The Mesa County Landfill is using new technology that monitors and controls harmful gases throughout the facility. The Meerkat monitoring system, designed by Grand Valley Instrumentation, provides real-time updates on gas levels that could lower the risk of harmful gas exposure and potential landfill fires. Previously, landfill operators collected gas measurements once per month at wells throughout the facility. The new technology provides hundreds of data points instead of just one monthly measurement.
鈥淥nce per month, we鈥檒l go out to the wells and we鈥檒l see exactly what our methane鈥檚 doing, what our oxygen鈥檚 doing. And so that is 1 measurement per month. This new technology, it would be hooked onto our wells and that will give us hundreds of points of data instead of just the one per month,鈥� said Dylan Brown, Mesa County Landfill, Regulatory Compliance Manager.
The technology records data points every hour, providing the landfill with real-time updates on gas levels. 鈥淲hen waste decomposes, it produces gas. Landfills are controlling this gas through essentially a series of underground pipes with vacuum that pull the gas and divert it to either a flare or an energy recovery facility. The technology we have developed, the meerkat monitoring system, is an autonomous monitoring and adjusting system that samples key metrics from the wellhead before taking corrective action to maintain optimal performance across the entire well field,鈥� Rikki Cook, Co-Founder of Grand Valley Instrumentation.