MANKATO – The Blue Earth County Board of Commissioners heard an update on a new refuse derived fuel facility on Tuesday.
As Blue Earth County Property and Environmental Resources Director Michael Stalberger explained, there’s a waste management hierarchy the county likes to follow.
“At the top is reduce, re-use and recycling. Then, below that, are other methods of waste management,” he said.
Part of the upper-portion of that hierarchy is taking waste and converting it to fuel, known as refuse derived fuel, at a building called an RDF facility. Currently, Blue Earth County partners with Minnesota Waste Processing Company who are operating out of a building owned by Xcel Energy. However, Xcel will be ending that lease in 2027.
With MWPC soon to be out of a home, the county board has begun discussions of their next move. Stalberger says the board’s directive is clear: they want to continue their RDF process.
“They want to explore more private-public partnerships, and there are some folks … that work in the waste industry that could be interested,” Stalberger said.
Near the bottom of that hierarchy is Ponderosa Landfill, which Stalberger describes as a “place of last resort” for waste. Because of the limited space in the landfill, and how hard it can be to add more space or create a new landfill, the county is hoping to keep as much garbage out of Ponderosa as possible. A new RDF facility would do just that. The downside would be the cost of dumping garbage there; otherwise known as a tipping fee.
Currently, the tipping fee at Ponderosa is about $70 per ton. Stalberger says that the county is aiming for a “universal tipping fee” for all users of a potential new RDF facility. That fee could be as high as $115.
“These facilities operate under what’s known as an enterprise fund, so they can fund themselves,” Stalberger said. “These tipping fees cover a fair amount of that cost (to build a facility.)”
While there have been some concerns that a new RDF facility could increase residential garbage rates, Stalberger says it’s too early in the process to accurately know how much those rates would go up; if they do at all.
Stalberger and the board agree that more discussions and work need to be had on this topic, but there’s still some time to get the job done as MWPC will be operating at least until the lease ends.