NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
RENO COUNTY — The Board of County Commissioners approved an item to keep methane gas emissions in compliance with EPA and KDHE regulations as part of its meeting on Tuesday.
Reno County Municipal Solid Waste Landfill Facility conducts quarterly surface methane emissions monitoring at the landfill as required by EPA and KDHE. Surface emissions monitoring consists of using a calibrated instrument to scan the landfill cover and penetrations (such as around gas wells, sumps, etc.) for methane leaching through the cover and into the atmosphere. The threshold for a reportable exceedance is 500 parts per million.
In the last year, there has been an initial exceedance detected in every quarter from the 3rd Quarter 2022 through the 2nd Quarter 2023. After an initial exceedance, corrective actions (such as adjusting the waste cover or turning up the surrounding wells) are taken. The location is re-monitored within 10 days and again 10 days after that (if the first 10-day re-monitoring resulted in an exceedance). All locations are monitored again for a one month recheck.
If three exceedances are detected at a location in one quarter, then a notification is submitted to KDHE and – in accordance with 40 CFR 63.1960 (c)(4)(v) – a new well must be installed within 120 days of the initial exceedance.
The facility can submit an alternative remedy request in lieu of installing a new well. Two locations have had three exceedances in a quarter resulting in a notification being submitted to KDHE. In the third quarter of 2022 a notification was submitted to KDHE for Well 63, and in the fourth quarter of 2022 a notification was submitted for Well 78.
"There's six new wells total that we will be re-drilling," said Megan Davidson, Landfill Director. "Some of these wells, they have what we call, watered in. We have to pump these wells and get the water out of these wells. We're going to put pneumatic pumps inside these wells that will actually pump themselves so we don't have to manually pump the wells ourselves and do all the manual work that goes with it. There's a lot of new linear footage of pipe that we'll have to put in with these, as well, to help on the flow of the methane. It's an older well field, within time, it creates problems. It's just part of maintenance of a gas collection system."
The RFP for companies to potentially use the methane generated by the gas collection system is still out, but Davidson said nothing they are doing will get in the way of that.
"When we get all of that back, a developer wouldn't want to have to come in and fix it," Davidson said. "It could help on the methane generation, yes, what we've got for methane and what's going in on the wells. It just depends on what developers we get and what they want to do with it."
The cost of the project is not to exceed $532,077. The motion passed unanimously.
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