PORT ANGELES — City Hall wants to turn its gas into cash.
That gas comes in the form of methane from the former Port Angeles landfill that staff believe could be captured and sold.
The closed landfill releases 220 cubic feet of gas per minute, 50 percent of which is methane. The gas is burned.
“There’s value associated with that,” said Glenn Cutler, city public works and utilities director.
“How much? We don’t know for sure.”
But the city is eager to find out, and it has submitted a request for proposals to companies attending the Environmental Protection Agency’s Landfill Methane Outreach Program Conference to be held in Baltimore this week.
Essentially, the city is asking them to present their ideas on how they could use the methane and how much money the city could receive for it.
Cutler said the city has considered using the methane to make its own electricity, but the prospect was too costly.
The landfill, at the west end of 18th Street, is now the site of the city’s waste transfer station.
Landfill gas consists of about 50 percent methane and about 50 percent carbon dioxide, according to the EPA’s Landfill Methane Outreach Project website, www.epa.gov/lmop/index.html.
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Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsuladailynews.com.
