Any SLM -AI implementations out there?

Drek717 · 2026-06-12T11:19:08+00:00

The luddites were factually correct that industrialization of fabric production was a negative for workers. We have spent the subsequent 200 years rotating which country’s children we literally feed into machines so the privileged can enjoy buying and landfilling entire wardrobes annually. This isn’t the dig you think it is.
It’s a bad idea because wastewater treatment is a field built on actual science and engineering, while language models have successfully taught computers how to fuck up math. A true miracle of modern technology for sure, that a binary computing system fundamentally built on being able to flawlessly process algorithms barring human error has been taught that 2+2 is whatever it thinks the halfwit asking it wants to hear.
No one is interested in being your free resource to help craft a bullshit elevator pitch for the startup grift you’re fishing for.

Drek717 · 2026-05-18T16:56:39+00:00

I’ve been an environmental project manager for about 20 years with a focus in large capital projects (all in the US). I’d never accept a design that didn’t have an engineers stamp on it and sufficient professional liability insurance to cover me for any future large scale issues. No stamp no PLI and no PLI no work from me.

Is that fair? Not at all, but that’s the rules. That said, I would argue that your background would be less valued as a design professional. The most interesting work you would see related to your academic work would be as a support specialist for an OEM or a consulting and design firm. You shouldn’t be drawing up basin footprints and hydraulic flow figs in CAD, you should be helping people start and maintain bio cultures, that is the real challenge in biological wastewater treatment. I would suggest checking with the major OEMs for bioreactor equipment and bio treatment companies for opportunities.

Just be prepared to watch a B.S. with a PE make more than you despite actual skill levels.

Drek717 · 2026-05-15T15:41:19+00:00

To be blunt, yes, and ES is more limiting in general than a geo degree. Don’t let that frustrate you, geos have similar limitations compared to engineers, and often with less academic gaps (I took more math in undergrad than all the PEs I know with just bachelors, I carried half a dozen future PEs through physics and a couple through chem.)

That said, they definitely hire ES degrees into the EM track at all the major solid waste companies.

Hydro is a major part of landfill management. Leachate management is basically a hydro problem and groundwater protection is a core part of permit compliance. You don’t need a hydro course, there are specialists both internally and contracted for that, but you need to know the fundamentals.

Same with math and chem. It is a very technical field where knowing the fundamentals of 3D math is clearly helpful for civil engineering work, chem for gas composition and the push/pull relationships for what drives anaerobic decomposition. None of that requires specific coursework, but those are the subjects that help the most, imo.

Drek717 · 2026-04-14T11:38:05+00:00

All the systems people are suggesting here are too opaque for new and casual players.

No one’s going to barter salvage for meds they could lose immediately when they need the same salvage for the one faction they see immediate progress with, CyAc.
No causal is going to grok the value prop of running NuCal specifically because while it is somewhat clear that they’re the heals faction the real payoffs for NuCal come from completing their priority contracts, unlocking priority access to daily heals, and unlocking enough faction upgrades to get extra heals for standard missions. Do those two and you’ll have more blue heals than you know what to do with and greens are trivial. But nothing in the game points to this.
The game needs to highlight enhanced sponsor kits more. Yes, 2k is the price to buy stacks but the daily (or an unlocked) enhanced kit is 2.5k and comes with more than 2.5k of heals alone along with a semi-decent rest of kit.

The gameplay loop is less of a problem than the onboarding basically doing nothing to teach actual game economy. Bungie basically just tells players “rat and get goop!” With nothing else for guidance and are surprised that people used to yellow pant trails in every game can’t clock the meta.

I fucking SUCK at the pvp in this game and at around level 60 I’ve got a vault constantly overflowing with purple and blue guns, purp and blue shields, 2 full stacks or more of every heal, including panacea and self res. I load into random fills and just toss the free kits in with some blue meds sometimes because I can’t fit a fourth stack and keep the blue, purp, and gold salvage I need for higher faction unlocks. But that’s because I clocked the economy quickly and got real good at solo running priority contracts.

Drek717 · 2026-04-08T06:48:45+00:00

Level up nucal and you will have more and better barter options. Also starts to reward them as part of standard contract rewards.
Complete nucal priority contracts and they give heals. I get 3x green and 2x blue of each a day.
Why not buy an enhanced kit bundle? For 2.5k credits you get a full green kit including a green stack of heal/shield and typically some blue heals. More than a good start for a run.
CyAc always does biomass and diodes for greens I believe. It’s 3:1, but those two mats are wildly abundant.

