County Deliberates on Trash Overhaul Plans in Advance of Fall Meetings

Updated September 3, 2026

The Montgomery County Council on July 28 held a two-hour meeting on plans to overhaul the way the County disposes of its trash.

The session was the first in a series that could result in a decision in October or November on whether to close the County’s aging trash incinerator in 2027 and pivot to trucking the County’s non-recyclable trash to landfills—as the vast majority of cities and counties in the U.S. do.

The County Executive, Marc Elrich, proposed such a plan earlier this year—after two years of study and analysis by the County’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). But Council President Natali Fani-Gonzalez put that plan on hold; she alleged that it was incomplete and raised too many questions that had not yet been answered. She called for more “independent” information and posed dozens of questions to DEP.

On August 19, Elrich sent the Council President and all Council members a detailed response to their questions, formulated by the County’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and Executive Branch. Here’s a link to that document. Warning: it’s a 140-page PDF. However, the heart of the document is in the first 40 pages. Beyond that are support documents and appendices.

For anyone following this issue closely, the document is critical. It will likely form the basis for the Council’s discussions this fall.

SCA strongly supports the main thrust of DEP’s and Mr. Elrich’s plans to make the transition to truck hauling, landfill, and shuttering the Dickerson incinerator. Moreover, we believe DEP has addressed most of the key issues in play in the document we link to above.

At the same time, we appreciate that the Council’s dialogue on this complex issue—with a once-in-a-generation decision to be made—has surfaced issues that Council members need to understand more fully.

Two big problems have occurred as this debate has played out over the past year:

• A series of studies commissioned by or done by DEP have presented some conflicting information on the pros and cons of burning vs burying trash, and

• Ms. Fani-Gonzalez (intentionally or unintentionally) undercut faith in DEP as a reliable source of information on the proposed waste management transition.

Earlier this year, she asked Council staff to take a fresh look at the research and the DEP plan.

On July 28, staff presented their perspective. A written version of that was made available prior to the session. SCA combed through the document and wrote a four-page memo responding to its content. Click below to read the memo.

SCA MEMO TO COUNCIL

The Council’s next meetings on this issue will be in September. And Council President Fani-Gonzalez has now committed to multiple sessions. However, it is still not clear that the Council can and will actually reach a decision in late October and or early November. Some Council members have said they are committed to that goal so that the current Council will be the one making the decision and not the next Council, which takes office on Dec 7 (along with a new County Executive) after this year’s elections.

Other Council members have not as yet committed to making the waste overhaul decision by November.

Our concern is this: If the decision is not forthcoming and steps put in motion, DEP will be compelled to seek new Requests for Proposals (RFPs) from trash vendors and renegotiate contracts. That would almost certainly cost more money and cause delays that could go well into 2027, stalling efforts once again to get this major county responsibility resolved. (Also, the County must give Reworld, the private company that operates the incinerator, six-month’s notice that the facility is to be shut down.)

County Council Approves 18-month Pause on Data Centers

Updated July 29, 2026

The Montgomery County Council on July 28 unanimously approved an 18-month moratorium on large-scale data centers.

None can be approved, and no applications for data centers can be processed during the moratorium and before the County develops zoning rules regulating them.

The measure encompasses the proposal by a company called Atmosphere to build a 110-acre, 5-building data center campus in Dickerson.

The Council also adopted a definition of “large-scale” or “hyperscale” data centers to clarify the kind of facility it seeks to stop for now.

The 18-month pause is intended to allow the Council and other County officials to thoroughly evaluate the risks posed by large data centers, and to draft regulations that will specify where they can be built and what rules they have to abide by.

There’s tension in that space already. Atmosphere released an updated plan and analysis of its proposal on July 20. The company is saying it will likely be unable to meet certain desires and requests from County lawmakers and advocacy groups. And the company’s CEO, Chuck McBride, told media outlets he was “disappointed” in the Council’s approval of the moratorium.

“Throughout this process, we worked collaboratively with the Council and other stakeholders to demonstrate that the Dickerson Data Center Campus is a unique redevelopment opportunity and to develop what we believe would be one of the most sustainable data center campuses possible,” McBride told The Banner.

