–From the Herald-Citizen–

PUTNAM COUNTY — Putnam County is hoping to find money in the recent economic stimulus to help upgrade several county buildings to make them more energy efficient.  County Executive Kim Blaylock told the land and facilities committee recently, “There is grant money available through the stimulus for energy projects. I think we need to move forward if at all possible.”

Putnam County spends $458,000 per year in utilities. An energy audit by Siemens Building Technologies, Inc. estimates changes in the lighting systems and possible upgrades to mechanical systems could save the county $81,901 each year.  See the full article in the Citizen Herald here.

There is a series of excellent articles in the February 28th edition of the magazine, “The Economist”
The special report on waste has seven articles that address the state of garbage from a global perspective. These articles cover a wide range of topics from an economic and global market perspective.
Topics:
You are what you throw away—the anthropology of garbage
Down in the dumps–managing waste properly is expensive
A better hole–the charms of modern landfills
The appliance of science-trash goes high-tech
Round and round it goes–Recycling is good, but it costs
Muck and brass–the waste business smells of money
Less is more–tackling the problem at source

Grab your reading glasses and follow the link below.
The Economist Special Report on Waste

Travel budgets are tight, so we are picking the events we are attending this year carefully.  Below are several upcoming solid waste related training events you may want to check on if you have the option.

• First, SWANA will host a Landfill Management Symposium in Savannah, GA.  The conference takes place between June 1st and June 4th, 2009.  There is ample opportunity to obtain Certification CEU’s by attending this event.  See this link for more information on the Savannah Landfill Conference.

• TDEC is sponsoring it’s yearly Landfill Operator’s Course.  This class will be held March 30 through April 2, 2009 at the Fleming Training Center in Murfreesboro, TN.  This is the basic training class held for new operators that need certification as well as certified operators that want to obtain additional credit hours for re-certification.  More information on this course can be found here.

• Last, the 38th annual Solid and Hazardous Waste Conference will be in Gatlinburg this year. The dates for this year’s conference are April 29th through May 1st.  If you haven’t registered, check out the registration info here.

The Landfill Methane Outreach Program identifies over 400 sites nationwide as potential sources for Methane-to-Energy projects. Read about a new Jersey success story here. The article also notes the possibility for co-locating wind turbines on landfill footprints.

Nearby Haywood County in Western North Carolina has also implemented a Methane-to-Energy Program. See this link for information on the Haywood County Site.

More information on Clean Energy Strategies for Local Governments found here.
http://epa.gov/cleanenergy/documents/7.4_landfill_methane_utilization.pdf

Did you miss this article in MSW Management? The author focuses on reporting methods, pricing the cost of a landfill’s airspace “inventory,” determining the break-even point, and the application of standard financial ratios. For those of us who are NOT accountants this is a good review of the financial concepts involved in managing landfills cost-effectively. See the full link to the MSW management magazine article here.

–Copied in entirety from SWANA November Members Newsletter–
In October, three significant actions were taken that will effect municipal solid waste operations throughout the United States. As the impacts of these actions play out, look for future communications from SWANA to keep you up-to-date and informed on the decisions that are impacting your operations.

President Signs Rail-Based Transfer Station Legislation

On October 16, 2008, the President signed into law the Clean Railroads Act of 2008. This legislation closes the loophole that has allowed solid waste transfer stations to operate unregulated along rail lines. Under previous law these facilities were under the jurisdiction of the Surface Transportation Board, which had no infrastructure to monitor them, but the new law will require these facilities to adhere to state and federal standards.

For more information on the law see October’s MSW Solutions.

EPA Updates Definition of Solid Waste

On October 7, 2008, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a final rule updating the definition of solid waste. This ruling would change the definition so that hazardous materials sent to recycling or reclamation facilities would not be considered solid waste, and thus would be exempt from the Subtitle C hazardous waste regulations. The goal of this rule is to encourage recycling of hazardous materials and the USEPA estimates that this change would exclude 1.5 million tons of hazardous materials from the Resource Conversation and Recovery Act’s hazardous waste regulations.

