Crapo Hill Landfill
The Crapo Hill landfill is an award-winning, fully lined landfill that has provided environmentally responsible and affordable solid waste disposal capacity for the Town of Dartmouth and the City of New Bedford since opening in 1995. It has a landfill gas-to-energy facility on site that produces electrical energy from the decomposing waste- enough to power an estimated 1,700 homes! The District contracts directly with waste haulers serving the member communities and surrounding areas and the LANDFILL IS NOT OPEN TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC.
We estimate that Crapo Hill has saved its member communities more than $75 million in waste disposal costs since opening! The District is committed to providing cost-effective and environmentally responsible waste management solutions for the City of New Bedford and the Town of Dartmouth and to diverting waste away from the landfill that could otherwise be reused, recycled, repurposed, repaired or composted.
Operations
Municipal Solid Waste management is highly regulated. Waste has to be carefully managed to prevent nuisance conditions and impacts to the environment. The staff at Crapo Hill work diligently to manage the incoming waste responsibly and to minimize impacts to our neighbors. We invite interested parties to schedule a tour to see the operations in person and to learn more about how waste is managed!
The District is working to maximize the useful life of the landfill by working closely with staff from the City of New Bedford and the Town of Dartmouth to prioritize waste reduction, reuse of materials, proper recycling, and composting and anaerobic digestion of organic wastes to reduce reliance on disposal facilities and to align with MassDEP’s Waste Disposal Bans and 2030 Solid Waste Master Plan: Working Together Towards Zero Waste. The District is also conducting strategic planning for the long-term management of solid waste from its member communities after the landfill closes.
Capacity
Crapo Hill landfill is currently about 50 acres in size and sits on a 152-acre parcel. It is permitted to accept up to 574 tons of municipal solid waste (MSW) per day, however the District currently accepts much less to preserve capacity for future use by the member communities. The landfill currently has an estimated 4-5 years of disposal capacity remaining in the currently constructed landfill cells, and additional cells have always been anticipated and are currently being designed. The District has been permitted by MassDEP to use 70 acres of the 152-acre site for landfilling and is working to design, permit, and construct the next landfill cell within the footprint of the existing parcel. The next landfill cell is expected to provide an additional 4-5 years of capacity, pending the final design. The District does not plan to expand the landfill beyond the existing site assigned area and works to maximize the useful life of the existing facility.
The landfill currently accepts about 75,000 tons of solid waste per year. Roughly 50% is residential solid waste from Dartmouth and New Bedford, and 50% is residential and commercial solid waste brought in by a combination of haulers and nearby municipalities.
Site History
The landfill sits on a 152-acre wooded site located in North Dartmouth on the Freetown line. It was purchased by the District in 1982 after Dartmouth and New Bedford joined together to form a Refuse District under Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 40, Section 44A-K and a special act of the State Legislature. It took 12 years of regulatory changes and re-design before the District issued a 20-year bond for $11 million to construct and equip the Crapo Hill Landfill, which opened in 1995. Crapo Hill is a fully lined landfill that has been constructed using the best available environmental engineering practices.
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Landfill Gas-to-Energy Facility
Gases created by decomposition of waste within the landfill are collected through a system of perforated pipes installed throughout the landfill as it is constructed. The landfill gas is piped to the on-site electric power plant operated by CommonWealth New Bedford Energy, LLC where it is burned in Caterpillar engines to generate up to 3.4 megawatts of electricity. The power is sold to Eversource.
The District uses technology from LoCi Controls to remotely monitor the conditions of the gas wellfield, providing real-time data on gas composition, temperature, pressure, and flow rate. This technology maximizes the collection of gas within the landfill and helps alert the staff if there are areas that need attention or repair, minimizing the potential for fugitive emissions.
Congratulations from SWANA!
Greater New Bedford Regional Refuse Management District received the 2010 Gold Landfill Management Excellence Award!
AND
Greater New Bedford Landfill Gas Utilization Project at the Crapo Hill Landfill received the 2010 Silver Landfill Gas Utilization Excellence Award!
The facility also hosts a Hydrogen Sulfide removal system, which helps to mitigate odors and deliver a higher quality gas to the power plant.
Waste Disposal Bans
Certain materials that are easy to recycle or are toxic are banned from disposal or transfer for disposal in Massachusetts and should not be sent to the Crapo Hill landfill, including:
- Asphalt pavement, brick and concrete
- Cathode ray tubes
- Clean gypsum wallboard
- Commercial food material (lower threshold effective November 1, 2022)
- Ferrous and non-ferrous metals
- Glass and metal containers
- Lead acid batteries
- Mattresses (effective November 1, 2022)
- Recyclable paper, cardboard and paperboard
- Single-resin narrow-necked plastic containers
- Textiles (effective November 1, 2022)
- White goods (large appliances)
- Whole tires (banned from landfills only; shredded tires acceptable)
- Leaves and yard waste (the District has a separate compost area for these)
- Treated and untreated wood and wood waste (banned from landfills only)
For more information, visit https://www.mass.gov/guides/massdep-waste-disposal-bans.