The company had filed an appeal against a previous 6-month administrative moratorium imposed by County Executive Marc Elrich, asserting he had overstepped his authority. A similar suit against the Council’s measure would almost certainly be unsuccessful. Notably, the company has threatened numerous times since January to abandon the project if a moratorium was imposed.

Per the company’s July 20 project analysis, some County officials and advocacy groups would like to see aggressive efforts to use cleaner renewable energy to power the proposed facility. The company is asserting, however, that the mix of power sources for the Dickerson data center will not be able to meet “unrealistic” renewable energy goals—due to restraints inherent in the power grid in the mid-Atlantic area.

Issues around water use (from the Potomac River), noise, the role of the facility’s diesel generators, taxation, and other challenges also need addressing. The company claims it is striving to achieve “best practices” in these areas. But no independent assessment of its plans has yet been done.

The moratorium is a clear victory for County residents’ advocacy. On June 16, some 80 people testified at a public hearing on the issue; the vast majority supported a moratorium. Hundreds of other citizens have submitted written comments in recent months, also overwhelmingly supporting a moratorium.

Montgomery County, with this action, becomes the latest jurisdiction in Maryland and nationally to place pauses on data centers approvals.

The reasons are now quite straightforward: lawmakers and citizens alike are just beginning to understand this complex technology and its significant scope and potential impact (positive and negative) on communities.

Many jurisdictions, including Montgomery County, now realize they must involve independent experts to help assess data center proposals.

The 18-month pause means that the present Council and the next Council—as well as a new County Executive—will be dealing with this issue.

Both the new Council and County Executive assume office at noon on Monday, December 7. Importantly, re-elected Councilmember Marilyn Balcombe will be Council President in 2027 and provide an important bridge and leadership on data centers. She has been the lead person to date drafting the data center zoning ordinance.

SCA Candidate Forums: Video & Candidate Position Summary

May 20, 2026

Watch the Democratic Candidate Forum

A recording of the April 23, 2026 Democratic Candidate Forum is available here. We thank the participating Democratic candidates — Mithun Bangeree, Andrew Friedson, Evan Glass, Peter James, and Will Jawando — for sharing their priorities, experience, and vision for Montgomery County.

We also thank the Republican candidates — Shelley Skolnick and Ester Wells — who participated in the separate Republican Candidate Forum held on May 7, 2026. See photos below.

We are also grateful to the Montgomery County Farm Bureau for co-sponsoring these events.

SCA hosted two forums for Montgomery County Executive candidates at Clarksburg High School. The forum for five Democrat candidates on April 23 attracted approximately 70 people. The two Republican candidates presented their positions to an audience of around 25 people on May 7.

The focus of both sessions was farm policy, the Ag Reserve (AR), land use, and zoning in the up-county. Discussion of the county’s trash incinerator and the proposal for a data center in Dickerson was prominent. Attendees submitted their questions for candidates online prior to the event.

SCA, as a 501(c)(3) organization, does not endorse candidates for office. The purpose of the sessions was to facilitate public awareness of all the candidates and their positions on issues pertinent to the AR and rural areas of the county.

Notably, all the candidates expressed strong support for preserving and protecting the Ag Reserve—the nearly one-third of Montgomery County zoned for farmland preservation, low-density development, and open space. But different paths to supporting the AR against looming threats were presented. Indeed, some of the candidates didn’t seem to have a strong grasp of those threats. The debate over allowing non-farm related activities on farms that remove good quality farmland out of crop and food production is one such example.

The candidates were supportive of closing the Dickerson trash incinerator—a goal SCA has pursued for more than a decade. But the candidates had differences of opinion about the best path to achieve that goal even as the county seeks to transform and upgrade its trash management systems (including a transition from burning non-recyclable trash to trucking it to environmentally sound landfills).

The candidates were aware of the proposal to create a large-scale data center campus in Dickerson, on an existing industrial site. None expressed outright opposition to the proposal. But positions varied on how the county should evaluate the idea and in what timeframe, and how the County Council should proceed in its task to write rules to govern where data centers can be built and what environmental and safety protections should apply to them. One Democrat candidate has proposed a six-month moratorium on any approvals for data centers. Another Democrat has proposed a 2-year moratorium.

