James E. Shirk, P.E., D.E.E.

Education:

Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering, University of Arkansas
Master of Science in Civil Engineering, University of Arkansas

Professional Registration and Certification:

Associations and Honors

Member Florida Engineering Society
Member Society of American Military Engineers, Post Secretary 1998-1999
Diplomate American Academy of Environmental Engineers

Career Summary:

2002 Private Consultant, Tampa FL Principal
1997-2001 Law Engineering, Tampa FL Senior Environmental
Engineer
1993-1997 Terra Environmental, Tampa FL Principal Engineer
1992-1993 Applied Resource Technology, Denville NJ Principal
1988-1992 American Cyanamid, Wayne NJ Remediation Specialist
1982-1988 Killam Associates, Millburn NJ Associate
1980-1982 Fred C. Hart Associates, Inc New York, NY Senior Engineer
1974-1979 EcolSciences, Inc. Rockaway NJ Project Engineer
1970-1974 Lawler, Matusky & Skelly, Tappan NY Project Engineer

Professional Experience:

Water and Wastewater Management:

Mr. Shirk’s experience in water and wastewater includes design of wastewater collection and transportation systems for municipal wastewater and storm water, design of pumping stations for wastewater, and design of ground water recovery systems. His wastewater treatment experience includes laboratory treatability, process design and operational troubleshooting. Mr. Shirk has conducted investigations, developed waste reduction plans, arranged permitting and designed industrial pretreatment systems for wastewater streams from agricultural products, building products, pulp and paper, electroplating, organic chemicals, brewery, metals forming and fertilizer manufacturing. Specific examples include:

• Design of wastewater collection systems for the city of Fayetteville, Arkansas, including pumping
• Site evaluation for electroplating, with modification of rinse configuration to reduce water use by half
• Process evaluation for metals forming to separate and treat a high strength nickel waste to allow discharge of wastes to municipal sewers
• Design review and modifications to an anaerobic treatment system for cheese making wastes
• Laboratory evaluation of aerobic treatment of pulping wastes
• Laboratory evaluation of treatability of mixed waste streams from a major organic chemical plant. This was in support of a troubleshooting effort to bring an upset plant back on line to return to the overall facility to operation. Shut down of wastewater treatment was costing the facility over $250,000 per day in profit. Mr. Shirk organized the restart effort, including evaluation of each waste stream before reintroduction to the plant.

Gypsum Stack Closure and Remediation

Mr. Shirk has been involved with phosphogypsum issues since 1989. While at American Cyanamid, Mr. Shirk was the manager of the closure activities at the Brewster Phosphates gypsum stack in Brewster, Florida (formerly owned by American Cyanamid).

While at Terra, Mr. Shirk designed and implemented the closure of a second gypsum stack in central Illinois. This 200 acre stack and supporting area had been developed in stages since 1960, and was filled with water to near the surface because the original design directed all rainfall to the stack interior. During the three year closure period, the design team performed detailed modeling using the Corps of Engineers Hydraulic Evaluation of Landfill Performance (HELP) model with site specific characteristics, recontoured the surface for greater runoff, restored the surface with organic amendments to enhance evapotranspiration, designed and installed a spray irrigation system, and continued observation and monitoring. At the end of the first three years, water levels in the stack had fallen over 60 feet. The Illinois EPA approved an alternative approach using natural enhanced evapotranspiration in place of geomembranes for reducing infiltration.

Hazardous Waste Management:

Mr. Shirk was a Group Leader in the EPA Region II Field Investigations Team responsible for identifying and setting priorities for remediation for hazardous waste sites in New York and New Jersey.

When the American Academy of Environmental Engineers initiated the Hazardous Waste specialization, Mr. Shirk was in the first group of engineers with that specialty designation, and went on to be a member and Chairman of the Hazardous Waste Management specialty examination committee.

While at American Cyanamid, Mr. Shirk planned investigation, remediation and management of seventy Solid Waste Management Units at chemical facilities in New Jersey, Ohio, and West Virginia. Additional significant projects at Cyanamid

• Planning and supervision of the sampling, bulking, transportation and disposal of 1,400 drums of mixed hazardous and nonhazardous wastes at a major Cyanamid facility in New Jersey. This was a moderate hazard operation conducted at Levels B and C.
• Planning the investigation for solidification and stabilization of wastes from three waste lagoons at a Cyanamid facility in West Virginia, including electrodewatering, solidification formulation, and contracting the remediation for plant oversight. This was a low hazard operation conducted at Level D.
• Planning and oversight of the remediation of a butyl mercaptan tank at the Fike Superfund site in Nitro WV. This was a high hazard operation conducted at Level A and B.

After leaving American Cyanamid, Mr. Shirk was responsible for shutting down and remediation of a metallurgical laboratory in Tappan NJ, which included management and disposal of explosives as well as PCB’s, pesticides, reactive metals and radionuclides.

Mr. Shirk prepared plans and specifications for dismantling a small appliance repair facility in Tampa FL contaminated by PCBs and solvents. This included negotiating for recovery of scrap value for structural metals.

Mr. Shirk prepared the closure plan and executed the disposal of wastes from a structural steel painting facility in Hillsborough County, Florida

Mr. Shirk prepared hazardous waste surveys for the solid waste planning work in Suwon and Ulsan, Korea, including supervising the industrial surveys and preparing the hazardous waste projections

Mr. Shirk holds two patents for remediation of soils and spent ores contaminated with hydrocarbons and with chromium.

