What’s that Smell? The increasing Methane Gas problem at the Mat-Su Landfill and the MSB’s failure to follow State Reporting Requirements

Over on the Facebook group, “Glenn Highway Traffic Report,” the administrators were tired of people asking this question over and over: “What’s that Smell?!” So, they put the answer in the pinned post. Travelers on the Glenn Highway from the Mat-Su Valley to Anchorage notice that as you get near Eagle River, there is a strong, disgusting, gaseous smell for quite a few miles. So people were always asking about it on the Facebook group. The answer is – it is methane gas from the big Muni of Anchorage landfill located just off Hiland Road.

Folks in the Mat-Su Valley may not have realized that landfills can produce a horrible methane gas smell because our landfill didn’t have that problem…until fairly recently.

The MSB Manager released this Memo last week regarding the problem of increased methane gas at the MSB’s only landfill which is located just off the Palmer-Wasilla Highway. The memo makes it seem like the MSB has a handle on the problem.

However, a close reading of the letter from the Alaska Dept of Environmental Conservation to the MSB which is attached to the memo reveals that the MSB did not follow the State-mandated reporting requirements…The MSB sort of “hid” the methane gas issue. The MSB failed to make an immediate telephone call to the DEC and they failed to highlight the methane problem. They simply submitted the (way over the limit) results without calling any attention to them!!!! Wut?

The Central Landfill’s methane levels were at 440% of the allowable levels!

UPDATE: Here is more on the State requirements regarding reporting GAS levels at landfills. This pamphlet is on the AK DEC website. The MSB did not comply with the reporting requirements.