“Methane stays in place for 10 years instead of 100 years, but it has 100 times the impact of carbon emissions,” state Rep. Davina Duerr, D-Bothell, said at a Jan. 10 hearing on her proposal, House Bill 1663, The bill, which has passed both houses of the Legislature, aims at regulating the capture of methane emissions from Washington landfills.
“This bill is way overdue,” said Heather Trim, executive director of Zero Waste Washington. “Methane is one of the most impactful greenhouse gases,” said Deepa Sivarajan, Washington policy manager with Climate Solutions.
The anaerobic decomposition of organic wastes in landfills creates methane, which is lighter than air and rises out of the landfill unless capture systems are in place. “A landfill is going to contain gas. It’s like a sponge,” Trim said. When methane is captured, it can be used instead as fuel.
A capture system employs a vacuum inside the landfill to draw the rising gas back down through pipes to a storage location. There, the methane is processed into natural gas or burned off in a flare system. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that current technology can capture 60% to 90% of a landfill’s methane emissions.
Methane accounted for 10% of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2019, according to the EPA. The agency’s figures show that landfills account for 17% of the nation’s emitted methane, behind fossil fuel production at 30% and livestock-related emissions from manure, burps and farts at 27%. A 2021 Penn State University study concluded that the EPA might be underestimating the nation’s methane emissions.
Methane from Washington’s landfills are approximately 2.4% of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions — roughly equal to the yearly emissions from 320,000 cars — according to a 2021 Washington State Department of Ecology report.
The Washington House passed Duerr’s bill on Feb 11 and the Senate on March 4.
State Rep. Mary Dye, R-Pomeroy, and the GOP environmental issues leader in the House, argued it is a mistake to regulate methane in landfills before potential improvements in gas-capture technology are completed.
“This bill is going into an area that we have not thoroughly vetted on their impacts to the communities. … When you put a regulation in, you stop innovation at that moment,” she said in a Feb. 11 floor debate.
Duerr’s bill would require the owner or operator of an active covered landfill with 450,000 tons or more of waste in place to estimate the quantity of gas generated by the landfill. The same requirements would apply to closed landfills holding at least 750,000 tons of waste. Washington has 24 landfills that store more than 450,000 tons, according to the Ecology Department. And it has at least a couple dozen — mostly closed — that store less than 450,000 tons.
If a landfill’s emissions estimates exceed 3 million British thermal units per hour, the operator would have to install and operate a gas collection and control system. A collection system would also be required if methane emissions reach 500 parts per million. The bill does not apply to landfills that handle solely hazardous wastes or only inert waste or nondecomposable wastes — such as dirt, concrete, rocks and bricks.
