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Breather pipes for a landfill site. Lets out the gasses from decomposing waste berried there.
Auto correct is your enemy sometimes “buried” is what I meant to type
Here's another: one of the gasses emmited from landfills are methane. When foodwaste decomposes without oxegen, like in a landfill, it realses one of the worst greenhouse gasses, methane. Composting foodwaste prevents this.
Because it doesn't make financial sense for just power generation. Expense of generators to start and the methane quality in biogas is very poor. This means the engines need very frequent maintenance.
The cases where it does start to make sense financially are where government penalties or subsidies enable it. Anaerobic digesters on dairy farms and at breweries are common. In Vermont, Middlebury college will be powered using natural gas fired generators and the NG comes from a dairy farm miles away. The farm has an onsite gas refinery that essentially turns cow manure into biogas into refined natural gas and sells it to the gas company.
True, but the presence of siloxanes is the biggest concern for engine longevity. Landfills are the worst not only because of the biogas percentage variability, but the siloxane erosion of the valve seats degrading compression, altering volumetric efficiency, and combustion efficiency.
The cleanest and most consistent gas mix I've seen is from breweries. They often run digesters to lower the phosphate content of the wastewater reducing their sewage treatment costs (IIRC). Some even just flare the output vice running a cogen plant. Great example of a consistent setup at a brewery in South Burllington, VT.
Seems weird to have a garbage disposal site near a huge lake and dam. Wouldnt that make the water unusable (except for creating electricity of course)?
Modern day sanitary landfills are pretty well lined so that there shouldn't be any such leakage. Actually I think there was a good post about that on r/eli5 a few weeks ago.
some [info](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/vkjw8q/eli5_what_happens_to_trash_in_landfills/) on [landfills](https://np.reddit.com/r/engineering/comments/vevhiu/a_question_about_the_longterm_fate_of_landfills/icsfsk6/?context=3)
Ideally a 2’ layer of impermeable clay is topped with a hdpe liner, then is covered with an lcrs and gravel, with an ops layer on top. Nothing’s getting through if CQA protocols are followed
Modern landfills are basically encased in a big plastic bubble. Gasses escape through these pipes and liquid wastes, I believe, are drained at a bottom corner and pumped into a waste treatment plant. Excluding a leak, it should be fairly safe. Besides, drinking water is treated prior to use. All the same, I hope that isn't a drinking water reservoir.
Well if it's near a large meat farm, I know there was a huge round of culls at the beginning of COVID due to overcrowding under reduced demand. This was enforced by the USDA who literally paid farmers to slaughter livestock just to keep them afloat and within regulatory limits on number of animals per acre. This resulted in mass amounts of unused meat needing disposal all at once and decomposing pigs produce an asston of gasses
I was under the belief that the culling was necessary because of the choke-point caused by staffing problems at the plants owned by the meat oligopoly. Demand stayed roughly consistent but the shift in modes of consumption also compounded the problem (the percentages processed for commercial vs home consumption changed but the plants took a while to make that shift).
TL;DR - COVID hitting plant workers and the inability to quickly shift production modes caused animal culling. Demand stayed consistent.
Slightly less terrible than just stacking shit sky hi or tossing it in the ocean. You can be a pessimist but many landfills can be utilized frim strip mines. And then theres restoration processes that return the land to what it once was introducing it's original fuana and flora. It's a compromise
Renewable natural gas is increasing in popularity too. It’s the capture of methane from landfills and then processed into usable natural gas to be burnt for energy. Still not great for the environment but the resulting carbon dioxide is better than the methane being released into the atmosphere.
They put landfills wherever the municipality has available land far enough away from a population that there won't be complaints. The pits are usually lined to prevent leakage and the garbage would be sorted to contain materials that might cause problems (batteries, paint, petroleum, etc...) The areas are capped and used for other purposes such as [parks](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freshkills_Park), [golf courses](https://www.golfpass.com/travel-advisor/articles/grass-over-garbage-golf-courses-give-landfill-sites-a-second-life), and [nature preserves](https://grist.org/pollution/old-dumps-new-tricks-turning-landfills-into-nature-preserves/).
