A problem-plagued methane gas plant at the Richmond County landfill that previously generated $30,000 to $40,000 a month to the city from the sale of methane gas to the kaolin industry should soon be back up and running, according to Environmental Services Director Mark Mehall.
Mehall told Augusta commissioners Tuesday that the landfill gas plant began experiencing serious problems with water in early 2019.
“In January and February, we got more or less normal volumes,” he said. “And that was to go down precipitously, due basically to the water saturation into the gas lines. And that kind of led to the water and leachate problems that came to a head about a year ago.”
“Around the same time, we had some management changes within the landfill operations division, and we started to do an overall assessment of the landfill gas plant.”
[adrotate banner=”31″]
During that assessment, several things popped up the landfill has been dealing with, including hardware and software problems that involved the gas analyzer, the landfill compressor and the blower dryer, Mehall said.
‘Within the last five or six months we’ve been actively addressing those,” Mehall said. “We’re finally at the final stages of the hardware and maintenance portion of that. So we’re looking at 90 days from now we can start selling gas again.”
Augusta Commissioner Brandon Garrett asked Mehall if he’s been in contact with the entity that used to buy gas from the landfill to let them know the status.
“Yes, we have, Mehall replied.
“Are they aware of the timeline?” Garrett asked.
“Yes, they’re aware of the timeline,” Mehall replied.
Sylvia Cooper is a contributor with The Augusta Press. Reach her at sylvia.cooper@theaugustapress.com
[adrotate banner=”20″]
