosystems) are regarded as linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows.  So therefore our ecosystem is defined by the network of interactions among organisms, and between organisms and their environment and keeping the system free of harmful materials that interrupts the cycle balance is what Eco Solution Group, LLC advocates and work for daily to maintain with help from many like you.

There are many groups like Eco Solution Group, LLC and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) who along with scientists look at both the ecosystem functions and ecosystem exposures. To elaborate further, ecosystem functions research is designed to better understand what ecosystems do, how useful they are, and how we can protect the valuable functions they perform, such as providing clean air and clean water.  On the other hand, ecosystem exposures research uses new technology to better determine the extent that ecosystems have been exposed to stress, such as pollution from chemicals and other contaminants. Together, these two types of ecosystems research provide the knowledge needed to better manage and protect our nation's ecosystems.

To learn more about Eco Solution Group, LLC and the work we do in our local community, visit us at www.ecosolutiongroup.com. 

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Help Improve the TRI Website and Comment by July 31

Climate change is expected to cause changes in temperature, precipitation and extreme weather events such as floods. All of these changes can affect air quality indoors and out, leading toincreased risk of asthma from triggers such as mold, pollen and ozone, and disproportionately impact lower income families.

Learn more about what you can do to protect your indoor air quality and your health here or type in your web address line: http://go.usa.gov/3f3a3

Reduce asthma triggers in your home. Learn how to limit them here  or type in your web address line: http://go.usa.gov/3fx9m 

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Join EPA for a Green Infrastructure Webinar on July 28

EPA is hosting a webinar on July 28, 2-4 p.m. EDTthat will focus on the use of green infrastructure for revitalizing contaminated lands. Site-specific projects will be used to discuss how green infrastructure has conserved habitat, managed stormwater, and increased recreational opportunities and quality-of-life for communities near contaminated land. The webinar will also share opportunities for future projects seeking to return contaminated lands to productive and beneficial use. Register for the webinar here or type in your web address line:  http://bit.ly/1LSahqv

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EPA Advises Facility Operators to Minimize Releases during Hazardous Weather Events

Contact: Dawn Harris Young, [phone] (Direct), [phone] (Main), [email protected] 

ATLANTA – As hurricane season approaches, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is issuing a Hazardous Weather Release Prevention and Reporting alert to remind facility operators of certain regulations that require minimization of chemical releases during process shutdown operations.  This alert is designed to increase awareness among facility operators about their obligation to operate facilities safely and report chemical releases in a timely manner.  The alert specifies operational release minimization requirements and clarifies reporting requirements, including exemptions.  Unlike some natural disasters, the onset of a hurricane is predictable and allows for early preparations to lessen its effect on a facility.  Before hurricane force winds and associated storm surge flooding damage industrial processes, the alert recommends that operators take preventive action by safely shutting down processes, or otherwise operate safely under emergency procedures.  The alert and requirements are available at http://www.epa.gov/region4/r4_hurricanereleases.html. In the event of a hazardous weather incident, please visit http://www.epa.gov/naturalevents/ for updated emergency information. Connect with EPA Region 4 on Facebook: www.facebook.com/eparegion4 And on Twitter: @EPASoutheast

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Florida’s Hazardous Waste Regulation

Posted by:  Staff Writer

On February 12, 1985, Florida received authorization from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to administer its own hazardous waste management and regulatory program under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) of 1976. Florida received final authorization on November 17, 2000 to implement the Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments of 1984 (HSWA). The most important feature of authorization is the State's agreement to issue permits that conform to the regulatory requirements of the law, to inspect and monitor activities subject to regulation, to take appropriate enforcement action against violators and to do so in a manner no less stringent than the Federal program.

The Hazardous Waste Regulation Section (HWRS) is responsible for implementing the hazardous waste regulatory portion of RCRA. It reviews and issues permits and coordinates compliance monitoring and enforcement activities at hazardous waste generators, transporters and Treatment, Storage and Disposal (TSD) facilities with the regulatory District offices.

Resource:

Florida Hazardous Waste Regulation

Florida Water Environment Association

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We Have a New Website

Posted by:  Staff Writer

The day has finally arrived.  Eco Solution Group, LLC has launched its new website today and we cannot be more happy.  Thanks to the efforts of “pcHELP 365,” the IT Consulting firm we retained to put it all together for us, we have joined the cyber world to communicate and market our services.  To contact  pcHELP 365, call them at 877-218-7260 or visit them at pchelp365.com.

As we set out on our new venture, we are most excited to hear from you,  just so we know that we are reaching others.  To express your well-wishes or to request an appointment to meet with one of our seasoned experts, please visit our Contact Page and complete the on-line form.  There is no job too small or large we cannot handle.  We look forward to hearing back from you.

Eco Solution Group is a completely independent Woman, US Veteran, Minority owned firm.  The earth is our home and we as citizens and stewards of the earth need to take care of it.  Eco Solution Group, along with many others, want to give a local focus and have its services retained to remedy these concerns.