Both those measures will be taken up in the Council soon. SCA supports a six-month moratorium but only if the law encompasses the Dickerson proposal. An early version of the six-month moratorium lacked clarity on whether it applied to the Dickerson proposal.

Immediate Closure of Montgomery County’s Aging Trash Incinerator Demanded Following Disclosure of Additional Dioxin Leak

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 26, 2026

Printable/PDF Version

Media Contact:
Lauren Greenberger
Vice President, Sugarloaf Citizens Association
lgreenberger@hotmail.com

Immediate Closure of Montgomery County’s Aging Trash Incinerator Demanded Following Disclosure of Additional Dioxin Leak

DICKERSON, Md.— Following our February 20, 2026, press release on the topic, Sugarloaf Citizens Association received notification that a second and more hazardous dioxin and furan discharge occurred at the Montgomery County waste incinerator in Dickerson, MD.

The Montgomery County Department of Environmental Protection has released two statements about this leak: Feb 20, 2026 and Dec 17, 2025. The most recent test results show Unit 3 total dioxins and furans discharged averaged 54.8 ng/dscm at 7% oxygen, exceeding the limit of 30 ng/dscm at 7% oxygen.

This discharge is nearly double the allowable limit and 30 times greater than the average annual stack test results (2.6ng/dscm) for the past 3 years, according to data reported on the County website. There are no established safe limits for dioxin emissions. We are not aware of any similar testing done yet on the third operating boiler, Unit 1.

The incinerator, operated by Reworld, is currently the endpoint for all the county’s non-recyclable solid waste.

Given this updated and highly concerning test result, Sugarloaf Citizen Association urgently calls on Montgomery County leadership to act:

1. We ask the County Executive and his Department of Environmental Protection for immediate closure of the waste incinerator as a response to this emergency and temporarily haul the county’s trash by truck to an interim landfill site.

2. We ask Montgomery County Council members to approve the County Executive’s FY27 budget that will include permanently shuttering the incinerator, ending toxic ash dumping on a community in Virginia, hauling what we can't recycle to a well-vetted landfill, and initiating robust food-scrap composting, and other well-studied waste reduction strategies.

Dioxin Leak at Dickerson Incinerator Prompts Call for Closure

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 20, 2026

Printable/PDF Version

Media Contact:
Lauren Greenberger
Vice President, Sugarloaf Citizens Association
lgreenberger@hotmail.com

Dioxin Leak Adds Urgency to Shuttering Montgomery County’s Aging Trash Incinerator

DICKERSON, Md. — Alarmed by reports of a recent massive dioxin leak at the aging Montgomery County trash incinerator in Dickerson, MD, Sugarloaf Citizens Association (SCA) urges the Montgomery County Council to move forward expeditiously with plans to end trash burning and haul the county’s waste to vetted landfills outside the County.

The incinerator, operated by Reworld, is currently the endpoint for all the county’s non-recyclable solid waste.

In November 2025, a report by the county’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) revealed that the incinerator was emitting nearly double the permitted limit—and 21 times more dioxin and furans than the last test in 2024.  There is no safe emissions limit established for these toxic chemicals.

The dioxin leak from the 30-year-old incinerator comes amid longstanding concerns about health hazards to the community and local agriculture associated with trash incineration, which also produces other toxic chemical emissions such as mercury, sulfur dioxide, arsenic, beryllium, lead, nitrogen oxides and fine particulate matter into the region’s air.

“Further delay by DEP or the County Council is unacceptable,” says Lauren Greenberger, SCA vice president. “We have advocated for an alternative to incineration for more than a decade, given the incinerator’s profile as the worst single source of air pollution and greenhouse gases in Montgomery County. This recent leak is yet more evidence that this aging facility is a continuing dire public health threat.”

Reworld estimated in 2025 that it would cost from $50 million to $100 million to keep the facility operating safely and efficiently for another 7 to 10 years. More recently, DEP cited potential costs as high as $365 million in that timeframe. