KING

SEATTLE - King County leaders have finally cleared the way for a deal to turn decades of trash into fuel for the future.

The deal involves the Cedar Hills Landfill, which receives garbage from many King County communities.

It is truly a dump, but King County Waste experts see it differently.

"I see the most beautiful area in the United States," said Theresa Jennings, interim director of the King County Natural Resources. "This is an award-winning landfill and it should be known and residents of King County should be proud of the operation here."

A million tons of solid waste are dumped there each year, and over the decades all that buried waste has been steadily producing methane gas.

The county captures that gas by capping filled-up sections of the landfill with a membrane and removing it through an elaborate system of pipes.

Flaring or burning off is considered the best way to get rid of the methane.

But now King County has signed a contract to allow a company to turn that methane into natural gas and sell it.

"It can be used to probably heat the equivalent or at least the energy value for about 45,000 homes," Jennings said.

And that adds up to a return of $1 million a year for gas that will keep forming under the landfill for another 50 years.

And there is a huge environmental benefit.

Getting rid of the flaring process will reduce annual carbon dioxide emissions by roughly as much as is produced by 22,000 cars.

The deal is expected to completely offset the costs of managing the methane at the Cedar Hills landfill.