colorado, oregon, new york and more states awarded federal funding to cut methane emissions from landfills, boost food waste prevention, organics recycling
The Inflation Reduction Act’s Climate Pollution Reduction Grant (CPRG) program presented a unique opportunity for states, local governments, tribes, and territories to advance ambitious, community-driven greenhouse gas reduction strategies. The program, administered by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) provided $4.6 billion in competitive grants to states to implement key GHG reduction strategies.
It was an extremely competitive funding opportunity, which makes it even more exciting that so many states prioritized landfill methane emissions in their applications, and were funded!
Colorado to deploy comprehensive monitoring technology to pinpoint methane emitters, including landfills. Out of its large CPRG grant, Colorado was awarded about $30M to deploy satellites, large and small planes, drones, ground vehicles, and continuous ground-based sensors. Dominique Gómez, deputy director of the Colorado Energy Office, was quoted in a news article noting, "“I do think that is an area where there is a lot of possible low hanging fruit. That’s getting harder in some other sectors. But with landfills, oil and gas, natural methane sources, there’s still a lot that we can do. “That’s why we’re excited to have this funding to build out our own planning on methane.” This is extremely well-timed, as the State of Colorado is poised to propose an updated landfill emissions rule to the Air Quality Control Commission in early 2025, with the goal of reducing methane pollution from municipal solid waste landfills. Top of their list in rule updates should be a super emitter response program and deployment of remote sensing technology such as drones - these game-changing monitoring technologies would exponentially boost the ability to find methane leaks, as current rule only requires handheld human-based monitoring on a 100-ft grid pattern four times a year.
Hudson Valley Regional Council to install better landfill cover to reduce methane leaks. The Council plans to install biofilter covers to slow fugitive methane emissions from closed landfills.
Investment in organics diversion, upgraded landfill gas controls: Oregon, Minnesota and King County, Washington also received CPRG funding for range of recycling, organics diversion, food waste prevention activities and strategies. The State of Oregon will invest in composting, food waste recovery infrastructure, and landfill methane controls at landfill sites and the state of Virginia plans an $8.9 million program for gas-to-energy projects at several landfills.
More to come in the months ahead as these states receive the federal funds and develop their plans to deploy these resources!
