Casella and Rudarpa break ground on renewable natural gas processing facility

—Bartlett & West is proud to be on the project team for the North Country Environmental Services (NCES) renewable natural gas (RNG) facility. This article was originally published on the Casella website May 20, 2021 and is shared here with permission.

Casella Waste Systems, Inc., in partnership with Rudarpa, Inc. officially broke ground on a Renewable Natural Gas (RNG) processing facility on May 19 at its North Country Environmental Services (NCES) disposal facility in Bethlehem, N.H.

“We’re thrilled to see this vision begin to take shape in Bethlehem,” said Casella Chairman and CEO John W. Casella. “We’re grateful to our partners who helped to develop the infrastructure that will lead to opportunity and environmental benefits for the entire state of New Hampshire and look forward to bringing the additional economic benefits to Bethlehem for years to come.”

The facility is designed to capture the landfill gas which is currently being flared and separate it into marketable gases, with primary emphasis on methane and carbon dioxide. Once processed, the RNG will be transported by truck for injection into existing pipeline facilities owned by Liberty Utilities. The emissions reduction from converting the landfill gas into transportation fuel is estimated to be 78,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually, which is equivalent to taking more than 15,000 passenger cars off the road.

While acknowledging his family and most especially his grandchildren who attended the ceremony, Rudarpa representative Joe Darling said this project was all about the future, “both in protecting our environment for future generations and in moving forward together. We look at this as the first of many potential opportunities with Casella and our other partners, and we really want to thank everyone involved in this project for their continued support.”

The construction phase of the project is estimated to take 13 months and is expected to create up to 30 full-time jobs. Once operational, up to 12 full and part-time jobs are expected to be created to allow the facility to produce at capacity.

A grand opening will be scheduled for the public to tour the facility once it is completed.