Air District fines City of Berkeley Landfill for air quality violations

The $130,000 penalty covers seven violations in total, including six involving failures of the landfill’s gas collection system and one for failing to submit emissions testing results.

The landfill gas collection system extracts methane and other gases created by the decomposition of organic materials and funnels them through a system of wells and pipes to a flare, which burns off the gases before they enter the atmosphere or cause odors.

The problems involving failure of the gas collection system occurred due to the landfill’s lack of a backup power supply during a power outage. They varied in duration from two hours to four and a half days.

In addition to these violations, on February 16, 2024, the Air District’s Hearing Board ordered the City of Berkeley Landfill to fix a number of other problems with the landfill gas collection system, including repairing gas collection wells, upgrading inspection and monitoring procedures, conducting a drone study to search for gas leaks, and evaluating whether landfill gas is seeping offsite. 

View press release(200 Kb PDF, 1 pg, posted 4/3/2024)( 中文 | Tagalog | Español | tiếng Việt ).