Anyone who's been to or even by a landfill knows it can have a certain aroma. Lately, though, some of Maryland's landfills have begun to smell like money.
Businesses and local governments are teaming up to generate electricity or steam from the methane gas produced by decomposing garbage buried in landfills. The move is prompted by rising natural gas prices, federal tax breaks and recently enacted state requirements, but it also helps combat a major environmental problem - global climate change - by curbing releases of harmful "greenhouse" gases that trap heat in Earth's atmosphere.
Earlier this week, Anne Arundel County officials announced plans to sell Fort Meade the gas yielded by the county's 564-acre landfill in Millersville. If a deal can be struck, the gas would be piped five miles to the Army base and burned to produce heat or electricity for a new building planned to handle an influx of new workers expected in the next few years.
"We're just trying to make money off of some of our waste products," said James Pittman, deputy director of Anne Arundel's waste management services.
Meanwhile, without any fanfare, three massive engines have begun to generate up to 3 megawatts of electricity - enough to power 1,900 homes - from the methane-laden gas collected at Baltimore County's Eastern Sanitary Landfill near White Marsh.
And city officials say they are entertaining several suitors for the gas building up in the 149-acre Quarantine Road landfill in South Baltimore. The overseer of the city's waste disposal figures the fumes, now treated as an air pollutant or potential safety hazard, could yield millions of dollars worth of energy - and savings for taxpayers.
"This has been a quixotic quest of mine for a few years now," said Mark Wick, chief of the city's solid waste environmental services. He calls it a potential "win-win situation."
For years, operators of landfills have been required to monitor, collect and vent or burn the fumes produced by the millions of tons of garbage buried in them. Landfill gas is about 50 percent methane, the main ingredient in natural gas, and it has caused explosions and fires when it has seeped into nearby buildings.
Long-term gain
Methane is produced in landfills as microorganisms feed on the organic matter in garbage - such as food scraps - and break it down into its chemical components. The anaerobic, or airless, decomposition goes on for years, so a landfill can continue producing methane long after it gets filled with garbage and is closed.