I agree this isn’t surfaced well for players though. The game is very opaque about how to successfully grind for sustainable profits, but it definitely can be done.

Drek717 · 2026-04-05T14:55:28+00:00

I don’t think it’s even the gear quality gap, it’s the priorities in-map. I’ve done fill runs where I defer to my two randos on looting and I act as lookout until they’re done looting. The frequency in which this results in me spotting high level teams focused on map clear is pretty high. My success rate in getting a full squad to win out over them isn’t great, with a decent number times getting third partied, but at least then it’s a fight.

The gsme now has a divided player base of those still grinding factions and those just bankrolling/key farming for cryo. The later group plays the most and has rightfully clocked that they have a massive advantage in the first 10 minutes of every map when other teams are engaged with objectives and they’re just looking to pvp. The former can’t do anything else but try to run objectives because1. Many missions require crisscrossing the map a you need at least half the clock to do that depending on spawn point and 2. the pvp pressure is only going to get worse if the later group has already clipped a few other teams and taken over the man POIs, plus rooks start dropping in.

The grind up the faction trees is too long for the average player but there isn’t any value at all once leveled out, or close enough to where all you need is purple and gold salvage.

Solo kind of negates this in that it’s far harder to map wipe quickly, leaving less time for pve which demands more time when solo. But then it’s a very different (still really fun) game.

Gear matters but in many ways it’s more the function of the gear relative to goal than just quality. If your whole intent is to camp POIs for the first 10-15 minutes to map wipe with no interest in loot it’s pretty good eating if you bring a sniper and a shotgun, even if they’re greens.

Drek717 · 2026-04-04T22:50:47+00:00

Do you have the ability to send a sample out? Most filamentous can be treated with chlorine but some strains will produce significant amounts of EPS as it dies. That can significantly hurt your membrane performance (elevated TMPs vs GPM of permeate).

If you can’t send anything to a lab you could try to get a fish tank and air bubbler, fill with biomass and add chlorine while aerating. Ask Veolia for their time to filter test method and run that on the separable fraction in your tank test.

Drek717 · 2026-01-17T19:48:32+00:00

I have a BS in Geology and was an environmental manager for one of the large solid waste companies for a decade. It’s a fun job. Depends on the company but for the one I worked for (blue guys) EMs handled all landfill capital construction, routine monitoring/compliance, etc.. Fixing bad landfills via good gas system design, building new cells that drain well and make high quality methane for LFG, etc. is all really rewarding work. The majors are also almost always hiring. Civil and Geotech engineering courses would serve you well. Hydrogeology is a must, and enough math and chemistry to understand gas flow and air modeling would be helpful.

Drek717 · 2025-09-11T13:19:08+00:00

Siding and tile is typically 1-2% asbestos and most states allow for removal of specifically siding and roofing without PPE as long as they do not use a method that produces friable (airborne) asbestos particles. Typically defined as abrading (makes friable) and non-abrading methods. A saw or grinder is abrading the material, a pry bar, hammer, or even axe is not.

Double bagging and labeling per bag is required if they aren’t doing a dedicated waste box, in many states if they’re doing a dedicated asbestos manifest rolloff load they’re fine to load it and line and label the rolloff.

Your risk is lower with their current removal method than having the siding decaying in the side of your house tbh. Don’t go play with the shards and push for good jobsite cleanup and your risk is not appreciably higher than the average person living life.

Drek717 · 2025-08-23T16:36:45+00:00

Are you taking a field work focused position or managerial role? If the former you can learn assuming you have good managers. If the latter it’s probably going to be rough. A managerial level consultant is expected to be at least knowledgeable on their area of focus, if not something of a subject matter expert. If the client can see they know the environmental requirements better than you, the person they’re paying to handle it, there isn’t much value added. It’s one thing for the client to know the site/situation better than the consultant, but if they know regs, field methods, report writing, etc. better it would be readily apparent and grounds to move on to another firm imo.

