IN OFFICE
ISSUE NO. 1
Topics and Trends for Municipal Leaders
Meeting minutes
Testing & Treatment - for PFAS
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A Success Story in the Other Public Health Crisis Extreme Engineering LaBella’s team is working with the Town of Lake Lure, NC, on a nearly 100 year old sub-aqueous sewer system that is out of compliance with state regulators. For more, see page 10.
Considering Solar Development for 3 Closed Municipal Landfills Strategizing for Stimulus: Get Shovel-Ready
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GIS in Emergency Management Response and Beyond
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Zoom for One More? Online Public Engagement Strategies
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Issue No. 5
“PUBLIC OFFICE IS A PUBLIC TRUST.”
WELCOME TO IN OFFICE At LaBella, one of our four core values focuses on the idea of stewardship of resources. It’s a philosophy of our firm, and we know it’s shared by the many public officials who trust our firm with their community’s assets. The responsibilities of the office you hold require stewardship of the public’s finances, safety, education, and infrastructure. The office requires difficult decisions, public scrutiny, and unimaginable foresight. Whether elected or appointed, public officials are the trustees of our communities. Nonetheless, the office you hold is only daunting if you’re in it alone. In Office is our commitment to be your partner in stewardship. Bringing LaBella’s team of experts into your office, this semi-annual publication will present our experience, our expertise, and our forecasting on the topics and trends that affect municipal projects. We have included many articles in this issue specifically related to the current COVID situation, which is rapidly evolving. Don’t hesitate to reach out for the latest information we have on any COVIDimpacted topics. Contact us any time at inoffice@ labellapc.com.
LaBella’s Enhanced Quality Program Set to Roll Out in June We know that our clients rely on us for quality, consistent, and timely project deliverables. LaBella has always had a culture of service and accountability - when we make mistakes, we’re quick to own them and correct them. No firm is perfect, but consistent quality is essential to who we are. Our firm has spent the last several months re-writing our quality program. We sought to make it more robust, without sacrificing the timeliness of deliverables. We provide a lot of different services, so we have developed a process that is broad in scope, and specific where it needs to be. We call the program Quality GPS (Guiding Project Success) and, like a GPS navigation system, it defines the LaBella way. It includes not only the final product, but the process you experience getting there. In the remote work environment, clearly defined roles and responsibilities, checks and balances, and technical reviews have never been more important. Our teams are training on these new processes, and have responded to working from home with intelligence and adaptability. We know we can’t just tell you about our new quality program. Its effects have to be experienced. We welcome your feedback about the LaBella service you receive during COVID-19 and after. Contact Client Experience Manager Brittany McFee anytime at bmcfee@labellapc.com, or our leadership team.
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Issue No. 5
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With tax credits and aggressive State goals, closed landfills can be opportunities for large scale farms largely out of sight.
Renewables
One Man’s Trash is Another Man’s Solar Development Is your local landfill a potential site for solar development? The thought of a landfill occupying valuable land in your community is less than thrilling, but could these eye sores serve a greater purpose? Most municipal landfills are deemed “at capacity” when they reach their allowable vertical height. Once at capacity, the landfill is capped to form a barrier between the waste materials and the surface, shielding humans, wildlife, and the environment from possible harmful effects. At this point, the landfill sits unusable during its 30-year post-closure period required by regulations. However, using the closed landfill as a solar farm is one potential viable, post-closure option. Not all landfills are created equal, and different challenges can arise for each project; this is especially true for solar landfill projects. Building solar farms on closed landfills can be considered large-scale projects and require extensive review from stakeholders. In some instances, local policies get in the way of building solar farms on landfills. Such policies include codes and permits, as well as zoning
ordinances. Occasionally, local government needs to develop policies including provisions for handling property taxes for the solar farms before they can even consider construction of the solar farms. This type of policy development can take years. In recent years, however, solar on landfills has been a popular topic amongst many communities. At LaBella, we believe that solar panels are certainly something that should be considered as part of an overall post-closure and master plan of your facility. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), there are about 10,000 old municipal landfills across the United States, many of which are candidate sites for solar energy farms. Our team is prepared to help you evaluate such a project. Some items you may want to consider include the following: •
Siting a solar farm on a landfill can eliminate one hurdle to developing solar farms. Landfills provide a large space for utility-grid solar farms that is largely out of sight.
