Move Made to Cut Dump Emissions : Air District to Require Monitoring, Gas Collection Systems

The South Coast Air Quality Management District moved Friday to curb polluting gas emissions from landfills by requiring operators to monitor their dumps for escaping gas and to install or upgrade gas collection systems over the next 3 1/2 years.

Air quality officials estimated that the new regulation, adopted by a 12-1 vote of the district board, will eventually cut emissions of certain polluting gases by 7.8 tons a day. These include gases that react with sunlight to form ozone and toxic gases, such as benzene and vinyl chloride, which are known to cause cancer at high exposure levels.

Although the rule focuses on the polluting gases, it will have the effect of restricting seepage of explosive methane, which is produced in large quantities as trash decomposes and often contains small amounts of toxic gases.

“By eliminating most of the methane, we’ll automatically get everything else along with it,” said Arthur Segal, engineering manager with the district’s Rule Development Division.

Comply With Rule

The regulation will cover an estimated 54 active public and privately owned landfills in Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside counties. District officials said about a dozen of the landfills already have gas collection systems but that some will have to be improved to comply with the rule. Many of the systems collect methane for sale as fuel.

An official said the district staff hopes a companion rule, pertaining to an estimated 350 inactive landfills, will be presented to the board later this year.

The only dissenting board vote was cast by William Smiland, an attorney appointed by Gov. George Deukmejian, who questioned what the rule would accomplish.

The rule sets numerical limits for the amount of methane in the air above landfills.

Toxic Gases

In addition, all landfill operators will have to submit quarterly reports to the air district on the amount of toxic gases in landfill emissions.

Gas collection systems will have to be installed or expanded at landfills that do not meet the numerical methane limits, and landfill operators will have until Oct. 1 to submit plans to the air district showing how they will comply. However, dump operators will have until Jan. 1, 1989, to have new gas collection systems constructed and operating.

Air district officials said it will cost roughly $600,000 to install a gas collection system in a 50-acre landfill covered with 100 feet of trash. Such systems include wells, piping and blowers or pumps to remove the gas, plus flares to burn the methane if it is not being recovered for fuel.

Gym Closed

The regulation probably would not have prevented the methane gas buildup that forced Los Angeles school officials to close the gymnasium at Francis Polytechnic High School in Sun Valley on March 28. The gas seeped several hundred feet underground and into the gym from the Sheldon-Arleta landfill, an inactive city dump.

The landfill has a gas collection system, but a pocket of gas escaped when a dump employee mistakenly closed a valve, thus shutting off some of the gas collection wells, according to city sanitation officials.