Meloche Landfill
3125 St-Charles Boulevard
Kirkland, Quebec

The Meloche quarry was approved to accept municipal solid waste (MSW) in 1980. During a period of 12 years, 3.8 million tons of municipal solid was landfilled. By the early 90’s, the quarry, 200’ in depth, was full and landfilling ceased.

During the time of the operation of the landfill, the gas collection system was built from the “bottom up”. As the height of the landfill increased, the piping was added to collect the gas. The system of landfilling MSW was a deterrent in effectively collecting and disbursing the gas as the quarry filled up with municipal solid waste

As a result, with the proximity of both residential and industrial facilities many complaints were made by local residents and business. At one point, all of the business on the south side of the landfill had to be evacuated because of gas migration. The City of Kirkland, the Montreal Urban Commission, the Quebec Ministry of Health and the Quebec Ministry of Environment were all involved at some point with the problem created by migration and odor problems.

Highland Energy looked at the landfill as a possible site for a Landfill Gas to Energy project. At that time, another developer had attempted to develop the project but was not confident of being able to collect the gas in a manner that would allow him to operate a LFG plan successfully. The developer had allowed the milestone dates of the original Power Sales Agreement to lapse thus putting the project in default.

Highland conducted its due diligence and determined that a project was viable.
Highland renegotiated a landfill gas agreement with the owner of the site, renegotiated a power purchase agreement with Hydro Quebec and also negotiated an agreement with the department of environment a plan to mitigate landfill gas odors and migration.
Highland undertook the construction of the collection system and power plant and 9 months later commenced commercial operations. From the beginning of commercial operations, all complaints with regards to odors ceased and continuous monitoring indicated no migration of LFG off the site.

The site is now used recreationally as a golf driving range. This project illustrates how private industry and government can work together to solve environmental problems to everyone’s benefit.