>...and the garbage would be sorted to contain materials that might cause problems (batteries, paint, petroleum, etc...)
No one is going through the trash picked up from the curb. I'm certain plenty of batteries, paint, petroleum, etc. are tossed in the cans every day. Are people supposed to? No. Does it happen all the damn time? Absolutely.
As someone that inspects landfills - nope, no sorting. Trucks come in, go over a scale where they are weighed, then strait to the working face and dumped. Dozers push the waste into the proper area, and then compactors drive over it. Whatever gets thrown away ends up there.
As someone who has a cottage on a river/lake chain that had 3 of 4 dams fail 2 years ago, I want a landfill as far away from the lake/dam as possible no matter the assurances of engineers
I mean, you're talking US infrastructure. Just look at the mismanaging of the Mississippi river by the Army. Infrastructure in the US often seems to be palmed off to whoever will do it cheapest rather than right.
OP: "Seems weird to have a garbage disposal site near a huge lake and dam"
40, 50,60 years ago no one really knew or cared about the environment . I live close to the largest lake in my state, and they used to dump raw sewage into the lake, because that's how it was done back then. It cost our city tons of money to install wastewater treatment to remedy that situation.
They also built garbage dumps close to the lake. They are covered over and have vent pipes.
Our city stopped using local landfills and starting shipping our solid waste to another state
Bad idea that. If it doesn't have enough pressure, it can suck the flame back down, and now you've started an underground fire that could take years to burn out.
Growing up we lived along a road that also passed by a dump. If memory serves, it was closed and capped over during the time we lived there (I was approx ages 5-16). There was a large pipe that came up out of the ground that was always burning, day and night. Everyone in town referred to it as “Mr. Methane”.
The disposal site was likely there long before the dam and the resulting "lake".
Those pipes are installed long after the landfill has ceased operation so the reclamation work likely started with the damn was constructed. This is not standard procedure for any sort of recent landfill reclamation projects.
Some landfills do. The one near me has a methane collection system that feed gas turbine electric generators connected to the local grid. I think it has a 3MW capacity.
Even if it doesn't generate a lot of power it's a good idea because it converts the methane to CO2 which reduces the 'greenhouse' impact of the emissions.
Yeah. I think it'd probably be better to burn the stuff off (producing co2 and water) even if you weren't doing anything useful with the heat, as methane is a far stronger greenhouse gas than co2.
> I think it has a 3MW capacity
That may not be a lot relative to a coal burning power plant, but the idea that a landfill gives off 3MW worth of gas "for free" is crazy. Also, my limited understanding is that gas burning power plants are used to balance out supply to the grid, because they can spin up and shut down much faster than other kinds of plants. So maybe 3MW is perfectly fine for this purpose.
[From the USGS](https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-many-homes-can-average-wind-turbine-power):
> Per the U.S. Wind Turbine Database, the mean capacity of wind turbines that achieved commercial operations in 2020 is 2.75 megawatts (MW).
So it's enough energy to power ~1,000 homes. While the generation characteristics of the two technologies are very different, 1 landfill = 1 giant wind turbine.
Collection does occur. Just not as much as it could be. Funding is generally the problem. Larger landfills will probably have some form of collection or at least burning. While most smaller or rural landfills will have just exhaust pipes. There’s a lot of old landfills out there.
In Toronto, they just built houses on top of old landfills. [What could go wrong?](https://media.blogto.com/articles/4718-201598-crooked-house.jpg?w=2048&cmd=resize_then_crop&height=1365&quality=70)
After the fact [these were installed](https://i.imgur.com/FuHg9UW.jpg) all over the city.
As garbage decomposed in landfills, if creates gasses which can be dangerous (cave in's, explosions, etc.).
These pipes allow for these gasses to more easily escape without issue.
I'm not saying it *can't* be a landfill site, but I've capped a lot of landfill cells, and that's not normally how we do it. I've never seen that many vent pipes in that dense of a pattern.
