AS VICE PRESIDENT for planning and permitting of PVT Landfill in Nanakuli, Oahu, Stephen E. Joseph, R.G., CHG and principal hydrogeologist/geologist, works with various power generators in setting up PVT’s recycling operations and feedstock preparation for bio-convertible material production for power generators and other feedstock users. PVT recycles 80% of incoming mixed waste and works with the local U.S. Green Building Council and the General Contractors Association on recycling for LEED projects. PVT is Hawaii’s largest landfill and largest recycler at 179,000 tons last year. Joseph directed the design and engineering of PVT Landfill’s recycling plant, which received a 2015 SWANA Recycling Systems Silver Award. In 2018, PVT received SWANA’s Gold Award for landfill management and the Silver Award for Special Waste Management. Joseph—a registered geologist and hydrogeologist—has 35 years of experience performing geologic and landfill studies in California, Hawaii, and elsewhere throughout the US. He has performed geologic, hydrogeologic, and atmospheric investigations at numerous landfill sites. Joseph’s landfill experience includes siting and geotechnical investigations and technical specifications needed for liner design, analysis of hydrologic conditions, barrier studies, recycling, solar caps for renewable energy production, and all phases of permitting. He has worked on more than 25 landfills, from small private landfills to L.A. County Sanitation District’s Puente Hills Landfill, the largest landfill west of the Mississippi River. Joseph has prepared permits necessary for a bioremediation and recycling facility, the first and only commercial operation of its kind in Hawaii at Nanakuli Landfill, Oahu. He was on the Hawaii Landfill Task Force, which served as an advisory committee providing implementation guidance for federal Subtitle D regulations in Hawaii and developing a health department guidance document for groundwater monitoring at Hawaii landfills. Joseph served as district manager for Waste Management of Hawaii’s West Hawaii Landfill on the Big Island and permitted the state’s only CERCLA sites. He was the environmental manager for Waste Management’s Hawaii Market Area, which involved all environmental issues for Waste Management’s three landfills in Hawaii.
WHAT HE DOES DAY TO DAY
Joseph starts the day meeting with his operations manager, driving around the site discussing plans and timing of different projects. “We are currently mining the oldest part of the landfill and recycling it,” he says. "We are refilling the mined portion with special waste and material that can’t be recycled as well as new incoming waste. We make decisions on the material to be stockpiled or banked and closure material. We are in the process of closing the lower parts of the landfill slopes in some areas which involves compaction and third-party inspection and testing. We are re-vegetating the closed slopes with native Hawaiian vegetation.” Some of Joseph’s time is spent with civic leaders working on permitting an additional 75 acres to double recycling efforts and on reuse of wood feedstock for different types of energy production from gasification to anaerobic digestion. “We intend to set up a microgrid using PV panels and either gasification or anaerobic digestion to power ourselves,” says Joseph. He also serves on committees that foster sustainable power projects and re-use of construction materials.
WHAT LED HIM TO THIS LINE OF WORK
Joseph, who has two academic degrees in geology and one in business, has taught in the California state university system. He has worked for the California Division of Mines and Geology and on a California Superfund site cleanup. “I got into landfill work consulting for the expansion of a California private landfill adjoining the San Andreas fault,” says Joseph. “It required me to use everything I had ever learned about geology, groundwater, and geologic engineering as well as landfill design and engineering. It was the most challenging project I had ever done.”
WHAT HE LIKES BEST ABOUT HIS WORK
Joseph says there is nothing he likes better than a challenge. “That is why I am working so hard on sustainable energy using material from the landfill,” he says. “We have the only electric bulldozer in Hawaii—a Cat D-7E—and we are part of the Hawaii Bioeconomy Trade Organization and the Hydrogen Working Group.”
HIS GREATEST CHALLENGE
“The biggest challenges are in the area of renewable fuelsand recycling wood out of the landfill for power,” he notes.