Weather Stations for Landfill, Waste Management

Government bodies are requiring stricter environmental reporting from landfills and waste transfer facilities across Australia. Accurate environmental data is required to meet EPA licensing regulations.

Environdata weather stations can be configured to provide all the data landfill operators need to satisfy Government legislation and address potential community concerns.

Neighbours complaining about dust and odour are the most common complaints received by landfill operators. Environdata provides weather stations that are designed to monitor the weather conditions and assist in managing this and other environmental problems at landfill sites.

The advantages of using an Environdata weather station are:

• Our weather stations analyse wind speed and direction second-by-second and use vectors to calculate the net effect of the wind accurately over each reporting period. This ensures accurate tracking of the air, dust and odour particles and allows you to respond to complaints with confidence. Sigma Theta can also be estimated to approximate the particle dispersion – see below.
• Wind sensors are normally mounted at 10 metres above ground level. Our cost effective IS37 10 metre mast meets Australian Standards and your EPA licensing conditions. Installation and maintenance is simplified due to the winch mounted tilt-down design that eliminates the need for cherry pickers or elevated working platforms.
• Our weather station package can be customised to include a wide range of additional parameters to meet your monitoring requirements – rain gauge, air temperature, relative humidity, soil moisture and more.

The generation of greenhouse gases and the production of leachate are also potential problems at landfill sites.

Some gases generated from landfills are quite toxic and some are highly combustible. In general, these gases only pose a high risk under specific weather conditions. This is because the wind will normally disperse these gases into the atmosphere, keeping them in sufficiently low concentrations to remain safe.

Weather conditions are the key element in monitoring these risks. Critical data includes calculation of dispersion rates, identification of inversion layers (which holds gases in) and the net effect of the wind over the relevant period.

Leachates are the pollutants washed out of the landfill site following rainfall. Monitoring and recording rainfall totals and rainfall rates are necessary to understand and manage this potential problem.

Soil moisture data can also be used to further enhance your understanding of the rainfall / leachate relationship.

Leachate pond / retention basin depth can also be monitored with water level sensors such as non contact radar depth sensors typically. Specialised bubblers or pressure transducers may also be used if they are the best option in your situation.

Environdata weather stations can include these sensors.  SMS and Email alerts can be set up to alert you to rainfall events and retention basin filling.

Government bodies are requiring stricter environmental reporting from landfills across the country, with a specific focus on weather monitoring. It is imperative that a professional landfill weather station is used to ensure accuracy, reliability and traceability.

An onsite Environdata weather station will allow you to prepare and submit reports to meet your EPA Licensing requirements.

This can include siting reports to confirm best case adherence to Australian Standards for siting of air quality monitoring systems, servicing plans from minimum recommended level to Australian Standards level & assistance with setting up reports and alerts functions.

Ready access to your site weather data is important in managing complaints. We offer a range of communications options to suit your specific requirements. The most commonly used options include:

Direct cable, which is low cost, secure and highly reliable.  This does rely on the installation location being within close proximity to a LAN connection, which is often not the case.  Trenching and cabling costs also need to be considered.

Telemetry, using UHF up to 5km or more, which are also secure and highly reliable and require no cabling.  In your 'office' end we can connect to your LAN or SCADA using MODBUS.

Cellular Modems, which require no cabling, can be accessed from anywhere, and can include SMS and email alert functions. Typically combined with WeatherMation LIVE for simple secure access to your data from any device, any time you need it.

Coupled with our WeatherMation LIVE data collection and reporting software, your landfill, resource recovery or transfer station weather station will satisfy all EPA requirements and allow you to proactively manage your site.

Access your weather from site, updating every minute, so you can keep in touch with a rain or wind event as it unfolds, no matter where you are.