UFC 3-280-02A Hazardous Waste Land Disposal/Land Treatment ...

CHAPTER 7OPERATIONS AND CONTINGENCY PLANS/TRAININGTM 5-814-77-1. Operationsa. Purpose. The designer of hazardous wasteland disposal/land treatment facilities must have anunderstanding of their basic operations. Such anunderstanding is fundamental to the development ofdesign plans that take into account day-to-dayoperations, required equipment, health and safetyprovisions, and operator needs. A summary of generaloperations for landfills, surface impoundments and landtreatment facilities is presented below. For a briefdiscussion of procedures for injection wells and wastepiles, see paragraph 5-5 and 5-6, respectively.b. Landfill operations. Typical operations at ahazardous waste landfill include the following activities:• Unloading wastes onto the active lift by forkliftor front-end loader.• Segregating wastes in cells or subcells toprevent mixing of incompatible wastes.• Covering wastes with soil to prevent winddispersal.• Grading cover soil to facilitate collecting anydirect precipitation in a sump.• Placing cover soil on areas of the landfill thathave been brought to final grade.(1) To minimize infiltration of rainfall during verywet conditions, tarps may be used to cover the activearea of the landfill. In areas of very high rainfall, wastesare often containerized or stored until the rainfall seasonis over.(2) Equipment for landfill operations is used forhandling wastes and cover material, spill and fire control,and decontamination. Typical equipment includes:• Forklift and front-end loader to unload andplace solid waste and containers.• Dozens and self-loading scrapers to spreadand compact cover material.• Road graders and water pickup and vacuumtrucks to provide support functions such asmaintenance of site roads.• Fire control, spill control and decontaminationequipment.c. Surface impoundment operations. Duringthe time that liquid wastes are impounded, the followinginspection activities are required:• Monitoring to ensure that liquids do not rise intothe freeboard (prevention of overtopping).• Monitoring leak detection system.• Inspecting containment berms for signs ofleakage or erosion.• Periodic sampling of the impounded wastes forselected chemical parameters.7-1• Inspecting periodically for floral and faunal activities(such as animal burrows) that could cause leaks throughearthen dikes, levees or embankments.(1) Liquid wastes may be removed from animpoundment by a variety of methods, including (but notlimited to) decanting, pumping and settling, solar drying,and chemical neutralization. Details concerning removalmethods are presented in SW-873.(2) Typical equipment used for closing animpoundment includes:• Centrifugal pump or hydraulic pipeline dredgeto remove impounded liquids.• Vacuum truck to pump slurried sediment fromthe impoundment.• Rotary cutter to extract hardened sediments.• Dragline or front-end loader to excavatesolidified sediments.d. Land treatment operations. Typical landtreatment operations include:• Applying liquid wastes (less than 8 percentsolids) by either spraying the waste on the landwith sprinklers or by using flood or furrowirrigation techniques.• Spreading semiliquid sludges (8 to 15 percentsolids) on the land or injecting them 4 to 8 inchesbelow the soil surface.• Applying low-moisture solids (> 15 percentsolids) to the surface and later incorporating intothe soil.(1) Regardless of which waste applicationmethod is used, the most important objectives areuniform application of wastes, and use of applicationrates that are tailored to the assimilative capacity of thesoil.(2) Equipment used for land treatment varies,depending on application technique selected. Typically,this includes:• Piping and a pump to transport wastes to thepoint of discharge (for surface irrigation byfurrow or flooding).• Truck or trailer-mounted tank if wastes are tobe applied by gravity flow or through a sprayer ormanifold.• Vacuum truck with flotation tires and rearsprayer or manifold for surface spreading ofsludge.• Moldboard plow, disk or rotary tiller forincorporating waste into the soil.• Truck or tractor with two or more chisels ifwastes are to be injected into the subsurface.CANCELLED