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Many landfills are in close proximity to power lines and roads. Therefore, there is a potential means for economically interconnecting solar power to the utility grid.
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Leasing of landfill space has been found to be attractive to both landfill owners and solar project developers. Landfill square footage is typically offered at a lower cost than green field properties, which makes large scale projects more economically feasible for the developer. Simultaneously, leasing the property provides the landfill owner with a source of revenue to perform postclosure care activities.
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Developing landfills for solar energy generation makes unusable land more useful at a location that has historically been accepted by local residents as an environmentally sensitive location.
LaBella’s Waste & Recycling team has decades of experience in landfill management, closure, and post-closure monitoring. We’re excited about the opportunity to combine our renewable energy engineering and landfill experience on projects that put these sites to use for their communities.
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Issue No. 5
Water and wastewater, bridge and highway, and community health are a few project types that currently have bipartisan support.
Funding
Preparing for Anticipated CARES Act Phase 4 Infrastructure Stimulus Funding Over the past several months the U.S. Congress and White House have passed several Coronavirus Relief Act (CARES) stimulus funding bills to address the financial hardships faced by individuals, businesses, and institutions as a result of the economic impacts of the COVID-19 virus pandemic. While these bills addressed serious short-term needs, Congress and the White House have also been discussing the need to provide infrastructure funding under a fourth CARES Act bill to stimulate long-term economic recovery and support job creation.
if and when the infrastructure funding is announced. The recent rapid depletion of funds from the CARES Act phase three small business funding illustrates the need to be prepared.
Currently there is debate in Washington on what to include in the phase four response package, whether it is needed, and the timing of when funds should be made available. While this debate continues with lawmakers, it provides time for communities to be prepared
While there is debate on what to include in the infrastructure funding, the potential funding categories that both sides of Congress currently support are: •
Clean drinking water and wastewater programs
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Highways, including improvements to roads & bridges
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Broadband expansion in rural, suburban, and urban areas
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Community health centers
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Energy infrastructure
Other areas that may be considered include brownfield funding and public safety funding.
Our grant writers will draw on ample experience helping clients with past stimulus funding programs including the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. LaBella assisted clients with identifying potential competitive projects, preparing grant applications, and administering the funded projects. The most important lesson learned from the 2009 ARRA funding program that may be relevant for anticipated CARES Act infrastructure funding is that “shovel-ready” projects were given preference so the job creation and economic impacts would be felt sooner. Shovel-ready refers to projects that are designed, have permits/approvals, and just need funding to proceed. ARRA funding fell into these shovel-ready categories: •
Eligible projects not funded through previous grant programs – if a project was submitted for grant funding, but not funded (state or federal funding) those projects were revived as they had design and engineering, environmental
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reviews, income surveys, and other supporting documentation already done. •
Projects that had design plans, environmental reviews, and other permits completed
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Maintenance projects (i.e. road repaving) that eliminated many of the environmental review requirements.
ARRA funding was administered through state agencies primarily but also federal agencies like the United States Department of Agriculture. Now is the time for municipalities and other organizations to identify shovel-ready projects for when funding is available. Similarly, if projects were placed on hold prior to plans or environmental reviews being completed, this may be a good time to complete those tasks. LaBella’s multi-disciplinary team can assist clients with identifying shovel-ready projects and complete design and environmental requirements. LaBella will continue to monitor these programs and provide updates as the programs become more defined. Please feel free to contact us at any time for a preliminary discussion on how we can assist you with potential stimulus projects.
