Federal grant pays for devices that cut emissions
The biggest emitters in the Highlands of greenhouse gases, the primary driver of climate change, aren’t cars or buildings. They’re closed landfills. For example, Beacon’s landfill at Dennings Point, which closed in 1968, is responsible for more than 37 percent of the city’s emissions.
That will soon change. Beacon, Philipstown and Dutchess County learned on Monday (July 22) that they are three of 14 municipalities in the Mid-Hudson Valley to benefit from a $3 million federal grant funded by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act and designed to reduce “climate pollution.” The municipalities, which applied together through the Hudson Valley Regional Council, were the only awardees in New York state.
The grants will fund biofilters made of compost to mitigate methane released from the landfills as decades of trash rots underground. Methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide; it is estimated that, over the next 25 years, filters funded by the grant will reduce emissions by nearly 500,000 metric tons. An installation schedule should be available within a few months.
Beacon will install filters at Dennings Point, Dutchess County at a landfill near the county airport and Philipstown at its landfill on Lane Gate Road near Route 9.
In addition to the filters, the grant provides funding for solar arrays built over capped landfills, such as the one in place at Dennings Point; batteries to store excess power produced by the panels; and the planting of native pollinator gardens to restore the local ecosystem.
The 11 other municipalities who signed onto the grant application were Amenia, Bethel, Cornwall, Gardiner, Hurley, New Paltz, North East, Rhinebeck, Wallkill, Woodstock and Mamaroneck.
