Want to have great stories about your work? Being a landfill engineer will provide all you need.
Adam Jochelson, P. E.
One of the best parts of being a Landfill Engineer is when I get to take my work home with me. Now, I know what you’re thinking: He must be crazy—having to take work home really stinks. How could that be one of the best parts of a job?
But I’m not talking about working overtime, though that does occasionally happen. What I really mean is that being a Landfill Engineer has equipped me with an unrivalled repertoire of interesting work stories—tales so fascinating that friends and family have regularly accepted invitations to visit me at work, even when they were on vacation.
The biggest draw is usually the collection of heavy equipment, especially amongst my male friends. Boys will never outgrow their Tonka® toys, I guess. And landfills will often have almost every type of big iron you can imagine, especially larger facilities like McCommas Bluff Landfill in Dallas, TX. There we had bulldozers, excavators, articulated dump trucks (ADTs), track and wheel loaders, scrapers, a soil compactor and, of course, landfill compactors—hulking behemoths with menacing-looking, big-as-you steel wheels that you won’t see anywhere but a waste disposal site.
Seriously, for sheer crushing capacity, you would have a hard time beating landfill compactors. Crushing stuff is their job after all, and they do it well. Turns out, watching them work, or better yet operating one yourself can be pretty fun. Now, sometimes it’s hard to get a feel for the size of an object in a photograph. For the landfill compactor, each wheel is as tall I am—that’s 6’ 1”.
Even More Unusual Stories
Most people don’t realize that almost all landfills have a lot of wide-open spaces. This is partly because they’re typically sited as far away from the center of a city as is feasible. But it’s also because design standards require a significant buffer zone between the actual operations of a landfill and any neighboring properties. Beyond that, many landfills choose to have buffer zones much larger than stipulated by law because it helps us to have happy neighbors.
Of course, being far from the neighbors can be advantageous to other parties hoping to avoid unnecessary attention. One of McCommas Bluff’s more notorious nearby neighbors is a minimum-security county jail. It was rare, but we did have the occasional law-enforcement team staking out the facility to catch an escaped prisoner trying to hightail it across the site. They never got far.
Then, there was the time the FBI showed up. They were looking for an out-of-the way place to conduct a week long blast incident investigation class. This was a hands-on training event that included Holmes-like examination of the aftermath of actual explosions to piece together what had happened. We were invited to participate in the detonations, and though I didn’t get to push the button, my landfill manager did. The series of pictures below shows the largest blast, demonstrating what four hundred pounds of ammonium nitrate can do to a school bus.
Trust me, this was by far the largest explosion I have ever experienced. We observed from a perch nearly half a mile away, but still my heart “felt the thump” a few seconds afterwards, momentarily sucking the breath out of me. And despite the news reports on TV and radio intended to keep the calm in our South Dallas neighborhood, nervous phone calls poured into 9-1-1 almost immediately.
A Hidden Gem: An Unexpected Wildlife Sanctuary
Considering that waste disposal operations are permitted on 965 of McCommas Bluff’s 2,048 acres, that means more than 1,000 acres of the site are not landfill. This is not too uncommon at landfills, and since landfills are typically far afield from population centers, the non-landfill areas have the tendency to look a lot like wildlife sanctuaries. This is especially true in Dallas, where the buffer zone extends to the edge of the Trinity River. The expanse includes areas covered in bottomland hardwoods and hundreds of acres of wetland habitat that provide refuge to many species of migratory and non-migratory birds, as well as a menagerie of other land and riparian animals. So plentiful was the bird population that the local Audubon Society scheduled quarterly bird count events at our facility. The opportunity to observe the wildlife and commune with nature was one of the most enjoyable aspects of working at McCommas Bluff.
Being a nature-lover, I eventually became accustomed to always carrying a camera whenever I went on site (a habit I’ve carried over into my post-McCommas time with Modern Landfill and GeoShack). Over time, I learned some of the natural schedules that would repeat each year. Early spring welcomed the blooming of the wildflowers, when evening primrose and dandelions would cover the fields as far I could see. Each May, the adolescent egrets came of age, sporting their most attractive plumage. Summer brought fields full of baled hay, reminiscent of a French countryside. Some visitors came to McCommas irregularly, like the occasional bobcats (not the equipment kind) that wandered through. We also entertained some one-time guests, like the flock of pelicans who once rested for most of Thanksgiving week on their journey south for the winter. In my decade of daily work at McCommas, I managed to capture photos—some good, some not—of blue herons, roseate spoonbills, red tail hawks, snapping turtles, white tailed deer, gulls of various kinds, a plenitude of insect species and gorgeous landscapes. Some species that managed to elude my camera, but I knew lived onsite, were a family of bald eagles and several beavers. Of course, our mostly untrammeled river-bottom terrain also attracted some unwelcome intruders, most notably herds of feral hogs wreaking havoc throughout our pristine habitat.
Changing Perceptions
Many people would find it odd to consider disposing garbage and protecting nature as similar endeavors. Indeed, for many years, these two activities were decidedly at odds with each other. But over the last few decades, landfills have changed dramatically. Think about it—when your neighbors look like the pictures I’ve shared today, they provide a great incentive to operate your facility in a way that will keep them from moving out. Granted, there still are some landfills whose interactions with the environment are appallingly unsatisfactory. But a well-managed landfill is an environmental protection facility and can be a thing of beauty. Unfortunately, most people are completely unaware of these veritable nature preserves right around the corner. If you happen to work at one, it’s worth sharing with your friends.
Adam Jochelson, P. E., is a Landfill Engineer and Facility Specialist working for GeoShack, Inc. (Dallas, TX), where he promotes the application of cutting edge technologies to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of landfill operations. Adam built his knowledge and techniques over a nine-year period as the onsite engineer at McCommas Bluff Landfill in Dallas, TX. Adam can be reached at (972) 342-3055 or via e-mail at [email protected].
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Land·fill En·gi·neer [land-fil en-juh-neer]
noun an environmental engineer who specializes in the design, management, planning, and development, of solid waste management facilities; a unique combination of engineer, surveyor, data analyst, computer programmer, construction worker, manager, teacher, writer, conservationist, and experimenter.