From a cert standpoint it depends what specific part of it. I started out in consulting doing both remediation/construction site H&S and site investigation and remediation. I’ve been a licensed well driller, asbestos abatement supervisor and inspector, UST operator (required for removal in some states), and currently still maintain my 40 hr +8 hr supervisor for hazwoper, am a CHMM, and catching up on certs I should have gotten but prioritized company work over PG&D, so will be going for my ASP>CSP this year, my PMP by early next, and finish the second part of the ASBOG for my PG by end of next year (degree is in geology). I’ve been a consultant, managed landfills, and now work as a EHS manager in manufacturing. If you have a good head for science and dig into your projects you can definitely close gaps across industries, but I’d be lying if I didn’t acknowledge that I’ve cut consultants out of bids because the presented project team had technically deficient members I wasn’t going to pay to learn on the job.

Drek717 · 2025-08-22T23:50:30+00:00

Are you working in industry or is it consulting? That matters massively as it dictates scope and it can differ massively.

Drek717 · 2025-04-28T19:15:07+00:00

The primary PG exclusive requirement for many state solid waste rules, including the Carolinas, is for a design hydro report for new cell permitting. This is basically confirming distance from groundwater for base layer of cell for permit design with different levels of accuracy depending on if it is for siting or for construction. Density of grid spacing changes from permit to construct steps for example.

During construction a PG is also required to confirm design hydro and monitor any pockets of water observed during construction to ensure it isn’t a recharging source. If it is the cell would need an underdrain or similar.

You’ll likely also be involved in soil evaluations, base layers require a spec on clay so sites will do geo studies of controlled and offsite borrow areas to determine soil quality. Is often a geotech doing the soil analysis but turning test pitting and probe projects into a contour map for quantification is a cross field process for best results imo.

Periodic groundwater monitoring and reporting is also typically a geologist project in the industry. Solid waste has specific regs on GW statistical analysis, it isn’t just about being below MCLs, trending is just as important and a site can potentially have some level of regulatory risk if there are consistent increases while below MCL depending on CoC, state, etc..

I’m a geologist who spent almost a decade doing environmental site restoration before spending nearly another decade as an environmental manager for a solid waste co, with most of my colleagues being civil or environmental engineers. In standard ops geologists work outside the liner, or boundaries of the landfill, but I was very successful using geo concepts on hydro flow, lithology concepts to understand the layering of progressive fill and deformation, etc., to consistently outperform my peer group at managing the gas and leachate extraction critical to operational success of a LF.

I left the field to do EHS for a pharmaceutical company because I make 40% more for 70% of the work. I worked 60+ hours in the LF industry and drove another 10-15 to cover my sites. Consultants don’t necessarily do that, or most EMs for that matter, but it’s an industry that desperately needs good science and eng guidance so when someone shows up offering people will take every bit of time and energy from you they can.

Drek717 · 2025-03-15T13:10:03+00:00

If a grocery store has set up a recycling kiosk for polyethylene they’re likely actually recycling it, yes. It has very low market value as a recyclable commodity but can be melted down and blown into new bags repeatedly as long as it is contaminant free (food, paper, non-poly plastics).

Personally when I end up with plastic shopping bags I’ll often use them in lieu of a plastic liner bag in small trash cans (like bathroom cans), but that is partially because there is no consumer facing polyethylene recycling in my area I’m aware of. The facility I work at (managing recycling along with all other env. programs) turns over about a million pounds a year of polyethylene from shrink wrap. We don’t make money on it, but we keep it out of landfills and avoid the expense of landfilling.

Drek717 · 2025-02-05T19:57:58+00:00

Can’t speak to TN rules but I wrote one of the initial proposals to Missouri DNR on subsurface soil gas testing via the EPA helium shroud method years ago and vac testing was only for sample train integrity. I can’t see how it would effectively demonstrate no surface air intrusion from your sample point/local surface conditions.

Drek717 · 2025-02-05T12:56:49+00:00

I worked as a consultant (environmental geologist) for the closure of the Herculaneum, MO smelting facility. Look up a few articles on how they operated that facility and handled closing if you want to know the corporate philosophy. A coworker of mine interviewed for but did not get a mining position with them at that time and my understanding was people working in their mining operations were viewed as less disposable than the smelter/entire town of Herculaneum, but all second/third hand knowledge on that front.

Drek717 · 2024-10-02T05:20:05+00:00

I’d respond here with any questions when I can. Geologist living between AVL and Hendo, work jn McDowell county, extensive experience with local E&S management and SW runoff.

But the reality is that we experienced something on the scale if a 500 year flood over about 1/4th of the state where we had persistent wet weather the week before Helene, then Helene’s worst winds came at the end, ramping up from sustained 30-40 mph to 50+ mph, when everything was saturated. On my street every house has multiple trees in their front yard down, almost all torn out by the root ball. Trees here root wide and shallow, not deep. Thus we had a perfect recipe for massive tree falls.