Overview of the District
The Greater New Bedford Regional Refuse Management District is a great example of regional cooperation and provides cost-effective, safe, and sustainable municipal solid waste disposal services. The District is a public entity that was formed in 1979 when Dartmouth and New Bedford signed an Inter-Municipal Agreement under Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 40, Section 44A-K and a special act of the State Legislature. The District is governed by a Committee composed of three members from New Bedford and three members from Dartmouth, whose primary focus is serving the best interest of these communities.
Notices
WEEKLY UPDATE
Week ending March 16, 2025
The District is installing horizontal landfill gas extraction wells. This installation will occur during weekday operating hours (Monday through Friday, 7:15 a.m. to 3:15 p.m.). There may be temporary odorous conditions during the installation.
Please do not hesitate to call the odor hotline (508-763-2423) if odors occur.
Odors
The District operates a 24/7 odor hotline. Residents can report odors they suspect are coming from the landfill by calling (508) 763-2423.
When calling, please:
- describe the intensity of the odor on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the most intense
- provide the address or specific location where the odor is detected
- describe the odor as best you can (trash smell, gas, rotten eggs)
- if you would like a call back, provide a telephone number where a District representative can reach you
One of the goals of the District is to be a good neighbor by limiting our impact on those who live and work closest to us. As solid waste decomposes, it generates gases, consisting mainly of methane and carbon dioxide, with trace amounts of other gases. One of those gases is hydrogen sulfide, which is responsible for most landfill odors. The District and its partners at CNBE have implemented a treatment system to remove hydrogen sulfide from the landfill gas before it is combusted, and this has helped reduce odors from the operation.
- Collect landfill gas via a network of wells in the landfill. The gas is piped to the landfill gas-to-energy plant on site, where it is burned to create electricity. The plant can produce up to 3.4 megawatts of electricity from landfill gas.
- Monitor the landfill to identify areas where landfill gas is being produced and which are not under the influence of the landfill gas collection system. In these areas, candlestick flares are used to burn landfill gas and reduce the potential for odors.
- Minimize the size of the “active area”, or the area in the landfill where solid waste is disposed
- Install daily cover material over solid waste at the end of each working day
- Monitor odor conditions during normal operating hours to determine whether odors are present
- On slopes where no landfill activities will occur, additional intermediate cover has been installed and seeded to establish a vegetative layer; the vegetative layer reduces the potential for erosion, creates more stable intermediate cover, and reduces the potential for gas to be released
- Immediately cover any odorous loads that might be received
- Install and operate a treatment system to remove hydrogen sulfide from landfill gas.
- Permanently cap approximately 7 acres of landfill. The work included installation of 10 new wells to collect gas. The project was completed in fall 2016.
- Discontinued accepting material that might result in elevated hydrogen sulfide, such as material containing gypsum
- Increased the frequency of landfill gas leak checks within the landfill gas to energy plant. Any leaks found are promptly repaired.
- Increased the frequency of monitoring and adjusting landfill gas wells containing elevated levels of hydrogen sulfide to ensure these wells are functioning efficiently.
- Changed the damper position for intake of engine combustion air to take combustion air from inside the engine room instead of from outside. This helps reduce venting air from the engine room to the outside, and more engine room air is used for engine combustion.
Occasionally, certain construction activities to reduce odors may actually result in temporary odors. We’ll provide periodic updates of any upcoming work that may produce a temporary odor.
Final Cover
The portions of the landfill that have reached their final grade are capped with an impermeable ‘sandwich’ of plastic liner and clay-like materials. This final cover system reduces the amount of stormwater that will enter the landfill after closing, resists erosion due to wind or runoff, controls the migrations of landfill gases, and improves aesthetics. To date, 22 acres have been capped. The ultimate height of the fully capped landfill will be 320 feet above mean sea level.
What’s next?
According to MassDEP’s 2022 Solid Waste Data update, Massachusetts generated approximately 6,000,000 tons of solid waste in 2022.
- 490,000 tons (8%) were disposed of at in-state landfills. Only 7 active municipal solid waste landfills remain in MA.
- 2,930,000 tons were combusted in waste-to-energy facilities (49%)
- 2,590,000 tons (43%) were exported to other states (net of imports).
Put simply, there is a lot more waste being generated in MA than there is capacity to dispose of it in the state. This highlights the importance of reducing the amount of waste being generated, finding opportunities to reuse or repurpose items instead of throwing them away, composting food waste, and recycling as much as possible! Despite these efforts, there is still waste that has no better alternative and needs to be disposed of. The District is actively working on a long-term waste management plan for its member communities, but once Crapo Hill reaches capacity, the options for waste disposal in this area are limited. Waste will likely need to be transported long distances to facilities in other states at a significantly higher cost than sending it to Crapo Hill. As landfills in MA continue to reach capacity, this reliance on exporting waste to disposal facilities in other states is expected to grow and costs for waste disposal will likely continue to increase. Much of New England is facing a similar situation.
We can all take ownership of the waste we generate and work to minimize the amount that requires disposal! We post a lot of ideas on our social media accounts and are happy to listen if you have ideas to share!