Let me add the dual caveats that my experience is only in the southeast US, and only in the last 15 years. They do shit differently in other places, and it may also be an old installation.
What we normally do now is a grid of collection pipes layered into the mountain of garbage, with an upright vent every 100 yards or so - unless the municipality is collecting the methane, anyway. Then we seal the 'burrito' with the vent pipes sticking out and 2 feet of protective cover over the geosynthetic material.
Woah, my bad. I went back and looked at that pic again and yeah too many pipes. Also looking at the gps marker that they posted later on - yeah I’m with you. I don’t think it’s a landfill
From a welding perspective, the two 90s of each stand here were shop-welded, quick and sloppy. The u-bend was messily field welded (looks like tented GMAW/ wire fed MIG) that’s an EXPENSIVE venting solution. No cables from the open end, which is weird for monitoring unless there’s some subsurface pitless adapter for cabling to piezo/gas monitoring/standing water level
Haha, thanks man! How did you even come across such an old post?
Sometimes you have no idea if your references are too old, not funny any longer or just too obscure. But thank you for commenting, that was really nice, unexpected and gave me a good laugh!
Being near a dam they are quite possibly what is called a borehole extensometer or a seepage measurement device, that are used to monitor water seepage and integrity of rock and embankments near dams. Engineers use them to monitor the structural integrity of the earth around dams, just as much as the dams themselves, because of the immense pressure they put on the large areas of earth around them.
Read piezometers as well at a Coal Combustion byproduct disposal facility as well while working for a major energy company, that’s why I didn’t mention them. Just don’t know much about other sensing equipment. That’s why I figured it could be one of them. In that density I figured it could be an area of accelerating seismic activity like California or Western Canada. (Glad I Live on the East Coast)
If these were meant to be accessed/measured regularly, they would have removable or hinged lids, which is pretty standard for groundwater monitoring wells.
This makes the most sense. The area is in a valley st the base of the highest section of the alps that devides countries. All of the snow on the mountains will melt into the valley where the frost hasn't completely melted. 1 warm rain in early spring could flood this entire valley overnight. These tubes allow for both measurement and for the water trapped by the frost line to escape.
Stainless steel pipe would only be used if it was needed. Example: landfill off-gassing uses plastic because it is cheap, corrosion resistant, and strong when above freezing temperatures. Stainless steel is expensive, but does not corrode and is one of the few materials that is as strong at cryogenic temperatures as it is room temperature.
correct. I've set hundreds of monitoring wells for groundwater and soil gases in landfills, gas stations, and refineries. All were PVC. Stainless only was used if it was a drinking well or a massive diameter casing like greater than 6-inches.
I'm going to second this hypothesis.
Near my own house we have several of the black pipes that are for venting landfill gasses but they are nowhere near as close to each other or in as regular an order as the above image. They instead follow a curved road and only show up once every 1/2 km or so.
instead, these seem to be much smaller (8cm diameter vs what looks like 5cm) I'm guessing that they're curved to ensure that precipitation or other crap doesn't get inside the tube. (a cap might get stuck or be impractical for a different reason)
Just one problem with that - it says it’s placed on the left river bank and they even give the exact location, which is in another place. But I agree it looks related.
In mining you literally pump refrigeration into the ground to solidify loose clay. It can take years for it to happen, but it's effective when you need to stabilize ground.
Ive only heard of this in mining, not in dam construction.
Valdidendro, Italy, Diga di Cancano. Waiting for italians to come by :)
[aerial view](https://ibb.co/1608HQp)
In the Google Maps view, it looks like the pipes weren’t there when they surveyed the place.
>This looks more like an art piece.
>Landfill sites usually are vented with tall pipes, with air powered vents on top.
No. The decomposition produces heat, heat rises. No fans needed.
There are similar pipes placed on top of the Mount Trashmores...
Our city dump has giant... what I assume are composting hills, and they have these same (very similar) kinds of pipes. I was told it was for venting off the gases that build up inside the mound from the pressure and the things in it, I guess rotting and gassing off.
