‘What If’ Analysis to Guide Waste Management Decision Makers : SCS Engineers Helps Killeen, Texas Develop 20yr Waste Management Master Plan

Long Beach, California based environmental and waste management consultants, SCS Engineers, has collaborated with the City of Killeen, Texas to design a solid waste master plan and rate study to reach the City’s efficiency goals.

SCS explained that the collaborative effort has culminated in a long-term financial roadmap and planning tool, which evaluates the impact of operational expenses and provides a basis for planning capital expenditures.

The plan was said to already be in use by the City’s decision-makers to determine the efficiency of investing in equipment and a Material RecyclingFacility (MRF) as part of a waste management plan.

According to SCS the information is made up of population projections, demographics, cost and historical data, among other resources, that has then been organised and analysed to prepare projections based on changing scenarios over a period of years.

The consultants said that in Killeen, decision-makers relied on its business and technical capabilities, which included conducting a detailed cost of service – rate study as part of the overall project.

This type of economic study to enable the planning team on any proposed project to provide a ‘what if’ analysis for the decision-makers with the potential impact a proposal may have on customer rates and fees. This type of business analysis was said to require technical expertise in the many aspects of waste management from the collection to sorting and recycling and environmental policy.

SCS noted that operational expenses such as replacing waste collection vehicles, considering and implementing recycling programs, and the impact of stricter environmental regulatory programs can all affect collection fees and the quality of service.

The result of the collaboration was said to be a 20-year master plan with modeling capabilities to determine the optimum scenarios that benefit the surrounding communities and helps manage environmental safety and the outlay of capital before the expense of planning, designing, and building begins.

Key outputs of this study included the justification for the City’s acquisition of new collection equipment and further assessment of the feasibility of implementing single-stream recycling.

“Many of our clients face a similar challenge, so we dug deeply into all pertinent facets that drive the logistics of waste management for Killeen,” said Kevin Yard, a vice president and director of the South-Central Regional SCS team.

“Then we delivered a system for decision-makers to use for many years encompassing virtually any set of conditions that present a financial, environmental, or quality challenge to managing wastes,” he concluded.

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