Methane from Lamar landfill helps power town

LAMAR -- Six years ago, Lamar City Administrator Lynn Calton watched methane gas being flared at Prairie View Landfill and thought, "That looks like dollar bills going up in the sky."

After "a long, laborious process" of obtaining a $600,000 federal grant and issuing $5.4 million in municipal bonds, the city in June 2010 cranked up two methane-powered "Caterpillar generators as big as rooms" and started shooting two million kilowatt hours per month of electricity into the city's transmission lines, Calton said.

Because Lamar uses seven million kilowatt hours a month in the summer and five million in winter, according to the Lamar Democrat, the project lowers the average citizen's bill by 7-10ths of a cent per kwh.

"The Environmental Protection Agency required wells in the landfill to collect the methane and carbon dioxide, which we had to flare off," Calton said Friday. "This project means we buy less power through the Missouri Public Energy Pool."

Noting the landfill is operated by Republic Services of Phoenix, Ariz., the administrator said similar projects are benefitting the city of Springfield, which also has its own electric district, and the new state prison near Jefferson City, where landfill methane is used for heating. The carbon dioxide is separated and flared.

"More cities have started thinking about this and more landfills around the country are doing it," Calton said.

Mayor Keith Divine heads the Lamar City Council. Other members are Steve Gilkey, Denzel Gordon, Kent Harris, Tom Shields, Max Simmons, Harold Vandemark, Judd Chesnut and Tom Crull. The city's electric foreman is Jim Martin.

Lamar is about 30 miles south of Nevada in Barton County.