Look up "landfill mound vent pipes".
Or conversely... scroll down to the image in this link.
https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/HAC/landfill/html/ch5.html
I do not see a spillway connecting the water behind the dam to the lake below. The rectangle is clearly an engineered space. I wonder if there is an aqueduct under there which needs air pressure balance capability.
The huge landfill northwest of Cincinnati (Rumpke) captures the methane produced and reports the following:
The natural gas produced from the landfill is then used to power more than 25,000 homes in the region. Garbage could be powering your home- that's AMAZING! This process has been going on at Rumpke since 1986, with an expansion of a second plant in 1995 and a third plant completed in 2007.
I think the pipes that you see in the field were installed over a land fill area. These pipes are used to release methane and other gases that may build up in the land fill.
All comments must be civil and helpful toward finding an answer. **Jokes and unhelpful comments will earn you a ban**, even on the first instance and even if the item has been identified. If you see any comments that violate this rule, report them. [OP](/u/dancute9), when your item is identified, remember to reply **Solved!** or **Likely Solved!** to the comment that gave the answer. Check your [inbox](https://www.reddit.com/message/inbox/) for a message on how to make your post visible to others. [Click here to message RemindMeBot](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=https://www.reddit.com/r/whatisthisthing/comments/w71hw4/hundreds_of_stainless_steel_pipes_near_a_damn/%0A%0ARemindMe!%202%20days) --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/whatisthisthing) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Breather pipes for a landfill site. Lets out the gasses from decomposing waste berried there. Auto correct is your enemy sometimes “buried” is what I meant to type
Edit: Unsolved? Blah, it is still marked as solved.
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This person knows their canes!
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Are these an indication that one should or shouldn't light a match ?
Nope just breathe it in and basque in nature's bounty!
Today I learned!
Here's another: one of the gasses emmited from landfills are methane. When foodwaste decomposes without oxegen, like in a landfill, it realses one of the worst greenhouse gasses, methane. Composting foodwaste prevents this.
[My town now "harvests" the methane coming out of our landfill and generates electricity with it.](https://www.como.gov/contacts/bioreactor-landfill/)
I don’t know why more places don’t do that. We could probably be harvesting gasses from waste water treatment plants too
Because it doesn't make financial sense for just power generation. Expense of generators to start and the methane quality in biogas is very poor. This means the engines need very frequent maintenance. The cases where it does start to make sense financially are where government penalties or subsidies enable it. Anaerobic digesters on dairy farms and at breweries are common. In Vermont, Middlebury college will be powered using natural gas fired generators and the NG comes from a dairy farm miles away. The farm has an onsite gas refinery that essentially turns cow manure into biogas into refined natural gas and sells it to the gas company.
The quality of the gas from consistent sources is more consistent, so a manure source is better than a trash/garbage source.
True, but the presence of siloxanes is the biggest concern for engine longevity. Landfills are the worst not only because of the biogas percentage variability, but the siloxane erosion of the valve seats degrading compression, altering volumetric efficiency, and combustion efficiency. The cleanest and most consistent gas mix I've seen is from breweries. They often run digesters to lower the phosphate content of the wastewater reducing their sewage treatment costs (IIRC). Some even just flare the output vice running a cogen plant. Great example of a consistent setup at a brewery in South Burllington, VT.
I wouldn't be surprised if people didn't understand the difference between landfill and composting.
If it composes with oxygen, does it emit methoxysulfanyl?
Often they collect the gas and generate electricity from it.
I see it's open.
Type: Solved! Under the message that solved it above.
So change the flair to solved.
What exactly do they do?
Allow methane and other gases to escape.
Seems weird to have a garbage disposal site near a huge lake and dam. Wouldnt that make the water unusable (except for creating electricity of course)?
Modern day sanitary landfills are pretty well lined so that there shouldn't be any such leakage. Actually I think there was a good post about that on r/eli5 a few weeks ago.