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LaBella News
LaBella Opens New Office in Rock Hill, South Carolina! LaBella proudly announces that we have leased a new office space in downtown Rock Hill, South Carolina. LaBella has been serving clients in South Carolina for over 20 years and currently has an existing office location in North Charleston. “We look forward to strengthening our partnerships in South Carolina and growing our presence within the state,” Southeast Regional Vice President Keith Garbrick said. “This second location will help us provide responsive service to our existing clients nearby, but also help us continue to grow our services in the surrounding Mid-Carolina and Upstate regions.” The Rock Hill office will focus on providing solid waste, water and wastewater, and stormwater engineering services to local and state government and private clients. The firm will continue to grow geographically in South Carolina as well as expanding their service offerings including architecture and engineering for facilities and buildings, PFAS treatment and remediation, and environmental services. Earlier this year we opened a new office in Opelika, Alabama!
Our new office is at: 331 E. Main Street, Suite 200 Rock Hill, SC 29730
Now is the time for municipalities and other organizations to identify shovel-ready projects for when funding is available. If projects were placed on hold prior to plans or environmental reviews being completed, this may be a good time to complete those tasks.
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In Office LaBella Associates |
Issue No. 5
Feature
How a NY Town Rid its Drinking Water of Forever Chemicals in Four Months LaBella’s Aztech Environmental team designed, procured, and installed a PFAS treatment system quickly and cost-effectively. Perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) is a group of over 4,700 compounds used in the manufacturing of non-stick and waterproof coatings, personal products, and fire suppression foams commonly found in airports or air force bases. These long molecular chain fluoride and carbon chemicals are resilient and exposure has been linked to many health risks. Federal oversight with clearly defined “safe” and “unsafe” thresholds has been absent, leading many states to set their own standards. For local government officials and decision makers, recent media coverage of the issue has created a need for some high school chemistry: parts per trillion,
compounds, molecular chains, AD-sorption and AB-sorption are all commonly used terms. As films like Dark Waters or Erin Brockovich remind us, no one wants to get this stuff wrong. Unfortunately, PFAS chemicals – also known as “forever chemicals”–are still considered an “emerging contaminant.” That means regulatory consensus remains elusive. While many means and methods for treatment are being discussed, it’s hard to know what’s proven to work. Because of these factors, our recent experience with the Town of New Windsor, NY is of interest to many grappling with this issue. Our team designed, procured, and installed a PFAS
PFAS chemicals are still considered an “emerging contaminant”. Cities and Towns located near potential PFAS sources should be testing for contamination regularly and proactively.
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treatment system for the Town of New Windsor in only four months. The Town of New Windsor utilizes three ground water wells for water supply (the largest yielding wells in the State of NY). The well water is treated by a 2-year-old water filtration plant called Butterhill Wells, which was averaging 3 million gallons/day to service 27,000 customers. In May 2019, the water tested positive for PFAS, and soon thereafter, the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) stepped in and the Town was forced to turn to an alternate water supply, the Catskill Aqueduct. Officials quickly realized they were on the clock when it came to solutions for the Butterhill plant. A planned maintenance closure of the Catskill Aquifer was scheduled for November 2019, and the aquifer had just become the Town’s primary water source. LaBella’s Aztech Environmental team was retained by the NYSDEC to develop an effective solution to the contamination. Our team turned to one of the most reliable treatment technologies available: carbon. Granular Activated Carbon, or GAC, has long been used in water treatment because of its ability to adsorb (bind to the outside of the carbon, not be absorbed by it) most chemical compounds, while allowing clean water to pass through. In New Windsor,
