By Dan Kenney
Chair of the Stop the Mega-Dump Committee
During the public hearings with Waste Management and DeKalb County more than once citizens asked, what about capturing the methane and using it to produce energy. Waste Management’s response was that it was not cost effective at our County landfill. This is not the case just a few miles North of DeKalb outside of Davis Junction at the Orchard Hills Landfill.
Hoosier Energy, a rural electric cooperative based in Bloomington Ind. has applied for a construction permit from the Illinois EPA. Hoosier Energy plans to build a $37 million plant to convert methane gas from the landfill into electricity.
When methane is converted into electricity a tremendous amount of heat is also produced in the process. That heat could be used by a factory, greenhouse, or other company looking for green-energy heat for operations.
In Racine WI, S.C. Johnson heats and powers a 2.2 million square foot factory with waste heat from landfill gas conversion.
Near Detroit a Hoosier Energy methane power plant heats a building for automotive supplier Visteon, saving the company nearly $350,000 a year.
This is another example of looking to the future of solid waste as a source for energy. Another reason why the DeKalb County officials should be using the time the law suit with Waste Management is tied up in the Appellate Court system to be planning for the future. We have had a year to reach out to companies like Hoosier, and there is many and more every month, which is looking for opportunities to take solid waste and turn it into power.
Capturing the methane is only one example; there is also safe incineration, as well as anaerobic digestion, as other ways businesses are creating energy with garbage.
Regardless of the Appellate Court’s decision our solid waste needs and problems will not go away. And whether we like it or not there is now an elementary school with ¼ of a mile of the landfill, an elementary school that houses over 300 children every day nearly 200 days a year. It is our responsibility to insure their safety as well as insure their future energy and solid waste needs. A County Board looking toward the future would be doing the necessary research and inviting companies into the county that could do both for our children. We owe it to them to do all we can to protect them and provide a sustainable safe future.
If you would like to contribute to the effort to prevent our landfill from becoming the dumping ground for Cook County and 16 other Northeast Illinois Counties send a contribution of any size to: Stop the Mega-Dump, P.O. Box 363, DeKalb IL 60115. Also take your aluminum cans to DIMCO on Grove Street in DeKalb and ask them to credit the money to the Stop the Mega-Dump account.
We need to take our future and our children’s future into our own hands and not depend upon elected officials or corporations, or experts to do it for us.
IPCB Rules on Landfill Appeal
Mar 17
Posted by admin in DeKalb County Board, Public Comments, waste management | No Comments
Reprinted from DeKalb County Online
The Board (IL Pollution Control Board) accordingly finds here that STMD has waived any issues it raised in the petition concerning criteria (iii) and (v) but failed to address in its opening brief.8 Additionally, as the petition’s challenges to the substance of the hydrogen sulfide conditions were not argued in STMD’s opening brief, the Board deems those waived as well.
See Ruling Here
CONCLUSION
The Board finds that that petitioner STMD has failed to prove that the County’s siting procedures were fundamentally unfair, or that the County’s determinations on siting criteria (i), (ii) and (vi) of Section 39.2(a) of the Act were contrary to the manifest weight of the evidence. Therefore, the Board affirms the County’s decision granting siting approval to Waste Management for the Expansion of the DeKalb County Landfill.
This opinion constitutes the Board’s findings of facts and conclusions of law.
ORDER
The May 10, 2010 decision of the County granting Waste Management’s application for site location suitability approved for the expansion of the DeKalb County Landfill is affirmed for the reasons expressed in the Board’s opinion.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
Section 41(a) of the Environmental Protection Act provides that final Board orders may be appealed directly to the Illinois Appellate Court within 35 days after the Board serves the order. 415 ILCS 5/41(a) (2008); see also 35 Ill. Adm. Code 101.300(d)(2), 101.906, 102.706. Illinois Supreme Court Rule 335 establishes filing requirements that apply when the Illinois Appellate Court, by statute, directly reviews administrative orders. 172 Ill. 2d R. 335. The Board’s procedural rules provide that motions for the Board to reconsider or modify its final orders may be filed with the Board within 35 days after the order is received. 35 Ill. Adm. Code 101.520; see also 35 Ill. Adm. Code 101.902, 102.700, 102.702.