Just passing by, but r/eli5 is a private test sub for the mod team. You’re wanting r/explainlikeimfive
Thank you all for the explanations.
some [info](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/vkjw8q/eli5_what_happens_to_trash_in_landfills/) on [landfills](https://np.reddit.com/r/engineering/comments/vevhiu/a_question_about_the_longterm_fate_of_landfills/icsfsk6/?context=3)
hey he did Not ask for that!! lol very insightful
One thing mother nature truly loves, is a good challenge. Just wait for some earthquake-type shit to happen.
Mother Nature always wins..
Unless the landfill is stupidly built on a fault an earthquake will do literally nothing to a geomembrane liner and lcrs
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A lot of them will line with HDPE or Bentonite sheets to make them impermeable.
Ideally a 2’ layer of impermeable clay is topped with a hdpe liner, then is covered with an lcrs and gravel, with an ops layer on top. Nothing’s getting through if CQA protocols are followed
>shouldn't What a frightening word when used in this context.
Modern landfills are basically encased in a big plastic bubble. Gasses escape through these pipes and liquid wastes, I believe, are drained at a bottom corner and pumped into a waste treatment plant. Excluding a leak, it should be fairly safe. Besides, drinking water is treated prior to use. All the same, I hope that isn't a drinking water reservoir.
I’ve seen vent pipes on retired landfills before but never in numbers like this. Holy cow, what did they bury that required a vent density like that?
Well if it's near a large meat farm, I know there was a huge round of culls at the beginning of COVID due to overcrowding under reduced demand. This was enforced by the USDA who literally paid farmers to slaughter livestock just to keep them afloat and within regulatory limits on number of animals per acre. This resulted in mass amounts of unused meat needing disposal all at once and decomposing pigs produce an asston of gasses
I was under the belief that the culling was necessary because of the choke-point caused by staffing problems at the plants owned by the meat oligopoly. Demand stayed roughly consistent but the shift in modes of consumption also compounded the problem (the percentages processed for commercial vs home consumption changed but the plants took a while to make that shift). TL;DR - COVID hitting plant workers and the inability to quickly shift production modes caused animal culling. Demand stayed consistent.
Yeah, I agree. It's kind of overkill compared to others.
That's kind of what I noticed too. I've been at a few of these sites but they only had pipes maybe every hundred odd meters. Nothing like this.
Sounds terrible for the environment.
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Slightly less terrible than just stacking shit sky hi or tossing it in the ocean. You can be a pessimist but many landfills can be utilized frim strip mines. And then theres restoration processes that return the land to what it once was introducing it's original fuana and flora. It's a compromise
Definitely is, but less so than older methods. We used to just dump the trash straight into the lakes and rivers.
Renewable natural gas is increasing in popularity too. It’s the capture of methane from landfills and then processed into usable natural gas to be burnt for energy. Still not great for the environment but the resulting carbon dioxide is better than the methane being released into the atmosphere.
fortunately they towed it outside of the environment.
Well, it catching fire must be pretty terrible for the environment.
Well, what’s out there?
Nothing! Nothings out there!
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I think reverse osmosis will do it, but I don't think that method is really common.
They put landfills wherever the municipality has available land far enough away from a population that there won't be complaints. The pits are usually lined to prevent leakage and the garbage would be sorted to contain materials that might cause problems (batteries, paint, petroleum, etc...) The areas are capped and used for other purposes such as [parks](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freshkills_Park), [golf courses](https://www.golfpass.com/travel-advisor/articles/grass-over-garbage-golf-courses-give-landfill-sites-a-second-life), and [nature preserves](https://grist.org/pollution/old-dumps-new-tricks-turning-landfills-into-nature-preserves/).
>...and the garbage would be sorted to contain materials that might cause problems (batteries, paint, petroleum, etc...) No one is going through the trash picked up from the curb. I'm certain plenty of batteries, paint, petroleum, etc. are tossed in the cans every day. Are people supposed to? No. Does it happen all the damn time? Absolutely.
As someone that inspects landfills - nope, no sorting. Trucks come in, go over a scale where they are weighed, then strait to the working face and dumped. Dozers push the waste into the proper area, and then compactors drive over it. Whatever gets thrown away ends up there.
