County hears consultants: draft CDPHE 'Regulation 31' would trigger earlier monitoring and costly gas systems at landfills

Chaffee County commissioners were told July 16 that a draft change to Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) Regulation 31 would lower the thresholds that trigger landfill gas monitoring and mitigation and require earlier, more frequent monitoring than federal rules, potentially forcing installation of gas collection systems at the county landfill.

The county's landfill consultant, Victoria (Sanborn, landfill engineering consultant), told commissioners the site already is just above a draft threshold the state uses to determine which sites must do quarterly surface-emissions monitoring. "You will do an analysis of what kind of emissions you all have," Victoria said, and "as soon as you have 1 hit of any kind, you will be required to install a gas system." Heather (Sanborn, landfill engineering consultant) added that the regulation in draft is more stringent than federal rules: "They've tried to mimic the federal regs, but then made it a lot more stringent."

Why it matters: the draft rule would both expand the number of landfills subject to frequent surface-emissions checks and raise how often operators must…