California regulators voted on Thursday to update a 15-year-old rule controlling emissions of methane from municipal landfills, the second-largest source of the climate super pollutant in the state.
The effort by California’s greenhouse gas regulators to strengthen oversight and align methods to control and monitor methane emissions from landfills with the latest technological advances is long overdue, according to activists and residents living with the air pollution.
“Our overarching goal is to improve methane emissions control to help California achieve its climate targets,” said Quinn Langfitt, an air pollution specialist with California’s Air Resources Board (CARB), during a public hearing on the amended rule in Sacramento.
The landfill methane rule amendments leverage more than a decade of technological advances to detect leaks of the greenhouse gas and findings from research, lessons learned through implementing and enforcing the existing rule and “the important feedback we’ve received through our public outreach efforts,” Langfitt said.
Reducing emissions from waste management operations is critical to achieving the state’s methane-emission reduction targets, he said.
But methane isn’t the only pollutant coming from California’s roughly 300 landfills. When they operate at elevated temperatures, they can emit harmful volatile organic compounds, including carcinogens like benzene, reproductive and neurological toxicants like toluene and foul-smelling substances like hydrogen sulfide, which causes respiratory distress, headaches, dizziness and fatigue.
People suffering serious health problems from living near these polluting landfills, including the notorious Chiquita Canyon Landfill, have long begged state regulators for help.
Much of Thursday’s hearing centered on the problems created by Chiquita Canyon Landfill, which one activist called “the longest continuously running chemical disaster in the country.” The landfill regularly releases hundreds of pounds of benzene and several tons of heart-damaging air pollutants every year, CARB data shows.
The crisis at Chiquita Canyon has been a stark reminder of what is at stake and has opened many eyes to the urgent need for stronger oversight, said Nick Lapis, director of advocacy for the nonprofit Californians Against Waste. “This wasn’t only about climate or waste policy,” he said, referring to the methane amendments. “It was about protecting the people who live with the consequences of these facilities every single day.”
The operators of Chiquita Canyon have said they constantly monitor emissions.
People living near Chiquita Canyon and the Avenal Landfill in the Central Valley made several trips to Sacramento over the past several years, some using vacation time to offer painful and often tearful testimony about the litany of community ills they connect to the sites: “obscene” odors, cancer clusters, miscarriages, nosebleeds, aggravated asthma, vomiting, tremors, headaches, dizziness.
They shared their stories again Thursday, during two-plus hours of public comment, alternately offering thanks to CARB for updating the rule while voicing frustration that it’s taken so long.
“I stood before you back in March and begged for you to take action so that no other communities would have to suffer like mine has,” said Jennifer Elkins, president of the Val Verde Civic Association. “I’m here today to tell you we are still being harmed by the Chiquita Canyon landfill. We are still suffering every single day.”
California is supposed to be the leader in environmental protection, Elkins said. “But we’re failing. How can we be leaders when our own people are being poisoned in their homes while multibillion-dollar companies continue to profit?”
Updating the regulations will better protect communities and prevent disasters like Chiquita from happening at other landfills, Elkins said.
She and many other speakers thanked CARB for embracing the need to provide data on emissions that are accessible and understandable, while urging regulators to provide real-time fenceline monitoring to alert communities about potential threats sooner.
Many Avenal residents, speaking in Spanish, urged regulators to translate regulatory updates and notifications about emissions into Spanish.
CARB officials assured community members at the hearing that they heard their concerns about the health-harming pollutants released along with methane.
“The reality is that methane is just one of the many impacts that our waste system has on the environment and communities,” said CARB Chair Lauren Sanchez, former senior climate advisor to Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Community members and advocates helped CARB officials understand the importance of prevention and early intervention to avoid health and economic impacts, Sanchez said, adding that their feedback was critical in shaping the new rule.
“These stakeholders helped us realize an opportunity to strengthen our landfill regulation so that operators and regulators have additional preventative tools, which is an important contribution to help ensure other communities don’t experience similar impacts around the state,” Sanchez said.
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CARB has gained a better understanding of the sources and causes of methane emissions from landfills, which underlie new evidence-based rules to improve gas collection and control systems to reduce methane air pollution and odors, said CARB board member Steven Cliff.
“It is important to recognize that capturing and destroying more landfill gas and preventing leaks also reduces emissions of co-pollutants in landfill gas, such as volatile organic compounds, toxic air contaminants and odorous compounds,” Cliff said.
Sanchez said the new rule builds on California’s leadership on methane, noting that California just signed an agreement with Chile at the COP30 climate summit in Brazil to work together to reduce methane emissions through the Subnational Methane Action Coalition, a network of states, regions and provinces working to find ways to combat the climate crisis.
Community members and advocates lauded California regulators for moving to make data publicly available, which they called a “huge step” towards securing public trust, accountability and community safety.
“We’re excited to see this rule advance, and look forward to continuing this work to make sure [it] reaches its full potential in a time of federal backsliding on climate policy,” said Erica Parker, a policy advocate with Californians Against Waste. “It’s heartening to see California lead on meaningful methane regulations.”
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Liza Gross is a reporter for Inside Climate News based in Northern California. She is the author of The Science Writers’ Investigative Reporting Handbook and a contributor to The Science Writers’ Handbook, both funded by National Association of Science Writers’ Peggy Girshman Idea Grants. She has long covered science, conservation, agriculture, public and environmental health and justice with a focus on the misuse of science for private gain. Prior to joining ICN, she worked as a part-time magazine editor for the open-access journal PLOS Biology, a reporter for the Food & Environment Reporting Network and produced freelance stories for numerous national outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Discover and Mother Jones. Her work has won awards from the Association of Health Care Journalists, American Society of Journalists and Authors, Society of Professional Journalists NorCal and Association of Food Journalists.
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