Dougherty Co. landfill continues to turn trash into power

ALBANY, Ga. (WALB) - Your trash is actually being used to power a marine base and Dougherty County officials are trying to expand the program to provide more energy.

Natural gas from trash at the Dougherty County Landfill actually powers the Marine Corps Logistics Base.

The county siphons the gas through a pipeline to power generators at the base.

On Monday morning, county commissioners approved spending around $370,000 to build more wells to siphon even more natural gas.

The county will use that money to replace 11 gas wells. The wells capture landfill gas. But the wells have life cycles that are running out. The cycles are made even shorter the more and more trash that is dumped on top of them at the landfill.

“They have a co-generation plant, so they use the landfill gas in a 1.9 megawatt generator to generate electricity. They also recover the heat off of the exhaust and they use landfill gas to fire a boiler to generate steam for parts washing and other processes they have onsite,” said Assistant County Administrator Scott Addison.

The gas is sent to the base through a pipeline.

The interesting trash to power project started using the wells in 2011, but the new and repaired wells will allow the county to pull even more gas out.

It's a 20-year partnership between the two.

Using natural gas saves the base $1.8 million dollars every year.

The county has hired Advanced One Development out of Charlotte, North Carolina to build the new wells.

In a little over a year, you'll be able to drive down more than 22 miles of freshly resurfaced roads.

Dougherty County leaders said it’s all thanks to T-SPLOST funding.

Drivers won’t only have a smoother ride, the roads will also be safer.

T-SPLOST has given Dougherty County Public Works an extra $2 million to repair 16 different roads.

This is actually the largest number of roads public works has been able to repair and resurface at one time.

The roads include residential and arterial roads, which are the most trafficked ones.

Crews have the funding now to resurface the roads and add stripping and reflectors for added safety.

“We normally could do seven, nine, 10 miles at the most. Now we got 22 and a half miles. That’s the most we’ve ever done, but with T-SPLOST, over the next several years, with the T-SPLOST funds coming in, we’ll be able to do probably the same, if not more, in the future,” said Public Works Engineer Jeremy Brown.

The $2 million will come from T-SPLOST, $425,000 comes from SPLOST VII and $435,000 will come from a Local Maintenance and Improvement Grant.

The project will start in the Spring of 2020.

Dougherty Co. Commission discusses 2 rezoning cases:

Farm animals will not be coming to one Old Dawson Road neighborhood.

A homeowner recently bought a property on Old Dawson. She was requesting Dougherty County Commissioners rezone her land from residential to agricultural use.

Her intent was to have a few horses and cows on the land but several neighbors objected to the idea and the homeowner eventually withdrew her request.

“In light of that, unless I hear otherwise from county attorney or other commissioners, we’re going to dispose of this matter by administratively accepting the withdrawal that’s been received. Is that fair?” Dougherty County Commission Chairman Chris Cohilas asked the board.

There were several neighbors ready to speak out against the rezoning issue at a public hearing Monday morning.

Cohilas canceled the public hearing after the rezoning request was withdrawn.

It wasn’t the only zoning matter discussed at Monday’s commission meeting.

A new illuminated church sign is leading some to question city and county sign ordinances.

Dougherty County commissioners approved a rezoning request from Lakeside Baptist Church leaders Monday.

The property will be rezoned from residential to commercial.

Now, the church can install an illuminated sign.

This isn't the first time a church has asked to be rezoned for this same purpose.

It led Commissioner Clinton Johnson to question whether city and county sign ordinances are too strict in some areas. On the other hand, Commissioner Russell Gray said that may be a slippery slope.

“Given the nature of signs, I don’t want to see the Las Vegas strip happen all over Albany. I do think we probably could look, at least in the county, sign ordinances. So many people are going to LED signs that are energy-efficient,” said Gray.

Commissioners did agree they worry about turning residential properties into commercial properties when it comes to an owner eventually reselling the property.

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