our system consisted of 10-foot diameter, 20,000-pound carbon units, which allowed Butterhill to produce 1,500 treated gallons per minute, for 2.16 million gallons/day (the balance of the supply was provided by smaller, uncontaminated supply wells). Following site mobilization, construction, testing, and backwashing, the GAC treatment system was brought online in November 2019. In December, we added a tensioned fabric building, propane tanks, and heaters to keep the system operational throughout the winter months. All in, the Butterhill Treatment Plant was back online, producing water with undetectable PFAS contamination in only four months. Given the need for an emergency treatment facility, our team turned to carbon, which is readily available and easy to procure. Other methods of treatment include using Ion Exchange Resin, which offers some advantages and tradeoffs. Whereas carbon will adsorb most organics, Ion exchange can be tailored to adsorb only certain compounds. This tailoring of treatment can extend the life of the treatment system and reduce media change outs. Resin vessels can also have a smaller footprint due to the lower residence time than carbon. Resin is, however, more costly than carbon and some resins cannot be regenerated and will require thermal destruction. Every water
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stream has its own constraints and all of the factors, including budget, need to be taken into account when choosing a treatment method and designing the plant. Regardless of whether a carbon or resin treatment is selected, it is possible to treat your PFAScontaminated water supply at the plant with a system like Butterhill’s. LaBella’s Aztech Environmental group was able to design, build, and test that system utilizing our in-house services. In other instances, Aztech has collaborated with town consultants and engineers to design and construct treatment systems. Available funding may depend on the source of contamination; in New Windsor, contamination culpability questions continue while the State of New York currently funds the project. Cost recovery will commence after the responsible party is determined. Cities and Towns located near potential PFAS sources should be testing for contamination regularly and proactively. Depending on your treatment plant and contamination levels, some cities and towns may elect to seek uncontaminated water sources elsewhere. However, cost-effective treatment is possible, and will likely become more refined with each community that tackles this challenge.
This article was featured in the April issue of American City & County Magazine. For more technical content, look for articles about our PFAS treatment system in upcoming issues of Water & Wastes Digest, Treatment Plant Operator, and WaterWorld.
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Issue No. 5
Technology
Mapping Your Municipality: Get Lasting Leverage of GIS Data How to make GIS (geographic information systems) implementations sustainable using a “Project Delivery Model”. Over the past year, LaBella’s Data Intelligence Group (DIG) has assisted our clients in developing innovative technology and improving the utilization of their data. One of our specialties is helping our municipal sector clients with GIS. As we know, there are many applications of GIS in a municipal setting. Just a few examples of these uses are:
Field Data Collection: GIS, in conjunction with mobile technology, can be used to easily capture assets in the field. This can be done using high accuracy GPS/GNSS receivers, for utility data such as storm sewers, but it could also be photographs of code violations, notable trees, or other landmarks – just about anything of interest in the community that is spatial! (Hint: just about everything in our world has a geographic or spatial component!)
Environmental Assessments: Use GIS to assess the environmental health of your municipality. There are many datasets available to the public that map factors such as wetlands, floodplains, water bodies, sensitive habitats, and more. This data can be combined with your own data (field or desktop created) to produce a picture of your community’s environmental status.
Land-Use Management: Use existing datasets such as National Land Cover data (NLCD), in combination with real-property data collected from assessors to derive a picture of land-use patterns in your municipality. You can also use this GIS data to develop “what-if” scenarios to model future land use and zoning changes.
LaBella is creating a GIS-based comprehensive stormwater map for the Town of Cramerton (Gaston County, North Carolina), that catalogs and displays the Town’s storm sewer system, including locations of outfalls, manholes, drainage inlets, boundaries of storm sewersheds, and location of receiving waters.
Asset Management: Being a spatial platform, GIS is ideal to map the location of your municipal assets, such as hydrants, manholes, light poles, sewer and water lines, etc. The attributes behind a GIS dataset also allow us to track more than just the location of the asset, but additional features such as year installed, condition, depreciation information, etc.. Software such as ArcGIS can be easily linked and integrated into other asset management tools, such as CityWorks for example, as well as financial and accounting software, provided each asset feature can be uniquely identified throughout the system databases.
