METHANE EXTRACTED FROM NV LANDFILL put to good use ump site’s gas NORTH VANCOUVER District is spending $300,000 to harvest methane gas being produced as a byproduct of decomposing garbage buried in the Premier Street landfill site. Council awarded a $52,204.40 drilling contract Monday to Associated Drilling Services Ltd., who will begin construction of an underground gas collection and conveyance system. The move to tap the gas coming up from the buried trash comes as a result of ongoing complaints from Lynnniour area residents about the “rotten egg’’ odor emanating from the landfill site. Said Purcell Way resident John Fair: “It has been a problem. When the wind’s Llowing from the northwest to the southeast we definitely can smell it. We’re for- tunate we've got trees around us. They shield us a bit. The smell’s worse in more exposed areas.”’ In addition to solving the odor problem, the innovative recycling scheme may see a return on in- vestment for the district if a plan- ned deal to sell the gas to Cana- dian Oxy goes through. The district would recoup its money from installer of the system, B.1.O. Gas Industries. The landfill gas collection and conveyance set-up, based on tech- nology developed by E. H. Hanson & Associates (an affiliate of B.1.0. Gas), is already in place at a land- fill site in Richmond. Methane tapped from 63 wells insta!led there is being used to fire a cement kiln at Canada Cement Lafarge Ltd. Said the engineering company’s president Elson Hanson: ‘‘We are negotiating an agreement with them (Canadian Oxy). We think that will be finalized within a cou- ple of months. They usc a lot of energy, mostly natural gas, some hydrogen that they create themselves, and ours will be a third fuel.”’ The Premier Street work will be an extension of an 18-well gas col- lection system in place since 1985. The system heats a field house located nearby and a pump also feeds methane from the wells via a network of pipes to a flare stack. The system extension will add another 44 wells. The flare burns off methane and hydrogen sulphide, the component which causes the foul smell. Ac- (Coandinn Radio-television ** Telecommanications ::Commis- sién} ruling, the 24-hour all-news channe!. will be offered at :a faarginally. cheaper..cate than - what was originally announced. Richard Morris, ‘Shaw’s vice- president of operations in B.C., said Thursday Newsworld would be. added to the North Shore system by Thursday: afternoon en Ckunnel é. ..Monithiy rate’ per. -gabscriber wit be 34 cents. compared with. the original 43-cent rate; -:, . Morris said all. subscribers whe had , paid the ortainel vate ‘for “otal: MICHAEL BECK! News Reporter cording to Hanson, about 300 cubic feet per minute of gas is be- ing flared off. ‘‘When we put our extension in, we'll probably go up to about 800 cubic feet per minute and we’re hoping to have a cus- tomer by then.” The Premier Street landfill was first used as a districe dumping ground in 1948. By the 1960s, it became a sanitary landfill site, which meant that garbage was compacted and buried on a daily basis rather than burned. In 1987, the landfill site closed and was converted to an_ in- cinerator disposal system. Today, municipal waste collected by gar- bage trucks is transferred to 40- foot trailers and hauled to an in- cinerator site in Burnaby. The district’s engineering ser- vices director Harry McBride estimates at least 2.3 million tons of garbage went into the 80-acre site over the history of the opera- tion, Meanwhile, the dtcomposing buried waste produces !andfill gas. Landfill produces methaiie, carbon dioxide and traces of hydrogen sulphide. Methane is not toxic or odorous, but it is flammable. Most landfill is about 55 per cent .methane, 40 per cent carbon diox- ide and contains air and trace amounts of hydrogen sulphide. “From the point of view of the district, it’s a fairly happy solution to a difficult problem,’? McBride said of the gas collection and sales scheme. ‘‘It’s one that has the potential of giving us a return on our investment and that’s nice, too. If the venture is successful and we recover the cost of the in- stallation, then we can begin to collect on the royalties of gas soid. It’s unusual that you can come up with a solution to a problem and also generate some revenue at the same time.”’ Hanson said a deal with Cana- dian Oxy cobld generate a gross monthly amount of $20,000 to $25,000. ‘Ie will be a significant recycling project here. The poten- tial is there,’ he said. «charge subse schedufe originally approved: Sept..1... Th subscribers up to 42.5. cents. if there are less than 4.0 million. | According .to a subsequent survey. conducted. by the Cana- dian Cable Television - Associa- tion, the number of Newsworld . subscribers across. Canada,” in- cluding those on Shaw’s systems, is over 4,390,600. : The resultant per-subsctiber monthly rate is 34 cents. But the original. dispate. de- tween Shaw aod CSC: that resulted in Shaw's decision. -to delay its, launch of Newsworld NY cs the CRTC, which is baséd on the’ |. number --of -) Newsworld ise 7 “subscribers across Canada. ag: of : ‘because’ bills to such” Bes fee ‘ Jandiord rather than’ to the isdi- rviced: ‘sisted on the “fall: monthly’ per-. ENGINEER ELSON Hanson displays plans for the extension of an underground fandfill gas collection system which will be buiit at the Premie: Street landfill] site. North Vancouver District plans to solve odor problems at the site with the system. Gas tapped may be sold to a local industrial user to supply energy needs. “monthiy. per-subscriber, ¢ , rate ‘ranges from:.27.5 cents if ‘cent lower mi there are more. than. 4.9 million — subscribers. are: sent to... _singie vidual rooms _ While. other: networks ‘carried : by Shaw accept a reduced fee for balk subscribers; CBC. las. subscriber rate, arguing - that it ‘ fe Newsworld’s: program “-; Had’ Shaw. delayed: Newsworld beyond: Ren 1,. ‘the. aes orld 3 - Friday, September 1, 1989 - North Shore News LGH garbage disposal " NEWS photo Tom Burley costs to top $200,000 From page 1 proval from the provincial gov- ernment and the Greater Van- couver Regional District to con- struct a facility capable of process- ing 8.C’s entire bio-hazardous waste output, which is currently estimated at 16 tonnes per day. Musseau said its ‘Autoclave’ system will use steam to sterilize potentially hazardous waste, which can then be taken to area landfills. Used Autoclave steam will be recycled for use in its tub wash operation, where it will be com- bined with disinfectant and discharged into sanitary sewers. The BF! system, he said, will be capable of handling 40 tonnes of bio-hazardous waste per day. Medical waste from LGH and other Lower Mainland hospitals must currently be shipped out of the province because there is no facility in the Greater Vancouvei Regional District for its disposal. The BFI facility, if approved, will be built in Port Coquitlam. It will, according to Musseau, significantly reduce bio-hazardous waste disposal costs for all its cus- tomers. A major percentage of those costs result from the special packaging required for the waste and its transportation to the Fern- dale incinerator. BFI has access to other in- cinerators in the United States, but the next closest one to Ferndale is in California. During the last fiscal year, LGH spent $134,000 to rid itself of its bio-hazardous waste. The cost was eventually borne by the provincial government, This year, LGH president Robert Smith said the cost will be $150,000. Total garbage disposal costs for the hospital will balloon to $200,000, which is almost 10 times higher thar what those costs were three years ago. LGH stopped burning its poten- tially hazardous waste last April because the hospital’s furnaces could not be upgraded to burn the garbage and stil! meet air pollutios standards. When the hospital burned its own waste, LGH’s total annual garbage bill was between $25,000 and $30,000.