PROFIT FROM WASTE OXNARD LANDFILL'S METHANE GAS CONVERTED TO ELECTRICITY.

Byline: Cecilia Chan Staff Writer

OXNARD - In Ventura County, one man's trash is another's energy supply.

Since 1985, the Ventura Regional Sanitation District has harvested methane gas at its 400-acre Santa Clara Landfill in the Oxnard Plains and converted it to electricity, which it has sold on the open market.

Gas collected from the landfill's three sites - Bailard, Coastal and River Ridge - produces 5.5 megawatts a day or enough electricity to power 5,500 homes.

``Environmentally, it's a wonderful renewable source of energy that a lot of landfills are wasting,'' said Bill Smith, general manager of the public district.

Farming landfill gas in Southern California was pioneered at the Santa Clara Landfill by power companies. Under the Carter administration, tax incentives made it affordable for companies to build such plants.

Today, 37 of the 192 operating landfills in California convert gas into energy, producing more than 200 megawatts of electricity - less than 1 percent of the state's energy supply.

Ventura County Supervisor Frank Schillo is proposing to use gas from the Toland Road Landfill, between Santa Paula and Fillmore, to power operations at the Ventura County Hall of Administration. The Board of Supervisors is looking at spending $4 million for backup generators to avoid blackouts at the Government Center during the ongoing energy crisis.

Schillo said the gas from the county dump could fuel a turbine to generate electricity to a dedicated line that runs along Highway 26.

``We would have enough electricity here to operate the whole Government Center all the time,'' he said. ``We would not suffer from brownouts and we would not be subjected to an increase of cost in electricity.''

Schillo said a report is due in two weeks on the cost to implement his proposal.

Smith said the district board would be open to Schillo's proposal. He said the plan is feasible and gave a ball-park figure of $3 million to complete the project.

At the closed Santa Clara Landfill, gas is collected from the decomposing trash through a series of wells connected by a network of white plastic pipes that run over the landscaped dump sites.

The wells were dug 80 feet deep at the River Ridge and Coastal sites. At Bailard, district engineers perfected the collection system with horizontal wells, which are more more expensive but were needed to comply with more stringent water and air pollution controls.

The cost for building the collection system at all three sites was estimated at $1 million by district senior engineer Greg Grant.

The Toland landfill also employs the newer technology but, because there is no plant there, the gas is burned off in a flare system. Most landfills resort to the cheaper alternative of burning the naturally occurring gases to prevent a possible fire or explosion.

``Basically, the methane gas from the landfill is natural gas, the same stuff chemically that comes out of your stove at home,'' said Gary Haden, district director of Solid Waste. ``Fifty percent of the gas coming out is methane and the other 50 is carbon dioxide.

``We are using a green fuel, a nonfossil to generate electricity.''

Depending on the type of refuse that winds up in a dump, it takes three to five years for anaerobic microorganisms to break down the waste, which produces the gas, Haden said.

The gas from the Santa Clara Landfill is piped into a power generation plant owned by Ogden Energy Inc., which has a contract with the district. Three employees are stationed at the nondescript building, which also houses a vacuum pump that pulls the gas out of the landfills and through the pipes.

East Coast-based Ogden Energy owns eight landfill gas-to-energy projects, said Paul Nakamoto, company vice president. The electricity generated at its Oxnard facility is sold to Southern California Edison, he said.

The district collects about $300,000 a year from selling its gas to Ogden. The revenue helps the district offset the costs of closing the landfills and helps keep tipping fees at $19.06 a ton at Toland, the second lowest in the state, where the average is $31 a ton. The Toland Road site is the last remaining public landfill and one of two operating dumps in the county.

Grant said a landfill on average could generate gas for 30 to 60 years after the last load of trash is dumped and the landfill is closed. As a landfill ages the gas production decreases.

At the Santa Clara Landfill, gas production has dropped off to 95 percent capacity but with six additional vertical wells to be drilled, it would be brought back to 100 percent for 40 years, Grant said.

``With 192 landfills, that's a lot of gas there,'' he said. ``All they need is a tax incentive. It's free power.''

CAPTION(S):

2 photos, map

Photo:

(1) Gary Haden, solid waste director for Ventura's regional sanitation district, checks methane gas pipes from Bailard Landfill.

(2 -- ran in Bulldog edition only) Electrical-generation plant supervisor Lee Garris shows the pipes bringing methane gas from nearby Oxnard landfills. Edison purchases electricity generated from conversion of the gas.

Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer

Map: Santa Clarita Landfill