The state Air Quality Control Commission on Thursday takes on a heavily lobbied set of rules requiring sharp cuts to landfill-produced methane that contributes to climate change, with the waste industry protesting the $210 million cost and environmental groups trying to hold the line on tough original drafts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Methane is a super gas when it comes to damage from the greenhouse effect, and methane cuts are baked into Colorado\u2019s official targets of 26% greenhouse gas emissions reductions by 2025 and 50% by 2030. Garbage fermenting in covered landfills away from oxygen is the third-largest Colorado contributor of methane, after agriculture and oil and gas production.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rules proposed by staff of the Air Pollution Control Division would add layers to current landfill regulations, requiring new monitoring equipment that gathers methane for flaring or use in local electrical generation. The draft builds on existing EPA rules, and could add more than a dozen Colorado landfills to the list required to install methane control systems if they surpass thresholds for the gas.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cMethane is an extremely potent near-term greenhouse gas, so over the course of 20 years, it is 80 times as powerful as carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere,\u201d said Ryan Call of Eco-Cycle, part of a broad coalition striving to keep the staff rule drafts from giving in to industry demands. Along with the released methane come other substances that contribute to the Front Range\u2019s violation of toxic ground-level ozone standards, Call said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/image31.jpeg\")
AURORA, CO \u2014 This Gas to Energy (GTE) plant produces power from the methane produced at the Denver Arapahoe Disposal Site (DADS). The site provides disposal services for communities, businesses and industries serving the Denver metro and surrounding areas. DADS also maintains 211 landfill gas collection wells and supports a 2.8 MW gas-to-energy plant. The power produced at DADS is sold to Xcel Energy and exported to their grid. (Kathryn Scott, Special to The Colorado Sun)<\/p>\n
The earliest drafts of the methane rules were the most progressive in the country, Call said, and even with some softening of the requirements, \u201c\u200b\u200bwe\u2019re hoping that this Colorado rule can be a model for other states to follow.\u201d<\/p>\n
Strong Colorado action in the areas it has some control, like landfills, is more important than ever as the Trump administration regularly peels back efforts to fight climate change and promote green energy, Call added.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cColorado is a leader when it comes to addressing climate change, and just because the federal government is trying to deny the realities of science, our state will not comply with that. We are going to forge ahead and continue to be leaders in addressing greenhouse gas emissions, just like how we have been in the oil and gas sector,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Air Quality Control Commission, the governor-appointed board that votes on rule changes researched and drafted by division staff, will hear up to two days of live testimony debating the methane rules Thursday and Friday. Waste industry advocates had previously urged the commission to put off final consideration and voting on the rules until December, but the commissioners wanted to at least finish the public hearings. It\u2019s still possible the AQCC could delay a final vote in order to consider this week\u2019s testimony.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The divisions\u2019 economic impact statement accompanying the draft rules said new monitoring, equipment and personnel would cost the industry just under $210 million to comply by 2050.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Draft rules said the plan would cut 11.28 to 12.53 million tons of carbon from Colorado emissions from 2029 to 2050, collecting up to 75% of the methane created by the affected landfills. Applying a societal and economic cost formula it uses for all regulations, the Air Pollution Control Division said the \u201cclimate-related cost savings resulting from these emission reductions are estimated to be worth $1 billion to $1.11 billion\u201d in that time, far greater than the cost.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Some local government representatives have objected to the rules for allegedly creating \u201cunfunded mandates\u201d for their regulation of the industry.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The waste haulers and landfill operators, meanwhile, say the largest Colorado landfills are already doing a good job capturing much of the methane produced by the garbage. WM, formerly Waste Management and the operator of multiple Colorado facilities, said in its prehearing filings that the company \u201cbelieves that many aspects of the rule are technically, practically and economically infeasible, and are not justified by the presumed methane emission reductions they are intended to achieve.\u201d<\/p>\n
Air Pollution Control Division staff were also trying to \u201csubstitute\u201d their expertise for the on-the-ground knowledge and experience of the landfill operators, WM said. As one example of rules the company is negotiating with division staff, the company said, the closed flares required fail much more often than open flares, and require the burning out outside propane when the landfill methane is not pure enough to burn properly.\u00a0<\/p>\n
WM also objects that the new rules require extensive collection systems even when sections of landfill are relatively young and not producing the more pure, combustible methane that can be used for other purposes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Type of Story: News<\/p>\n
Based on facts, either observed and verified directly by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The state Air Quality Control Commission on Thursday takes on a heavily lobbied set of rules requiring sharp…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":164262,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[94749,94750,746,67865,41571,935,159,67,132,68,8933],"class_list":{"0":"post-164261","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-air-pollution-control-division","9":"tag-air-quality-control-commission","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-greenhouse-gas","12":"tag-landfill","13":"tag-methane","14":"tag-science","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-waste-management"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115067804990511233","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}