Winnipeg to capture more methane below the surface of Brady Road dump

The City of Winnipeg plans to collect more methaneat the Brady Road landfill, but hasno immediate plansto do anything but flare off the gas.

The city started capturing methane at its sprawling garbage dumpand flaring off the gas in 2013, both to reduce odours emanating from the landfilland reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. Methane, produced byorganic waste as it rots underground, is far more potent as a greenhouse gas thanthe carbon-dioxide produced by flaring.

The city installed 42 gas wells in the landfill in 2013 and now plans to add 22 morethis summer, plusanother two dozen next year, as part of a $4-million methane-capture expansion.

The pipes slated to be installed this summer will be placed in the active portion of the landfill, where garbage is still being added.

"If the gas is not collected in this cell of the landfill, objectionable odours will be experienced by the nearby neighbourhoods from the active filling area," the city states in its 2017 capital budget.

• Dump tested for methane fuel potential
• Winnipeg launches methane gas capture at landfill
• Winnipeg fails to meet climate-change goal

"The areathatwe're working onrightnow was justcompletedin terms of itslandfillingactivity within the lastmonthanda half. So as we move the landfill along andprogressthrough our site, we will continue to add more phases of thiswellfieldproject," said DanDeCraene, the operations superintendent for Winnipeg's solid-waste division.

The city is required to capture this additionalmethane. Under the terms of a provincial environment license,the city must collect the flammable gas before it burps out of the ground in an uncontrolled manner, an event that couldpose"public health and safety risks," according to budget documents.

The province also requires the city to collect methane as a means ofcombattingclimatechange. Even with methane capture,Brady Roadremainsthe second-largest single emitter ofgreenhousegases in the province.

The cost of the gas-capture expansion is $4 million over the next two years. This figure does not include the potential for using the methane as a heating source instead of flaring it off.

"We are still in discussions with partners that could bring us to that point where we eventually do use this product this methane gas that we pull out of thelandfill for an energy conversion of some sort," DeCraenesaid. "Our intent was to design this system so that we could move to an energy conversion at some point."