Emergency Planning and Response: This application for GIS is very timely, given the current COVID-19 global pandemic. GIS
has been used globally to map and track COVID-19 cases. One such example is the Esri ArcGIS Online COVID-19 dashboard (the Johns Hopkins map so many of us have seen). These tools are being used on a local level as well. Counties across the United States have taken advantage of these “out of the box” dashboard tools to map cases in their own community. In addition, GIS is also being used to track resources and emergency responses. Examples include tracking hospital capacity, mapping closed facilities, locations of testing centers, and more. Emergency response GIS is not limited to pandemics, but is also often used in response to natural disasters. Some examples of how GIS is used in this case include mapping power outage areas, road closures, supply distribution centers, etc. In one specific example, in 2012, after Hurricane Sandy, communities
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in NY & NJ very effectively used a combination of GIS field data collection apps and social media to quickly catalog locations of damage (i.e. tweeting photos of damage, with the phones location services turned on) All of these applications for GIS require resources. First and foremost on this list of requirements are software, followed by data, and, for online solutions, hosting capacity. While all of the above uses for GIS can be very beneficial to a municipality, it can be difficult to get started, Many AEC Firms (Architecture, Engineering, and Construction) will share data with municipal clients during a project using its own ArcGIS Online infrastructure. But where does that go after the project is complete? In this model, it’s
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difficult to build a sustainable GIS. Online sites may get shut down once the specific task order is complete, without the municipality having its own online capabilities. To address these situations and provide a framework for better building these projects into long lasting, sustainable GIS implementations, Esri’s AEC team has introduced the “Project Delivery Model”. This approach allows a firm to work with their client to produce online content during an active project, but then provides the option for the municipality to continue to use the resource after the project ends by acquiring the ArcGIS Online accounts and credits needed to continue updating the map.
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Did you know?
The Origins of GIS are Rooted in Public Health With most of the world focused on COVID-19, we’re seeing GIS tools being used to measure and analyze this pandemic. From tracking cases, supplies, and the extent that people are staying home, GIS tools are essential to our modern response. What many don’t realize is that one of the first applications of GIS was also related to a public health crisis. In the mid 19th century cholera outbreaks were terrifying, deadly, and not well understood. The prevailing scientific theory at the time was that “miasma”, or “bad air” caused the spread. There was no established science about germs, microscopic particles, or water-borne disease. Dr. John Snow, an English physician, would have a scientific breakthrough
The Johns Hopkins COVID map. and physician John Snow (inset)
when he turned to a map of London to analyze an outbreak impacting London’s Soho neighborhood in August 1854. When he did, he noticed that most of the deaths were clustered around a water pump on Broad Street. To further pinpoint the Broad Street well (as opposed to the air around the well), he studied a prominent brewery in close proximity to the well. This brewery had its own source of water. Like many people would, its employees were choosing
beer over water for their choice of beverage! Snow found no cholera cases among brewery staff, and his theory was solidified. Snow presented this information to the City, and convinced them to close the Broad Street well. The outbreak subsided soon afterwards. Beyond stopping the Soho outbreak, Snow’s spatial analysis also contributed to the emerging field of epidemiology, and encourage a spatial focus on tracking the spread of disease.
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Issue No. 5
Lasting GIS Leverage, continued from page 9 The benefits of working with this approach are several: Project management. We can work with you more efficiently throughout the project life cycle by providing an online mapping tool to provide updates, and even collaboratively manage and edit data. Providing a data source of record. This online spatial data repository provides a single location for project data that can easy be seen and managed by both the vendor and the client. This improves efficiency by reducing the need to continually transfer files and improves accuracy by reducing the risk of looking at out-of-date data. Scalability. ArcGIS Online and the AEC Project Delivery Model are a great way to build upon the work of a single mapping project. Esri’s ArcGIS Online platform works
very well for small to modestly sized implementations, but also can be scaled to larger solutions by using their vast collection of Online Apps, ArcGIS Enterprise, etc. Ownership. The AEC Project Delivery model allows the municipality to acquire ownership of the creator license, and credits needed to continue with the online mapping site. This empowers the municipality to continue to move forward, even when there may not be budget to continue to engage outside assistance. If you’re interested in learning more about using this new Esri Project Delivery approach to build/grow your GIS presence, contact us today!
