‘Greenhouse gas’ projects could rake in big profits

County looks to convert landfill methane into electricity; Laytonsville has concerns about the Oaks

The decomposition of landfill waste generates gas which is ‘‘theoretically equal parts carbon dioxide and methane,” Lezinski said.

Since construction of the Oaks Landfill in 1989, gas has been collected in specially drilled wells and burned at 98 percent efficiency. Now the county wants to use two large engines to convert the methane gas to electricity to sell to Pepco, which services the area and has the most accessible power connections. The conversion process will also integrate a flare that will burn the carbon dioxide.

Estimates from the federal Environmental Protection Agency show the projects could reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 13,000 tons a year, the equivalent of saving 11.6 million gallons of gas or powering 1,526 homes, he said.

‘‘I think we want to start putting energy on the grid July 2009,” Lezinski said.

But Laytonsville residents are concerned about noise and the ‘‘industrial use” on rural zoning and parkland.

‘‘If the county is going to do it, then they’re going to have to make it acceptable to us,” said Dr. Charles Jaffers, who has been fighting issues surrounding the Oaks Landfill, located at Route 108 and Fieldcrest Road, for more than 25 years. ‘‘We want to see better and more accurate testing to what the conditions may be.”

The public works department plans to install a continuously operating, gas conversion facility at Oaks Landfill and resume a similar operation at Gude Landfill at 600 E. Gude Drive, which had a conversion facility for 21 years until 2006, when its private owner closed.

Installation at the Oaks will begin later this year, following operations and equipment start-up testing, Lezinski said.

‘‘We should see $7 million [profit] in about seven to 10 years,” he said. ‘‘It all depends on how much gas continues to be generated and electricity prices – either could fluctuate.”

The county has a 30-year obligation to operate the 550-acre Oaks property, which closed its 170-acre landfill in 2001, said Peter Karasik, a section chief with the public works department.

Mary Ellen D’Anna of Laytonsville fears engine noise at Oaks will disturb the area’s tranquility.

The conversion engines operate at 85 and 65 decibels and will sit on concrete slabs inside a tractor-trailer behind an up to 40-foot earthen berm, Lezinski said.

To test the anticipated sound impact, engineers ran a lawnmower generating 85 decibels and monitored the noise level 670 feet away. It registered about 50 decibels, Lezinski said. The closest house to the Oaks generator site is 1,500 feet away, he said.

County code restricts noise levels to no more than 65 decibels by day and 55 decibels at night in residential areas.

‘‘They used a lawnmower that they called a heavy piece of agricultural equipment and said it was the same [as running the engines], but we don’t think it is the same,” Jaffers said.

He wants the engines tested and monitored at 1 a.m. The county test was conducted in the late afternoon, Lezinski said.

Noise is less of a concern for residents of Derwood Station South, which is adjacent to the Gude Landfill. The neighborhood has a high-level of regular traffic noise and residents have greater fears about county plans to move a school bus depot from Crabbs Branch Way to the landfill site on Gude Drive, Karasik said.

The county submitted a memo on the Oaks project last week to the Maryland-National Parks and Planning Commission, which has dubbed a buffer zone around the landfill as ‘‘woodland conservation area” and has plans to link it to Rachel Carson Conservation Park and Rock Creek Park.

The parks commission is considering an equestrian center in the buffer zone and noise from the generators could disturb the horses, as well as interfere with bird watching, D’Anna said.

Have your say

A public hearing on Gude Landfill will be held at 7 p.m. on June 10 at the Rockville Library, 21 Maryland Ave. The Oaks Landfill hearing is at 7 p.m. on June 11 at the Olney Library, 3500 Olney-Laytonsville Road.

For more information, call 301-926-1283.