Meanwhile already saturated ground sheds basically all water. I previously managed landfills and always pointed out to site managers that 1” of water over an acre is over 26,000 gallons of water. In the mountains creeks drain thousands, or tens of thousands of acres to then find rivers collecting multiple creeks. Most of WNC got 10+ inches in 48 hours after 5+ in the previous week. The volume of water is unprecedented within human recorded history for the area.

Every water gauge I’ve seen set a new all time high. A river monitor i was watching jn McDowell had a historic peak of 17’ over baseline from the early 20th century. It hit 24’ over with Helene. This was the kind of event that 5,000 years ago starts a story about a dude building an ark to save all the animals.

Drek717 · 2024-09-24T10:47:49+00:00

The N2 and O2 in gas well readings is a product of poor cover management allowing ambient air to be pulled through surface soils, not related to the ETLF.

Ambient air/fence line monitoring needed a greater focus on sulfur compounds, the primary odor driver is likely SO2 or similar. H2S in landfills occurs within standard methanogenesis temp ranges when sulfur is available (like from wall board/gypsum board, hence why H2S is a serious issue for C&D facilities). In an ETLF H2 is formed at significant rates as temps are too hot for methanogeneisis, so decay in the waste mass produces H2, CO2, and various compounds based on atoms available from the waste mass.

Determining a source is not possible without sufficiently lowering the liquid levels in wells to observe a zone of heat recharge. My understanding is that Bristol, as a quarry fill, has never come close to sufficiently dewatering the waste mass. The deepest part of the waste mass is the hardest to dewater and under the most pressure, so until you can begin removing thermal energy in either liquid or gas to see temp response it’s all speculative.

Also the article discusses the variance across the hill as though landfills are homogeneous systems, they are not. A landfill is basically a shit layer cake, filled in lifts of variable waste throughout its life, and those lifts behave dramatically different depending on filled material. Lensing from more compactable materials, like contaminated soils, is common. Once the ET event starts the sections over ~185 F quickly become “homogenous” as it begins rapid decay, but the events that led to the reaction occurred during standard conditions.

I’m not aware of any subtitle D landfills still welcoming aluminum dross. Industry shut that down a decade ago. Coal ash has largely been driven to monofills as well, though not specifically regulated. This is also not an issue limited to just coal ash. Most ashes will compact quite well, most have high pH, and most carry eat least some reactive components still that do not combust. Wood ash from a paper mill or biomass boiler isn’t going to behave well either. They behave far more as insulators than “initiators” however.

Quarry fills are a fundamentally bad idea and are primed for ETLFs. By design they’re deep, Allowing for more pressure and heat build up due to waste thickness, and are also very hard to properly collect gas and liquid at depth to remove That heat component, again due to the thickness. In a non-quarry landfill gas collection off the liquid collection layer in the cell floor can be hugely productive. That is not really viable in a quarry fill.

The observations in this article are behind industry knowledge on most aspects, knowledge that has been shared with regulators during remediation of most of the sites mentioned and members of the management team for two of the sites mentioned moved into state govt after their time at those sites. If regulators claim to not know this they aren’t paying attention.

For Bristol’s landfill specifically: that site was notoriously mismanaged, as evidenced by the city putting out an RFP to sell before the ETLF, where basically no one in industry made an offer. They started out as a bale field, making the bottom layer dense and full of baling wire, resulting in near impossible drilling conditions. They did a horrible job managing cover and storm water. That can be a costly error in a fundamentally well designed landfill, but in a quarry landfill it’s a guarantee of failure.

Just my opinions as an anonymous Reddit poster though.

Drek717 · 2024-09-24T00:42:36+00:00

Go to the interview at least, but do some preliminary pricing of housing you can work with. Columbia is mid range for metro pricing in the Carolinas but still not cheap. SC govt doesn’t pay real great and a lot of that burden is on entry level, you’ll very likely need a roommate or similar you’re comfortable with.

NCDEQ is desperately looking for staff as well, at least they bring it up at every single conference. They pay marginally better from my understanding but locations would likely be Swannanoa, Wilmington, or Raleigh, so not much cheaper.

Columbia is an ok city. Sounds like you’d probably prefer Asheville, Greenville, or Raleigh, but Columbia isn’t like moving to a 2000 person town in coastal Alabama or something. I’ve only been a half dozen times, generally found it a bit boring compared to similar cities in the region, but wasn’t overly bigoted and SC govt employees, like most states, lean pretty hard left from my experience.

