Location: Multiple facilities in Delaware
Brickhouse Environmental is responsible for conducting all aspects of the permit-required environmental monitoring and compliance reporting at all four of the Delaware Solid Waste Authority’s (DSWA’s) active and inactive landfills. This is an extensive compliance monitoring project that requires both well-coordinated teamwork and excellent client communication to meet the high standards of quality and completion deadlines mandated by DSWA’s permits. Our relationship with DSWA began in 1999, when we were awarded the 3-year environmental monitoring contract for the Southern and Central Solid
Waste Management Centers. We were subsequently awarded the environmental monitoring contract for the two northern landfills in 2010 and have consistently been awarded all subsequent contracts for all four landfills.
These projects include the gauging, purging, sampling and laboratory analysis of over 150 groundwater monitoring wells. Sampling also includes primary leachate collection sampling, secondary detection system sampling, surface water, soil, and alternative daily cover sampling and analysis. All of these sampling and analytical tasks are conducted in accordance with strict quality assurance and quality control procedures and meticulous field and office documentation to provide DSWA with reproducible and legally defensible monitoring data that can be used to reliably assess the facilities’ ability to manage the state’s municipal waste without adverse impacts to water resources.
In addition to the logistical challenges of collecting and processing the raw data, a critical project objective is to evaluate and analyze temporal variations in the data, comparing any changes identified with both seasonal and operational changes that occur with time. Seasonal changes related to variations in precipitation are particularly important, as there are multiple unconsolidated aquifers beneath each landfill. Each has its own specific water-bearing characteristics, and each responds differently to varying recharge. Therefore, it is critical that changing head conditions between the aquifers are fully understood when assessing water quality trends.
Through our involvement with these monitoring projects, Brickhouse Environmental has also had the opportunity to assist DSWA with related environmental monitoring tasks including: Professional Geologist oversight of new monitoring well installation and replacement, monitoring well camera logging and condition assessment, monitoring plan development, and monitoring reduction/elimination.