deservedly. But many others have upped their game with new technology( such as methane capture) and practices that protect the environment and local communities.
Montgomery County already sends approximately 150,000 tons of toxic incinerator ash out-ofstate every year to one of the most offensive landfills located just adjacent to a minority community in Virginia. Although the volume of trash involved once the incinerator is shuttered would be three times greater, sending unburned trash to a well-managed landfill in a less populated area would be far safer for any community receiving that trash than continuing to burn it here in Montgomery County and dumping the toxin-dense ash in its current landfill.
Montgomery County leaders have pledged numerous times over the past 15 years to shutter the incinerator. Current County Executive Marc Elrich made such promises while serving on the County Council from 2006 to 2018, while campaigning for the County’ s top job in 2017, and during his first term in office( 2018-2022). In 2018, he wrote to the Council of his intent to close the incinerator by 2021.
With the Nov. 25, 2024 press release, Mr. Elrich and his administration formally modified— many would say reneged on— this pledge.
Food scraps scrapped?
Similarly, the County has taken a winding road over the past 18 months on expanding the Dickerson Yard Trim Composting Facility to accept food scraps— which, again, make up some 17 percent of trash by total volume and 25 per- cent of what the County burns.
We know the details of this winding road well because legal agreements SCA reached in the 1990s with the County— following several lawsuits— grant SCA some oversight of the compost facility. Our headquarters on Martinsburg Road are right next door.
In the fall of 2023, the County approached SCA for approval to expand the compost facility to
include food scraps. We embraced the idea and sought to link the initiative to negotiations over a deadline for closure of the incinerator. Our reasoning: the linkage would hold the County’ s feet to the fire( pun intended) on incinerator closure and compel them to build out the diversion of food waste to composting as rapidly as possible( which they claimed then they wanted to do anyway.)
In several meetings with County officials in 2024, DEP declined to negotiate with SCA nor inform us of the County’ s pending decision to extend the incinerator contract. In January and February of 2025, DEP officials declined to publicly answer our or the County Council’ s questions about the specifics of the food scrap program. John Monger, DEP’ s director, told Council members on Jan. 28 that his department was looking at several other potential sites for such a facility.
SCA has informed DEP and the County Council that it remains willing to continue negotiations on food scraps. On Jan. 28 and again on Feb. 11, we and other environmental advocacy groups formally urged County Council members to reject the five-year extension of the incinerator contract if DEP did not provide a full set of data and comparisons( including hazards to health and environment) of the incinerator’ s continued operation
versus a more urgent reduction of trash volume and a transition over the next three years to landfilling.
At its heart, this debate is now about timing and political will. No one wants to keep the incinerator operating any longer than it absolutely has to. And everyone supports enhanced recycling, composting, and reducing the waste stream. The engineering challenges are not minor. But the urgency of climate change today requires bold and decisive action by governments, the private sector, and citizens. Rapidly reinventing and modernizing the County’ s waste systems and closing the incinerator would be one of the most significant steps Montgomery County could make this decade to reducing its contribution to this global problem.
Steven Findlay is president and Lauren Greenberger is vice president of Sugarloaf Citizens Association.
plenty I spring sowing 2025 31