The Franklin County landfill leaked 11,900 tons of methane in 2010, making it the top industrial source of climate-change gases in central Ohio, according to a first-ever federal inventory.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said the landfill and 19 other businesses and entities across central Ohio emitted a total of 1.45 million tons of carbon dioxide, a climate-change gas. Methane is 22 times more powerful than carbon dioxide, so the EPA describes the Franklin County landfill as emitting 262,582 tons of “carbon-dioxide equivalents.”
Polluters in Columbus include Ohio State University, which released 174,315 tons of carbon dioxide, and the Anheuser-Busch brewery on the North Side, which emitted 54,392 tons.
However, central Ohio’s contribution to climate change is nothing compared with the damage caused by large coal-fired power plants. American Electric Power’s Gavin plant in Gallia County is the No. 1 polluter in Ohio, having emitted 16.74 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2010.
The EPA’s new greenhouse-gas inventory shows that operations across Ohio might face federal climate-change limits — if they are ever enacted. With 244 sources reporting a total of 175.2 million tons of carbon dioxide, Ohio ranks third in the nation for pollution, behind Texas and Indiana.
Columbia Dispatch
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