Wednesday, April 17, 2024
9:00 AM - 9:45 AM (MST)
Regulatory Changes in Landfill Emissions Monitoring
Meeting Room 165

Join us as we explore a number regulatory changes impacting LFG and biogas.

  • There are changes coming that could have a significant impact on landfills now and in the future. We will look at these changes and the impact that each change would have on landfills. We will examine updates to AP-42 Section 2.4 for MSW Landfills. We will look at USEPA’s proposed the Fugitive Emissions Rule. We will compare the LandGEM model with other options for determining LFG generation and ultimately CH4 generation. We will evaluate the impact that the USEPA’s reconsideration of the PM2.5 standard would have on modeling and permitting due to nonattainment designation changes. We will examine some of the ideas that are being presented by various environmental groups as “better alternatives” for determining emissions from landfills. We will also discuss the impact of proposed changes to air regulations as well as EJ initiatives. Attendees will leave with a reality check of the worst-case scenario if any of these changes happened and how each would impact the future of landfills.
  • The EPA has proposed new rules for MSW landfills under the GHGRP. Let's review the basis for revisions to the LFG model rate constant (k values) presented in technical papers by RTI International. To assign the k values, RTI performed a multivariate analysis to minimize the difference between the reported values from Equations HH-7 and HH-1 in the GHGRP, an approach that is flawed because: 1) estimates using HH-7 are not observations; 2) optimizing k and DOC values simultaneously can lead to extreme and unrealistic values due to offsetting errors; and 3) the proposed new k values will produce large increases in emissions estimates without adequate justification.
Julie Hall Alex Stege Archana Nagaraj Matt Stutz