Mr. Shirk represented the New Jersey Society of Professional Engineers on the State Task Force for Ground Water Quality Standards, and is the Chairman for the American Academy of Environmental Engineers (AAEE) Hazardous Waste Management Examination Subcommittee.

Air Quality Projects

Mr. Shirk has prepared several Title V and Synthetic Non-Title V construction and operating permit applications for diverse industries including asphalt batching, brewing, and surface coating operations. His duties have included site and process evaluation, permit form preparation, and maintenance of annual operating records. In addition to the permit applications, he has prepared several modification requests, for changed locations and for increased production and emissions.

Solid Waste Management

Mr. Shirk managed two projects in South Korea, which included Origin and Destination, Solid Waste composition, landfill design and conceptual design of waste to energy facilities for two medium sized cities (over 500,000 population), and was the design advisor for the new Seoul City landfill in Kyong Ki province (total area over 3,000 acres).

Mr. Shirk planned and completed ground water investigations at five inactive solid waste facilities in New Jersey as part of Environmental Cleanup Responsibility Act remediation projects.

Property Evaluation and Assessment:

Mr. Shirk performed over 20 initial evaluations for property transfers under the New Jersey Environmental Cleanup Responsibility Act (ECRA), beginning with regional and state information, and proceeding if needed through detailed sampling of soils and ground water, and design and implementation of remedial actions. Sites included petroleum refineries and storage sites, paint manufacturers, automobile manufacture, chemical and personal hygiene products, building materials, shot blasting and painting operations.

Mr. Shirk has performed over 20 Phase I Environmental Site Assessments at sites in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Florida for transfers of property used for asphalt batch mixing, for retail and apartment construction, and for waste recycling.

Remedial Design for Soils and Ground Water:

Mr. Shirk was the designer of three systems in New Jersey for recovery or recovery and treatment of ground water contaminated by hydrocarbons and solvents, including recovery using pneumatic pumps, collection and treatment for discharge to municipal treatment works.

Mr. Shirk was the designer of remediation systems for soil and ground water under the FDEP Preapproval Program, and for other systems reviewed and accepted by the Hillsborough County Environmental Protection Agency and by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. These systems included biosparging, soil vapor extraction and bioremediation in situ.

Plant Engineering and Historic Evaluation:

Mr. Shirk is also a member of the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT). Knowledge of historic industrial processes is useful in developing an evaluation of the potential contaminants at the site, and the means of managing these contaminants in the past is useful in designing current remediation methods.

Surface and Ground Water Resources:

Mr. Shirk has organized and completed major stream surveys in New York, New Jersey and Florida. The work has included determination of stream flows, developing stage discharge relationships and predicting time of travel and reaeration data from physical stream configuration. In addition to these physical surveys, the work included stream modeling for dissolved oxygen using the Streeter-Phelps equation as modified by George Tchoubanoglous.

Mr. Shirk designed and implemented a stream survey in Florida to supply data for a detailed water budget, including ground water, surface water, precipitation, evapotranspiration and extractive losses.

Publications

"Economic Decision Making for Participation in Joint Industrial-Municipal Treatment Systems," presented at the Water Resources Research Institute, University of North Carolina, April 1972 (with T. P. Quirk)

"Effects of Power Plants on Physical and Chemical Water Quality Parameters with Special Attention to Temperature, Dissolved Oxygen and Chlorine," Hudson River Environmental Society, 3rd Hudson River Symposium, March 1973 (with K. A. Konrad, K. A. Abood and P. M. McGroddy)

Small Community Sewer Projects: Environmental Review Handbook for Puerto Rico, EPA Publication 902-4-80-002, July 1980 (with K. M. Murray and J. P. Mack)

"Investigation of Ground Water Contamination in the New Jersey Coastal Plain," National Solid Waste Management Conference, Boston, October 1981 (with B. T. Delaney and R. D. Spear)

"Site Risk Assessment Procedures," American Society of Civil Engineers National Conference on Environmental Engineering, Minneapolis, July 1982 (with A.P. Wright and W. K. Tusa)

"New Jersey's Environmental Cleanup Responsibility Act; A Consultant's View," presented at HAZPRO '85 Professional Certification Symposium and Exposition, Baltimore, May 1985

"Approaches to In-Situ Management of Metals," presented at the Eighth Annual Madison Waste Conference, September 1985 (with C. W. Farrell)

"Present and Future Materials Recycling in the Republic of Korea," presented at the Conference on Solid Waste Management and Materials Policy, New York, February 1987 (with D. J. Suler and G. K. Walker)

"ECRA Then and Now," New Jersey Effluents (New Jersey Water Pollution Control Association), Volume 21, Number 1, Summer 1987, Trenton

"Potential Impacts of Materials Recycling on Energy Recovery Based on the Korean Experience," presented at the Conference on Solid Waste Management and Materials Policy, New York, February 1988 (with D. O. Nusser and G. K. Walker)

"Sample Preparation Methods for Analysis of Spent Chrome Ores," Journal of Hazardous Wastes and Hazardous Materials, Boston, Summer 1991 (with O. Baturay and A. Sigerson)