DeKalb trash-to-gas contract fight has financial, environmental consequences

“What about healthy options?” asked Barbara Lawton, 65, a retired pharmacist who lives in south DeKalb, about a mile north of the landfill. “This is a beautiful area. Our family members moved here in the mid- to late 1800s, and it has tremendous history.

“For us, to have it go the way it is going, it’s a travesty.”

A study published last year in the scientific journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics listed the DeKalb landfill as No. 8 in the country for methane emissions in 2019.

The DeKalb County Commission three years ago approved a new contractor to restart the Renewable Fuels Facility by early 2023. But a new dispute arose almost immediately, said Commissioner Ted Terry, whose “super district” includes half the landfill.

After more than two years of additional negotiations, the County Commission late last year approved an amendment that requires the contractor, Conyers Renewable Power, to begin operating the facility by next summer.

The 2022 contract between DeKalb and Conyers Renewable Power, which The Atlanta Journal-Constitution obtained under the Georgia Open Records Act, estimated the county would make $27 million over seven years from the sale of natural gas and environmental credits to fuel companies. If the facility had opened as planned, DeKalb would have made at least $6 million by the end of this year, according to the contract’s revenue proposal.

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

The amended contract, which took effect last December, extends the end date from 2029 to 2034, but requires Conyers Renewable Power to buy all major equipment within three months, begin construction this year and start injecting fuel into the Atlanta Gas Light pipeline within 18 months.

The estimated 10-year revenue now ranges from $17 million to $34 million, depending on the volume of gas produced.

Conyers Renewable Power also operates the landfill’s Green Energy Facility, which converts methane gas to electricity and sells it to Georgia Power. The company’s managing member is Gov Siegel, vice president of biogas for Nacelle Solutions, based in West Virginia.

Siegel declined an interview request and did not address the contract dispute in a written statement. He said the Renewable Fuels Facility would be fully operational next year.

DeKalb County is responsible for the landfill’s core operations, such as hauling, filling and managing the gas collection system, Siegel said. Conyers Renewable Power will clean the gas and upgrade it to “pipeline-quality natural gas, which can be used for heating, transportation or industrial purposes,” he added.

DeKalb County spokespeople did not respond to requests for interviews with sanitation division officials or other county administrators about the facility and the contract dispute.

“We need to be collecting this gas, not flaring it or just venting it into the air, because it stinks,” Terry said last fall at a meeting.

In a committee meeting that same day, then-County Attorney Viviane Ernstes said “financing issues” had caused some of the delays. Terry told the AJC the county and Conyers Renewable Power had been negotiating over investments in the facility.

President Barack Obama’s administration awarded $7.8 million in stimulus funding to DeKalb County for the Renewable Fuels Facility. It won an award from the National Association of Counties soon after it opened.

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

Three years later, DeKalb and the facility’s operator, ARC Technologies, were embroiled in a dispute over invoices. Arc Technologies’ CEO also filed an ethics complaint in 2016 against then-Sanitation Director Billy Malone, but later withdrew it.

It’s unclear whether the turmoil in DeKalb County government had a direct bearing on the facility, but during its five years in operation, then-CEO Burrell Ellis was indicted, convicted of extortion and perjury, supplanted, and then reinstated after winning an appeal. The charges against Ellis included an accusation of retaliation, later dropped, from a marketing contractor who was promoting the Renewable Fuels Facility.

By 2017, with a new CEO in place, the County Commission agreed to shut down the facility and pay ARC Technologies about $30,000.

“This particular relationship is not working out and we need to look for something else,” then-Commissioner Jeff Rader said before the vote.

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

The natural gas fueling station at the landfill has continued operating for DeKalb’s trash trucks and the public. But for the past eight years, the fuel has come solely from the Atlanta Gas Light pipeline and not DeKalb’s landfill.

That was news to many of the landfill’s neighbors, who said they thought all the landfill gas was being captured.

“The escaping gas is a public safety concern,” Lawton said.

The Seminole Road Landfill opened in 1977. Over the decades, the county has closed some portions and planted grass, but the landfill is expanding westward. Meanwhile, new subdivisions have sprouted up nearby.

Some neighbors, including 74-year-old Ulysses Lindsey, have opposed the landfill from the start. Lindsey was the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit against county officials seeking to block the landfill before it opened. The Georgia Supreme Court ruled against them in 1976.

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

Lindsey and Lawton want the entire landfill closed. But Lindsey said he agreed with Lawton’s cousin, former NBA player Reginald Johnson, that any profits from selling landfill gas need to benefit the community.

Johnson is the coordinator of the County Line/Ellenwood Community Round-up, a neighborhood group. He now lives in Fayetteville but grew up in the neighborhood, where his mother and grandmother fought the landfill.

“If they’re going to use it, they’ve got to find some way to get rid of the smell,” Johnson said. “Now that we’re here and we’re just so many generations out, it just needs to happen.”