Should the county close or refurbish its aging incinerator?

Dozens of residents packed a town hall meeting in Derwood on Wednesday evening to help local officials figure out a new plan to dispose of Montgomery County’s waste.

The council’s self-imposed deadline to act is drawing near. Council President Natali Fani-González last month said she wants the body to decide the future of its incinerator by Thanksgiving.

Environmentalists have long argued the incinerator, which converts waste to ash, is harmful to the environment and residents’ health. It has racked up toxic emissions violations.

Although no vote has been scheduled, Fani-González and other officials have said it is important to come up with a plan for the county’s trash before the new council is inaugurated in December and begins debating the budget in the new year.

“If we don’t do it this council, then it gets dragged on for the next council,” said District 3 council member Sidney Katz, who hosted Wednesday’s town hall with District 7 member Dawn Luedtke and the county’s Department of Environmental Protection. “That’s not efficient.”

Held at the county Department of Transportation’s Highway Services Depot, Wednesday’s event was billed as a forum to gather community perspectives.

County officials presented two options to the standing-room-only crowd.

The first is to close the incinerator and adopt an advanced waste processing system to sort trash into three groups: recyclables, compostable organic material and other waste. That last category of trash would be trucked to the county’s waste transfer station in Shady Grove and then to its landfill, which is in a poor, majority-Black neighborhood in Henrico County, Virginia.

The second option is to upgrade the existing incineration facility, which is more than 30 years old.

According to Department of Environmental Protection officials, both options would involve increased but comparable costs, but the advanced waste processing plan would have a slightly less negative impact on the environment.

No matter which the county picks, said Kaley Laleker, chief of zero waste programs, it should work to reduce its overall amount of waste by strengthening recycling and composting programs.

She also noted that the county may want to consider a landfill in a less marginalized area.

The crowd seemed pleased by neither of the options.

“What is Path C?” asked one attendee, who lives near the Shady Grove transfer station but did not identify herself by name. “We already have odors, smells, truck traffic,” she said.

A resident of the Farmstead neighborhood in Rockville said she also smells the transfer station and feels as if she lives “in a trash can.”

Resident Jerry Chow suggested the county look into moving forward with aspects of both proposals in case it loses access to the Henrico County landfill.

“What happens if Virginia changes the terms and decides they don’t want to take our trash anymore?” Chow said.

Several residents said they worried about increased truck traffic near the Shady Grove transfer station because more trash would be transported through it were the incinerator to close.

County officials told residents Wednesday that the feedback will inform the formal proposals for a new trash plan, which will be subject to public hearings.

“I understand this is personal for people,” DEP Director Jennifer Macedonia said.

County Executive Marc Elrich, whose term is up at the end of the year, has campaigned on closing the incinerator. As part of his fiscal year 2027 budget, Elrich wanted to divert trash to local landfills.

But Fani-González said in March she didn’t want to “rush a decision” as part of the budget process.

The county’s contract with Reworld, the company that operates the incinerator, ends in 2031.