It is not clear what impact this change would have on municipal solid waste management facilities such as Subtitle D landfills, transfer stations, Waste-to-Energy facilities or Material Recycling Facilities. If these excluded materials actually go to bona-fide hazardous materials recycling operations there would be no impact on municipal solid waste management facilities. If, however, this creates a loophole through which hazardous materials escape regulation, they may find their way to municipal solid waste facilities or, even worse, be open dumped.

This rule makes waste screening at municipal solid waste facilities even more important. Municipal solid waste managers need to know where their wastes are coming from and need to put in place practices to detect and screen out prohibited materials.

The materials targeted are “hazardous secondary materials” and are generated mostly through metals and solvents recycling. The rule excludes materials from the federal hazardous waste system that are:

* generated and legitimately reclaimed under the control of the generator;
* generated and transferred to another company for legitimate reclamation under specific conditions; or
* determined by EPA or an authorized state to be non-wastes on a case-by-case basis via a petition process.

Not regulating them would save the USEPA millions in regulatory costs and would ease the regulatory burden on legitimate recyclers. However, we need to be vigilant to assure that they do not have an unintended adverse effect on the municipal solid waste practices.

The rule will become effective on December 29th.

EPA to be Sued by Environmental Group

On October 23, 2008, the Environmental Defense Fund announced its intentions to sue the Environmental Protection Agency for failure to update their air pollution standards for landfills. According to Section 111(b)(1)(B) of the Clean Air Act the EPA must review its new source performance standards every eight years. The last time these standards were updated was in 1996.

Section 111 of the Clean Air Act requires EPA to set a best demonstrated technology standard for controlling emissions. EDF’s position is that technology has advanced significantly over the past decade and the new standards should reflect these changes. In 1996, methane emitted from landfills was mostly controlled by flaring. Today, much of this methane can be captured to create energy.

EPA’s Landfill Methane Outreach Program has been working with small landfills to harness this potential energy.

EPA has 60 days to respond to EDF’s notice, a copy of which can be found here http://edf.org/documents/8713_NOILandfillNSPSOct2008.pdf.

–Forwarded by Multiple Sources–
Dear SWANA Division Members,
On Friday, October 3, 2008, the President signed into law H.R. 1424 - The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. After failing to reach consensus with the House after a number of tries, the Senate added the full language of their tax extension legislation as an amendment to this bailout bill. The Senate approved this bill on October 1, 74-25 and despite some initial uncertainty, this bill was quickly taken up by the House and passed 263-171, after which it quickly moved to the White House.

The bill included a two year extension of the production tax credit for WTE and LFG as well as other renewable sources of energy. The placed in service date is now December 31, 2010. As part of this law, the credit facilities can receive is not capped at thirty-five percent of the capitol cost of the facility, an important victory for LFG operations.

Another important provision of the tax extenders legislation is that it includes Recycling Investment Saves Energy (RISE). This provision allows for accelerated depreciation of recycling property. Fifty percent of the initial investment in the recycling equipment qualifies for accelerated depreciation. H.R. 1424 updates the definition of trash combustion facility. The language has been altered slightly to broaden the scope of facilities that qualify. This $17 billion tax credit is offset by revenue from taxes on the oil and natural gas industries. The bill does not include a Renewable Portfolio Standard.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact me.

Shannon Crawford
Legislative and Regulatory Program Manager
240-494-2241 - direct

SWANA - Solid Waste Association of North America
1100 Wayne Ave., Suite 700
Silver Spring, MD 20910
1-800-GO SWANA

The SWANA site has posted a job opening for a Tennessee landfill manager position.  See the site for more information.

http://careers.swana.org/jobdetail.cfm?job=2963932#emp

We ran across this NSWMA Research Paper. This paper describes in clear terms

• The potential causes of odors at solid waste facilities
• Special factors that contribute to odors
• Proven management practices for minimizing or preventing problems
• New and emerging technologies

See the full document–NSWMA Odor Management Document

Here is a look at implementation steps underway in San Diego, CA. The city is currently implementing a new C&D Recycling Mandate. The program will include both a deposit system–to encourage developer participation–and the installation of recycling staging areas at area landfills.
See the link here for more.