Municipality revisits mass‑burn waste‑to‑energy plan as staff outline benefits, costs and 3–6 year timeline

Mark Spafford, the Municipality of Anchorage’s deputy municipal manager, reintroduced a mass‑burn waste‑to‑energy proposal during a briefing that framed the project as a tool to extend the life of the Anchorage Regional Landfill and add local, reliable electricity generation.

Spafford told the body the mass‑burn, or clean‑burn, technology is a mature approach with about 75 facilities in the United States and many more worldwide. Based on the municipality’s prior analysis, a plant sized for Anchorage would handle roughly 1,000 to 1,200 tons of municipal solid waste per day and produce an estimated 20 to 30 megawatts of power, he said. “If we started now … best case scenario would be 3 years” to an RFP package and another two to three years for construction and logistics — “3 to 6 years if we started, like, January,” Spafford said.

Spafford emphasized three principal benefits: extending landfill life through an approximate 90% volume reduction; providing dispatchable, high‑uptime capacity that complements intermittent renewables; and offering potential environmental advantages, including heat‑based treatment to address PFAS‑contaminated materials. “This is essentially 20 to 30 megawatts of power production that the municipality would have as an independent power provider,” he said.

Dave Persinger, acting general manager of the Anchorage Water and Wastewater Utility, described operational ties to wastewater management. Persinger said the utility currently produces about “75 wet tons of biosolids a day” that are being incinerated and that diverting leachate and biosolids into a thermal process could ease compliance and permit pressures tied to leachate management and the utility’s renewal efforts.

Spafford and staff framed financing as a critical uncertainty. They recalled prior capital estimates for a facility in the roughly $300 million to $500 million range and said updated feasibility and finance plans are needed to reflect current grants, revenue projections and potential contributions from neighboring jurisdictions. Spafford noted earlier pro forma scenarios which assumed various mixes of grant subsidy and user‑fee funding, and he said prior per‑ton rate estimates would need recalculation: “these are 2019, 2020 numbers, but it’s not as bad as you would think it is right off the bat,” he said.

Council members and staff pressed for detail. Member questions covered how the project would pair with existing composting and organics programs — Spafford said the programs complement one another and that facilities should preferentially divert high‑value organics and compostables away from the thermal stream to optimize performance — and whether air‑quality and odor issues could be managed in Anchorage’s inversions; Spafford pointed to air pollution control systems such as dry and wet scrubbers, afterburners and stack controls used to meet emissions requirements.

Members also asked about regional partnerships and landfill life: Spafford said accepting additional waste from neighboring jurisdictions could improve economies of scale and lower per‑ton operating cost, and he reiterated the facility’s substantial volume‑reduction potential. On timeline and next steps, staff recommended updating the pre‑feasibility and feasibility studies, refreshing the finance plan and returning to the body with specific procurement options.

No formal action or motion was taken at the briefing. Spafford asked for the body’s input and flagged that further documents — an updated feasibility study, a refreshed finance plan and a clarified procurement timeline — would be prepared before the administration sought additional direction.