Published: October 09, 2007 11:49 pm      

Landfill gas project to aid businesses

They were a landfill’s version of an eternal flame: Flares that continuously burned useless gas generated by decomposing trash.

But now those flares largely have been extinguished because of a $23 million system that transforms landfill gas into natural gas.

The initiative’s final two treatment plants – both in Somerset County – have begun operations.

And soon, the project is expected to spur big savings for a Johnstown business consortium that will be able to buy natural gas at a deep discount.

“This energy was completely wasted until we did this,” said Jerry Regan, operations vice president for Johnstown Wire Technologies.

The company teamed with JWF Industries, Gautier Steel Ltd. and the Johnstown Redevelopment Authority to form Johnstown Regional Energy LLC.

Using mostly private financing, the group has built treatment plants at Laurel Highlands Landfill in Cambria County and at the Shade and Southern Alleghenies landfills in Somerset County.

Landfill gas that had fed flares has been rerouted to those plants, which are operated by Keystone Renewable Energy LLC. Impurities are removed, and the remaining methane is sent directly to Dominion Peoples’ natural-gas lines.

Financial incentives are far-reaching. Waste Management Inc., which operates the dumps, receives royalties for gas that previously was deemed worthless.

Johnstown Regional Energy makes money by selling the purified methane to Dominion Peoples. Member companies also save on their increasingly hefty natural-gas bills.

“It comes down to the benefit to the community,” said Jim Gebicki, Waste Management spokesman.

While industrial customers’ natural-gas prices are complex and often fluctuate, Regan estimates that Johnstown Wire will save 30 percent to 40 percent.

Given that the Laurel Avenue plant annually uses as much gas as about 4,396 average homes, Johnstown Wire could save hundreds of thousands of dollars on gas purchases each year.

Gautier Steel and JWF Industries are expected to see similarly positive financial results.

“It is meaningful,” said Greg Shaffer, Keystone Renewable Energy president. “It will allow for jobs to be retained in some cases, and it will allow for jobs to be created in other cases.”

Benefits may extend beyond the consortium’s members.

Ron Repak, redevelopment authority director, is considering the creation of a “fuel fund” that would use some of the gas project’s revenues to offset utility costs for new businesses that may want to relocate to Johnstown.

The project also included the installation of a new sewage line stretching from the Jackson Township landfill to the redevelopment authority’s sewage treatment plant in West Taylor Township.

That helps Waste Management, because landfill runoff now can be piped to the treatment plant instead of trucked. But Repak said residents who have septic systems also could tap into the new sewage line.

“We’re going to pick up new customers on that line,” he said.