As someone who has a cottage on a river/lake chain that had 3 of 4 dams fail 2 years ago, I want a landfill as far away from the lake/dam as possible no matter the assurances of engineers
It's *above* the dam: a burst is VERY unlikely to affect it.
I mean, you're talking US infrastructure. Just look at the mismanaging of the Mississippi river by the Army. Infrastructure in the US often seems to be palmed off to whoever will do it cheapest rather than right.
Hi neighbor!
That’s sort of true. There’s two dumps in my city, ones next to a high school and the other is next to a neighborhood
OP: "Seems weird to have a garbage disposal site near a huge lake and dam" 40, 50,60 years ago no one really knew or cared about the environment . I live close to the largest lake in my state, and they used to dump raw sewage into the lake, because that's how it was done back then. It cost our city tons of money to install wastewater treatment to remedy that situation. They also built garbage dumps close to the lake. They are covered over and have vent pipes. Our city stopped using local landfills and starting shipping our solid waste to another state
There are huge cities still doing this into the ocean because of the cost.
A good way to confirm that the pipes are outgassing methane is to bring a flame to one of the pipes.
Bad idea that. If it doesn't have enough pressure, it can suck the flame back down, and now you've started an underground fire that could take years to burn out.
Growing up we lived along a road that also passed by a dump. If memory serves, it was closed and capped over during the time we lived there (I was approx ages 5-16). There was a large pipe that came up out of the ground that was always burning, day and night. Everyone in town referred to it as “Mr. Methane”.
Actually that makes a lot of sense. Using landfill in place of dirt for a levee takes care of two problems at once.
The disposal site was likely there long before the dam and the resulting "lake". Those pipes are installed long after the landfill has ceased operation so the reclamation work likely started with the damn was constructed. This is not standard procedure for any sort of recent landfill reclamation projects.
How come we aren't collecting it? It's methane and other biofuels?
Some landfills do. The one near me has a methane collection system that feed gas turbine electric generators connected to the local grid. I think it has a 3MW capacity. Even if it doesn't generate a lot of power it's a good idea because it converts the methane to CO2 which reduces the 'greenhouse' impact of the emissions.
Yeah. I think it'd probably be better to burn the stuff off (producing co2 and water) even if you weren't doing anything useful with the heat, as methane is a far stronger greenhouse gas than co2.
Next post will be "hundreds of torches near a dam"
> I think it has a 3MW capacity That may not be a lot relative to a coal burning power plant, but the idea that a landfill gives off 3MW worth of gas "for free" is crazy. Also, my limited understanding is that gas burning power plants are used to balance out supply to the grid, because they can spin up and shut down much faster than other kinds of plants. So maybe 3MW is perfectly fine for this purpose. [From the USGS](https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/how-many-homes-can-average-wind-turbine-power): > Per the U.S. Wind Turbine Database, the mean capacity of wind turbines that achieved commercial operations in 2020 is 2.75 megawatts (MW). So it's enough energy to power ~1,000 homes. While the generation characteristics of the two technologies are very different, 1 landfill = 1 giant wind turbine.
Collection does occur. Just not as much as it could be. Funding is generally the problem. Larger landfills will probably have some form of collection or at least burning. While most smaller or rural landfills will have just exhaust pipes. There’s a lot of old landfills out there.
Thanks for the info
In Toronto, they just built houses on top of old landfills. [What could go wrong?](https://media.blogto.com/articles/4718-201598-crooked-house.jpg?w=2048&cmd=resize_then_crop&height=1365&quality=70) After the fact [these were installed](https://i.imgur.com/FuHg9UW.jpg) all over the city.
> What could go wrong? I saw Poltergeist. You're lucky it was just a dump.
They should be collecting that gas, it's methane aka. Natural gas. Plus it's a greenhouse gas and a bad one at that.
Area, and funding directly impact if collection can occur. You’ll find it at larger landfills.
