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The federal government has issued strong regulations to cut greenhouse gas emissions from decomposing waste in landfills, but both of Lancaster County鈥檚 landfills say they are already complying with such rules.

Officials for both the Frey Farm Landfill and the Lanchester Landfill say methane gas recycling systems they voluntarily set up years ago will put them in compliance with new limits.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced final standards last week to cut levels of methane gas from active existing landfills with design capacity of 2.5 million metric tons and 2.5 million cubic meters of waste or more. Both Frey Farm and Lanchester landfills fall under this capacity.

The standards also make smaller landfills subject to methane reductions for the first time.

The regulations are part of the Barack Obama administration’s Climate Action Plan to fight climate change.

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, with 25 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide, the most plentiful greenhouse gas, according to the EPA. Methane from landfills accounted for 20 percent of all methane released into the atmosphere in the United States in 2014, according to the EPA.

All affected landfills must have a gas collection system in place. Landfill owners can burn off the gas, but the method preferred by the EPA is to capture and reuse the gas.

That practice is already in place at the county鈥檚 Frey Farm Landfill in Manor Township and the Lanchester Landfill in eastern Lancaster County, which is operated by the Chester County Solid 91仓库 Authority. A portion of Chester County landfills also use this method.

In 2005, the Lancaster County Solid 91仓库 Management Authority and PPL Renewable Energy built a gas plant at the Frey Farm Landfill to be fueled by methane gas from the landfill, as well as the old Creswell Landfill that closed in the late 1980s.

The gas drives engines that produce power for the utility. The steam byproduct is piped to the nearby Turkey Hill Dairy, where it is used to power commercial boilers used in the manufacturing process.

At Lanchester, the Chester County Solid 91仓库 Authority partnered with Granger Energy of Honey Brook to build a nearly 13-mile pipeline that delivers landfill gas to four businesses in Lancaster County for heating. The project began operation in late 2004.

A second pipeline carrying landfill gas from the Conestoga Landfill in Berks County was added in 2008 and now serves three more customers. In 2010, power generators began producing power from about one-third of the landfill gas.

About 83 percent of the 630-acre Lanchester Landfill that serves Chester County is located in Lancaster County in Salisbury and Caernarvon townships.

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