Texas-based Element Markets LLC has made public a landfill gas-to-pipeline project at the APEX Sanitary Landfill in Amsterdam, Ohio.

The landfill, which covers approximately 1,285 acres in Jefferson and Harrison Counties, receives about 1.8 million tons of waste per year and is one of the fastest-growing landfills in the U.S., according to Element Markets. The new project will produce more than 32 million MMBtu of biomethane through its operational life of more than 20 years, said Randy Lack of Element Markets. That’s enough energy to power about 19,000 homes.

Lack said construction is underway on the well field where the company is expanding the system for the eventual tie into the gas processing plant, and a lateral pipeline will be built to tie into an interstate pipeline.  “We’re still selecting the best path for the lateral pipeline,” he said.

The cost of the project has not been disclosed.

Element Markets has plenty of experience in the landfill gas-to-energy arena, according to Lack. “We own and operate the largest anaerobic digestion project in North America, the Huckabay Ridge Anaerobic Digestion Project located in Stephenville, Texas,” he said. “That project upgrades the gas to pipeline quality very similar to this project.”

While most landfill projects have historically been used to create electricity, there are more than 30 projects in the U.S. that are upgrading landfill gas to pipeline specification, Lack said. Element Markets has several other projects in development that will inject gas into the pipeline for use in transportation and power sectors, rather than to create electricity on site, he added.

Element Markets expects the project to be operational in 2013.