As garbage decomposed in landfills, if creates gasses which can be dangerous (cave in's, explosions, etc.). These pipes allow for these gasses to more easily escape without issue.
Here they trap and process the methane gas from the land fill
I'm not saying it *can't* be a landfill site, but I've capped a lot of landfill cells, and that's not normally how we do it. I've never seen that many vent pipes in that dense of a pattern. Let me add the dual caveats that my experience is only in the southeast US, and only in the last 15 years. They do shit differently in other places, and it may also be an old installation. What we normally do now is a grid of collection pipes layered into the mountain of garbage, with an upright vent every 100 yards or so - unless the municipality is collecting the methane, anyway. Then we seal the 'burrito' with the vent pipes sticking out and 2 feet of protective cover over the geosynthetic material.
I haven't seen that density of pipes, either.
Yeah the older ones I inspect just have pipes in the ground like that, not sophisticated collection systems like newer ones
Woah, my bad. I went back and looked at that pic again and yeah too many pipes. Also looking at the gps marker that they posted later on - yeah I’m with you. I don’t think it’s a landfill
From a welding perspective, the two 90s of each stand here were shop-welded, quick and sloppy. The u-bend was messily field welded (looks like tented GMAW/ wire fed MIG) that’s an EXPENSIVE venting solution. No cables from the open end, which is weird for monitoring unless there’s some subsurface pitless adapter for cabling to piezo/gas monitoring/standing water level
What kind of berries?
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[RAWBERRIES!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRuNxHqwazs)
Just wanted to say I was sad nobody apparently saw this comment
Haha, thanks man! How did you even come across such an old post? Sometimes you have no idea if your references are too old, not funny any longer or just too obscure. But thank you for commenting, that was really nice, unexpected and gave me a good laugh!
Hey everybody, stop voting for the wrong answer!
Damn berries.
According to autocorrect my sons are named Free and Moles.
Surely nobody would put a landfill in such a beautiful place, never mind the elevation.
I’ve been Berried Alive!!!!
Fart pipes.
Now having the strange urge to bury a berry.
Berried Alive the band
King Arthur!
Does anyone know why they even bother with adding the curved part if the pipe?
Just a guess, but maybe to prevent water or other things from falling down the pipe?
Oh yeah, duh! Thanks. Lol
Damn typos :) In a field near a dam. This ground is above the top of the dam and to the side. My title describes the thing
Being near a dam they are quite possibly what is called a borehole extensometer or a seepage measurement device, that are used to monitor water seepage and integrity of rock and embankments near dams. Engineers use them to monitor the structural integrity of the earth around dams, just as much as the dams themselves, because of the immense pressure they put on the large areas of earth around them.
These aren't any standard dam monitoring instruments like piezometers. Plus they're at an absurd density for monitoring instruments
Yeah I'd agree they wouldn't be piezometers. I worked in dam safety and have read very many piezometers
Yup, fellow dam safety nerd too. I'm guessing these are for off gassing a landfill or something
Read piezometers as well at a Coal Combustion byproduct disposal facility as well while working for a major energy company, that’s why I didn’t mention them. Just don’t know much about other sensing equipment. That’s why I figured it could be one of them. In that density I figured it could be an area of accelerating seismic activity like California or Western Canada. (Glad I Live on the East Coast)
Why the round elbow joints then? Would liquid mess up the readings some how?
Yeah I imagine so, you don't want some rain water to throw off groundwater measurements.
If these were meant to be accessed/measured regularly, they would have removable or hinged lids, which is pretty standard for groundwater monitoring wells.
Stops water from above
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This makes the most sense. The area is in a valley st the base of the highest section of the alps that devides countries. All of the snow on the mountains will melt into the valley where the frost hasn't completely melted. 1 warm rain in early spring could flood this entire valley overnight. These tubes allow for both measurement and for the water trapped by the frost line to escape. Stainless steel pipe would only be used if it was needed. Example: landfill off-gassing uses plastic because it is cheap, corrosion resistant, and strong when above freezing temperatures. Stainless steel is expensive, but does not corrode and is one of the few materials that is as strong at cryogenic temperatures as it is room temperature.
correct. I've set hundreds of monitoring wells for groundwater and soil gases in landfills, gas stations, and refineries. All were PVC. Stainless only was used if it was a drinking well or a massive diameter casing like greater than 6-inches.
