Answer

Environmental Management

Landfills will have an impact in the area where they are built. There will be increased traffic, odors, noise, and changes to the landscape as the landfill grows in size. There is never a perfect location where some level of compromise will not be required. As you are the city engineer tasked to choose between two options, give your rational for your selecting either option A or B below:
a. Located on the edge of a national park that is visited by people seeking to enjoy the beauty and wilderness of this country. You anticipate complaints from bureaus within the federal and state governments, from the tourist board, and from local interest groups.
b. You can locate the landfill closer the neighborhoods of the municipality where you can expect complaints from local citizens claiming loss of property value a quality of life, and from citizen suits threatening to file an environmental justice lawsuit.

1. There is a third option, but it raises the cost for managing municipal waste to a level that will make it difficult to attract industry that will be willing to pay these costs and to provide jobs and employment for the local citizens and to raise tax revenue needed to operate schools and local infrastructure.

As the city Engineer, the choice of location is wholly dependent of the benefits that will accrue to the city.  The third option makes much economic sense.  It ensures that all stakeholders are not given a reason to block the implementation of the municipal waste management.  However, for this benefit, the stakeholders will be expected to pay more for it.  It has been pointed that implementation of this option could make it difficult to attract industry willing to pay these costs; this does not mean impossible just that extra effort will be needed to attain the same success (Harison and Barkai, 2012). 

There is a risk that employment and jobs for local citizens’ requisite for local taxation needed to finance social services could fall.  This argument is premised on the assumption that industry would be up and leave or reduce their activities on account of the new waste management costs.  However, this argument is not supported in reality.  Industry is increasingly willing to pay more to support sustainable operations.  Additionally, the federal and state government bureaus, the tourism boards, local interest groups and the local citizens will have to pay more for the benefit of avoiding having a landfill in their neighborhood (Walker, 2008).

The loss in revenue from the increased challenge of attracting new industry could be covered by turning the national park into a premium park and charge an extra amount that will be channeled to benefit the local community surrounding the park.  Additionally, the local citizen will experience additional taxation with regards to waste disposal and management.  Finally, the municipality will change its target when seeking industry to invite to invest locally.  They will have to seek out industry that appreciate the benefit they bestow the host community that ensures operations are sustainable.

 In this scenario, you are the city engineer tasked with establishing the operational plan for the municipal landfill. Prepare a Table of Contents for the plan listing the operational areas to be covered and write two sentences for each area describing what the plan will require.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1: Site Roads

In all landfill operations, the road access is a critical component.  It must be budgeted and planned for appropriately.  Roads will allow uninhibited access to and from the tipping face all year round.  Moreover, the roads that allow access to landfill equipment must also be kept in motorable condition always.  Generally a landfill has to address for type of roads; entrance and approach, primary, secondary and tertiary roads (Harison and Barkai, 2012).

Chapter 2: The Use of Daily Cover

This is an activity that is central to proper and sustainable landfill management.  Daily the landfill needs to be covered with tarpaulins, an artificial material – this is done on alternate days, or soil.  The daily cover helps the landfill address litter, odor, surface water quality, birds and vermin problems (Walker, 2008).

Chapter 3: Bird Control

Common in all landfills are numerous numbers of birds who frequent it in search of food.  Human population world over view this birds as messy and noisy and carriers of disease pathogens in addition to being a local nuisance fouling roof and roof-water supplies.  When landfills are located near airports or airline flight paths, they pose a great threat to flying planes.  As with other animals, when a suitable food source and safe environment is available as is the case of the landfills, the birds population will naturally increase as is the case with most landfills (Walker, 2008).

Chapter 4: Wheel Cleaning

It is important that all vehicles leaving the landfill have their wheels cleaned to avoid carrying debris and mud back to public highways.  This is part of the conditions that must be met before a landfill is licensed and or permitted to operate.

Chapter 5: Litter Control

World over, landfill management has to overcome the challenge of litter which is both a nuisance and a potential pollutant of water sources.  These issues are a common complaint world over that landfill operators have to deal with.  Litter management is unique to each landfill.  It will depend on the factors unique to each landfill with the strategy adopted being as good as its implementation (Harison and Barkai, 2012).

Chapter 6: Vector Control

This will include birds, rats, foxes, rodents, feral cats, insects, dogs and other animals.  Birds have already been addressed earlier.  The remaining vectors can comfortably live multiply within a landfill posing a danger to the surrounding community, users and landfill operators.  Proper control – which is not very hard, will ensure that vectors are eliminated from a landfill.

Chapter 7: Managing the Working Face

This refers to the area when active activities take place in an active landfill site.  It is the place where new waste is deposited and by extension where compacting, leveling and application of the daily cover happens.  Care should be taken to manage vehicle movement within this confined area to avoid accidents.  When managed poorly, litter and debris blowing, inefficient use of airspace, traffic movement challenges, vector and aesthetic problems among other challenges become a reality (Walker, 2008).

Chapter 8: Waste Compaction

All landfills – especially sanitary landfills, must have their waste compacted regularly.  This is important since it helps the landfill maximize the available space in addition to the many benefits that accrue to effective compaction.  It is sure sign of a well managed operation.

Chapter 9: Landfill Fires

Of the many challenges that landfills have to be weary of, fire is the riskiest of them all.  Though common, serious fires are rare when a landfill is well managed.  In addition to being a source of danger to landfill staff and visitors, it can create major health, air quality and social acceptance problems in the surrounding community.

Chapter 10: Stormwater and Sediment Control

By design, landfills will invariably result in valley infill or mound.  This in turn results in surface water catchment making it critical that at design the landfill be developed capable to deal with storm water runoff.  Additionally, landfills will entail major earthworks – where soil is used to cover layers, or compacted clay to line the landfill, and sediment are a natural by-product. 

Chapter 11: Waste Control at Landfills

Not all waste is acceptable in a landfill.  Periodically, waste has to be profiled and its handling and disposal assessed.  Prohibited waste – mostly that which can be recycled or is hazardous, is separated from landfill waste and handled differently.  This is best handled at the design stage when conducting the risk assessment since it will determine the landfill gas composition and generation and leachate (Harison and Barkai, 2012).

Chapter 12: Leachate Control

This is a by-product of decomposition of organic material in the waste surface run-on from neighboring properties, liquids that are a part of the waste mass and precipitation.  As it forms and passes thorough the waste, it dissolves all manner of compounds.  Thus the leachate has the potential of contaminating the ground or surface water.

Chapter 13: Odour Control

Odors are natural where waste biodegrades.  They are as a result of landfill gas, load transport, leachate and tipping face.  At design it is important to consider how the operating management practices can be efficiently utilized in addition to embracing robust environmental management systems (Harison and Barkai, 2012).

Chapter 14: Landfill Gas Management

This is an unavoidable by-product of all organic waste landfills.  The landfill gas is as a result of anaerobic biological decomposition of the organic solid waste.  They will thus be made of Carbon dioxide, Methane and trace quantities of Sulphides, Mercaptans, Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs), Carbon Monoxide, Oxygen, Nitrogen, Water vapor among others (Walker, 2008).

Chapter 15: Guideline for Site Safety and Security

To ensure the safety of all stakeholders, landfills will be fenced off from surrounding property.  This will be supported by controlled access of the site in addition to robust supervision of all persons and activities on-site.
Sewdas et al.’s (2017) study employed, there are very little room for generalizing the study’s findings.