Project Profile
Lake Lure’s Wastewater Treatment Plant and Sub-aqueous Sanitary Sewer LaBella’s engineers are working with the Town of Lake Lure to tackle an engineering challenge nearly 100 years in the making: the 14 miles of sanitary sewer pipe that run 90 feet under the man-made lake.
LaBella’s team is evaluating short, mid, and permanent solutions for the Town of Lake Lure, working with six state agencies on permitting and compliance.
The Town’s current wastewater treatment plant will also need to be addressed, as it, along with the piping system, are no longer able to meet requirements from the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality.
The Town has undertaken some risk mitigation measures to protect the Lake in the event of a sudden failure, but LaBella is working quickly and thoroughly to help chart a path towards a comprehensive solution. Upwards of 11 engineering approaches are being considered with order-ofmagnitude costs, benefits, and liabilities. Short and mid term solutions will seek to address the current lack of compliance with regulators while enabling the Town to obtain financing. Stay tuned for more on this unique project!
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Issue No. 5
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Technology
Zoom for One More? Safely Broadcasting Your Next Public Information Meeting As the public adjusted to video calls and web meetings, so too did hackers. As you may have seen in the news, many organizations have suffered from “zoom bombs”, where their public or private forums have been hijacked by spammers. Just like public buildings, online spaces must be open to the public, but protected from vandalism or other criminal activity.
The key to a successful online public meeting is teamwork: a host to manage the technology, and a presenter to handle the content.
Just like public buildings, online spaces must be open and accessible to the public, but protected from vandalism or other criminal activity.
There are many different strategies that can be employed to prevent malicious activity in your online outreach. For meeting platforms like Zoom, utilize builtin features like Waiting Rooms. Advertise your public meeting as you normally would, but require pre-registration (name, email address and/or physical address) in order to be provided the link to the meeting. Then, monitor the waiting room and only allow pre-registered attendees into the actual meeting. It helps to have a dedicated meeting host that is separate from the presenter. You can also configure your Zoom meeting to ensure that only the host can share screens (preventing profane imagery from a participant) and you can lock the meeting to others once all necessary participants have joined. Additionally, the host can eject a meeting participant and they won’t be able to rejoin the meeting without the host’s permission. You can see that the host has a lot of responsibilities - that’s why it’s so important to have a colleague in the role if you are presenting.
Apart from Zoom, there are some effective public engagement tools built into social media sites like Facebook and YouTube that offer secure, out of the box solutions for public meetings. You can use a Facebook page or YouTube channel to post prerecorded technical presentations, and use standard comments, likes and shares for public engagement. Remember to monitor the comments section and post responses to comments and questions. These platforms have built in Spam management and one-click options for reporting abuse. Pre-recorded videos allow you to publish your best, most final version of a public presentation without worrying about live participants or technology hiccups. They should be posted with closed captioning and a published transcript to make sure the content is accessible to citizens with disabilities. If you have an enthusiastic social media team, Facebook Live and YouTube Live are great options for additional public dialogue. There are no limits to the number of people who can view your broadcast, and audience members can comment in real time, which makes for a very dynamic Q&A option. All live sessions can be recorded and viewed indefinitely after the live session is over.
PFAS Treatment Success When municipal drinking water tests positive for PFAS contamination, leaders need answers quickly. LaBella’s team has worked with several municipalities to treat the problem. See story on page 6.
LEARN MORE: visit our website for more information
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