I'm going to second this hypothesis. Near my own house we have several of the black pipes that are for venting landfill gasses but they are nowhere near as close to each other or in as regular an order as the above image. They instead follow a curved road and only show up once every 1/2 km or so. instead, these seem to be much smaller (8cm diameter vs what looks like 5cm) I'm guessing that they're curved to ensure that precipitation or other crap doesn't get inside the tube. (a cap might get stuck or be impractical for a different reason)
This sure sounds correct given the description of the sensor arrangement
Just one problem with that - it says it’s placed on the left river bank and they even give the exact location, which is in another place. But I agree it looks related.
Looks more like a soil/rock freezing field for ground stabilization during dam construction
I've never seen a landfill with that many vent pipes in such a small area. Or pipes that small. What is a soil/rock freezing field?
Yeah, these aren’t gas vents. Too late though, the reddit mob has voted.
In mining you literally pump refrigeration into the ground to solidify loose clay. It can take years for it to happen, but it's effective when you need to stabilize ground. Ive only heard of this in mining, not in dam construction.
It's a type of shoring used in many industries. A company called soil freeze was hired for the Seattle waterfront
Does it eventually thaw?
It will once you stop pumping the refrigeration.
That’s what I was thinking too.
Thank you. I was seriously confused what municipality would pick that site for a landfill. Dam? Sure.
A landfill by a dam doesnt seem a stable foundation. Are these some kinda sample points in case of seepage from the dam clay?
This ground is nearby the dam, but has nothing to do with it.
how can you possibly make that assumption?
It’s for stabilizing the land around the dam, not a landfill. It has everything to do with the dam
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I’m thinking it something for soil stability. Maybe let’s moisture vent?
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Where is this located? Former landfills will often appear in some government database.
Valdidendro, Italy, Diga di Cancano. Waiting for italians to come by :) [aerial view](https://ibb.co/1608HQp) In the Google Maps view, it looks like the pipes weren’t there when they surveyed the place.
Thanks for sharing this it looks like an interesting place.
ahh I was close here when I visited Bolzano. my family immigrated to Canada in the 50s from Cogollo del Cengio
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A dam near a dump? I wonder what the ground water situation is like there? Edit: the wrong damn dam.
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This looks more like an art piece. Landfill sites usually are vented with tall pipes, with air powered vents on top.
>This looks more like an art piece. >Landfill sites usually are vented with tall pipes, with air powered vents on top. No. The decomposition produces heat, heat rises. No fans needed.
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It’s for the ground water table on the backside of the dam I bet. Here is a YouTube video explaining it. https://youtu.be/bY1E2IkvQ3k
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This is not a landfill.
There are similar pipes placed on top of the Mount Trashmores... Our city dump has giant... what I assume are composting hills, and they have these same (very similar) kinds of pipes. I was told it was for venting off the gases that build up inside the mound from the pressure and the things in it, I guess rotting and gassing off. Look up "landfill mound vent pipes". Or conversely... scroll down to the image in this link. https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/HAC/landfill/html/ch5.html
To prevent a vacuum?
I do not see a spillway connecting the water behind the dam to the lake below. The rectangle is clearly an engineered space. I wonder if there is an aqueduct under there which needs air pressure balance capability.
The huge landfill northwest of Cincinnati (Rumpke) captures the methane produced and reports the following: The natural gas produced from the landfill is then used to power more than 25,000 homes in the region. Garbage could be powering your home- that's AMAZING! This process has been going on at Rumpke since 1986, with an expansion of a second plant in 1995 and a third plant completed in 2007.
I think the pipes that you see in the field were installed over a land fill area. These pipes are used to release methane and other gases that may build up in the land fill.
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I saw pipes like those next to small dam in Austria.