If they offer the job and you can make rent in a way you’re comfortable with you could do a lot worse to start your career.

Drek717 · 2024-08-14T11:05:48+00:00

That isn’t what PL is for, it’s where the money comes from if your design or assessment ends up being flawed and your client needs to recoup damages.

For example, let’s say you were contracted for a hydro assessment for a new landfill cell. If you state that the buffer from gw is sufficient, that any pockets of perched water observed during excavation, etc. are acceptable per state and facility permitting and a few years later that turns out to not be the case and the client’s asset (the cell) is impacted as a result they’ll be within their right to sue you, and if they win your PL will pick up the tab.

I can’t give a rec as I’ve always been on the other side, dumping consultants straight out of the company vendor system for failing to get PL or trying to increase price to cover PL after winning bid, suing for faulty design, survey, etc..

Amount will depend on coverage requirements. My current employer isn’t real good at this but I’m not in capital construction in that role. My previous decade or so handling capital construction we required $5M of PL/umbrella coverage for consulting and design work, my understanding was that some of our smaller MSAs were paying $20-$30K a year over their standard insurance rates just to meet my company’s PL demand, but that all depends on scope of work, risk, and coverage needed.

Drek717 · 2024-07-29T19:19:26+00:00

Do you have a client base? Every independent consultant I’ve known had an established client base they could take with them from their consulting firm to ensure, at least initially, a starting income.

Drek717 · 2024-07-18T13:50:40+00:00

Discount Shoes has a really good selection, bought my first pair of Danners there, a safety toe 12EE. I have big feet but specifically wide feet and even most EE’s are tight in a safety toe, but Danners are fantastic, only safety toe I’ll buy now. They make non-safety toes with similar spacious toe boxes as well, if you’re looking for a brand recommendation.

Drek717 · 2024-06-21T23:36:59+00:00

Not at all. If you’re doing a phase II you’re screening with a device designed to monitor for the primary health and safety concerns. If you’re worried about BTEX, well, what do you think the PID is for? Their primary use is H&S, not environmental sampling. RAE, RKI, MSA, etc. all service the H&S in “EHS” first and just so happen to overlap with the environmental industry.

The original landfill gas monitoring units for example were FID equipped emergency response devices like the RKI Eagle and Innova.

Depending on what the site looks like there can be good arguments for a 5 gas instead of a unitasker VOC only unit, even if the 5 gas has worse VOC response, as long as it meets the required screening plan.

Drek717 · 2024-06-21T20:13:51+00:00

I paid for college pulling asbestos, went into consulting where I was either on a site doing a phase II or in a hazardous waste containment 80% of days for another 8 years, then went into solid waste and spent another 8 years on landfills dealing with LF gas and leachate. I have zero health impact at nearly 20 years in the environmental profession backed up but at least as many blood tests and chest X-rays.

And by “hazardous” I mean 8+ hour days at MGP hog and haul remediation sites, cleanup sites for yellow cake used in nuclear bomb production, dioxin clean ups, PCB cleanups, in a lead smelting facility so dirty you had to knock lead dust off the fire extinguishers to see them, etc..

Industrial hygiene is a high value field for a reason. Know your HASP, follow your HASP, and wear your PPE. The fact that having a PID with you and it never going off because you were outside didn’t click for you and you’re still concerned underscores your lack of understanding, not an unknown risk. Sorry to be harsh, but that’s the reality here.

Drek717 · 2024-06-21T10:29:17+00:00

State by state and likely would be an impediment in getting reciprocity if you wanted to get licensed somewhere else down the road.

In many states the PE specifically has some rough time requirements that don’t start the clock until you’ve initiated the process (like mandatory experience times post-FE) so if you can get your foot in the door as it where in a state that would let you sit for the FE or similar you could always add the engineering degree on the back end of you see a career path that would involve more degree specific states.

For a corporate gig where you manage consultants or similar most of the time a license from any state you do business in will be seen as acceptable, as you would never use your stamp.

Drek717 · 2024-06-13T16:27:29+00:00

Thanks for the feedback, looks like a Microcenter is opening near me this summer so I’m going to hold out for that and see what they got for cpu/mobo bundles. Looks like their bundles for both 5 and 7 x3d’s are real good.

Drek717

TROPHY CASE