Colorado landfill emission rules could force mountain counties to hike trash fees. Lawmakers are seeking a solution. 

Local officials in Colorado’s mountain counties are warning that new state emission regulations for landfills could force them to raise residents’ trash collection fees. 

The rules, which were passed last year by the Colorado Air Quality Control Commission, require public and private landfills that meet certain thresholds for methane emissions to install new pollutant control and monitoring systems, end open flare burning of methane and be equipped with biofilters. 

Those rules go into effect in 2029, but certain landfills have up to three years after that to install the emission capture and monitoring technology. 

Rural counties with publicly-owned landfills say the measure, while well-intentioned, will be expensive to implement, and could force officials to hike trash collection, commonly called tipping fees, to help cover the costs. 

“Several of these counties would be looking at many millions of dollars to buy this equipment in order to be compliant,” said Kelly Flenniken, executive director for Colorado Counties, Inc., which represents all 64 of the state’s counties. “While compliance is something we do want to do, we are really struggling with how we best do that and how we balance that requirement with all of the rest of the requirements that counties have to deliver.” 

In Garfield County, officials estimated last year that the regulations could cost $2 million to $2.5 million in upfront costs, with upwards of $100,000 in annual operating costs, though they will now need to reexamine the cost impacts since the rules have been finalized. The county’s landfill director, Deb Fiscus, said in an email that those costs will mean an increase in tipping fees, though the county doesn’t yet know how much. 

The same could be true in Pitkin County, home to Aspen, where infrastructure costs could be around $3.5 million, with an additional $200,000 to $400,000 in yearly operating expenses, and Summit County, where officials are projecting $3 million in upfront costs, with an additional $200,000 to $500,000 each year for compliance.

Summit County Commissioner Tamara Pogue said the county’s landfill is already operating at a roughly $3 million deficit, and officials are now looking to borrow money from one of its enterprise funds to help cover the landfill’s costs. 

Pogue said even without the new state regulations, “We have been concerned that we will already have to do a tipping fee increase.” 

“As someone who has worked so hard in every way possible to try and create some fiscal relief for Summit County residents, and believes deeply that affordability is incredibly difficult for so many Summit County residents, that is not something that I feel comfortable doing,” she said. 

Bill seeks to help with counties’ costs 

State lawmakers are racing to pass a funding solution this legislative session. 

Senate Bill 101 would allow landfill owners to tap money in the state’s community impact cash fund to help pay for new methane capture and monitoring infrastructure. The cash fund, created by lawmakers in 2022, is generated by fines on air polluters and primarily goes toward environmental projects in communities affected by air pollution. The bill would prioritize publicly-owned landfills for the dollars over private ones. 

The bipartisan measure is sponsored by Sens. Byron Pelton, R-Sterling, and Dylan Roberts, D-Frisco, as well as Rep. Chris Richardson, R-Elbert County. It passed the Senate unanimously on April 20 and is now being considered in the House.

“I think we have a responsibility as a state to control methane and keep our air clean and do what we can to combat climate change,” Roberts said during the bill’s first committee hearing on April 13. “But the reality on the ground is that counties have to grapple with the costs of that.”

The bill represents a heavily watered-down version of its original self. Initially, the legislation included a provision requiring the Air Quality Control Commission to create a waiver process for operators to request more time for compliance. It also would have shielded operators from penalties for noncompliance if they could show that the reason was purely due to financial inability. 

Those provisions were stripped after facing pushback from environmental groups, who felt the original bill would allow landfill owners to skirt the state’s clean air rules and could jeopardize climate goals. 

Landfills are the third-largest emitter of methane in Colorado, according to state data, and the greenhouse gas is the second-largest driver of climate change after carbon dioxide. While methane has a shorter lifespan than carbon dioxide, it is also more potent, with a warming effect that is 86 times stronger than carbon dioxide over a 20–year-period, according to the Climate and Clean Air Coalition. 

Some of the bill’s environmental opponents were groups that had advocated for the new methane rules last year, which they said had already been negotiated with local governments and landfill operators to reach a compromise. 

“The final rule is the most cost-effective means to achieve the necessary and desired results in reduction in air pollution,” said Megan Kemp, Colorado policy representative for Earthjustice, during the bill’s April 13 committee hearing. 

Mounting pressures 

Local officials say they’re hopeful the bill, in its current state, will unlock desperately needed funding opportunities for landfills that can help mitigate the cost impacts on residents. 

Still, some are disappointed that key elements were dropped from the legislation. 

“I absolutely understand and appreciate the concern of the environmental community and their advocacy,” Pogue said, “but a little more flexibility would have been fair given the budget constraints that local governments have right now.” 

Pogue added that counties like hers have already invested heavily in programs meant to make their landfills cleaner. Several Western Slope communities were lauded in a report last year by environmental advocates that highlighted recycling and waste diversion programs, which it said help lower emissions and reduce pollution. 

“Most of the landfills out here in western Colorado want to do the right thing,” Tyler Carvell, Pitkin County’s landfill director, said of the state’s new methane regulations. “No one wants to expose their population to more methane than they need to. But they just need time to make it happen.”

Carvell said he wishes lawmakers had provided a pathway in their bill to give local governments more time to comply as they scramble to identify funding. 

While lawmakers’ bill gives landfill operators another avenue to receive state dollars through the community impact cash fund, it does not inject any new funding into that account, and counties will have to compete with other entities and projects to receive the money. 

Like most publicly-owned waste facilities, Pitkin County’s landfill is funded through enterprise dollars, which usually means fees for services, rather than general tax revenue. Carvell said that will almost certainly mean raising trash fees for residents to help pay for the new costs. 

“I’m not really sure without some additional funding sources that there’s a way around it,” he said. 

Carvell said that while the county projects that infrastructure costs will be around $3.5 million, those estimates are in today’s dollars, and inflation will likely push those figures even higher by the time counties actually have to implement the new systems. 

Another concern for Carvell is ensuring the county has the personnel to maintain the new landfill systems, given the staffing pressures already facing high-cost-of-living resort areas. With those new systems also come rules for how quickly landfill operators must respond to issues. 

“Most of my staff don’t even live within an hour of the landfill,” he said, adding, “It’s going to be really hard to find qualified people and have the budget to pay them enough in a certain range where they can actually deal with these problems.”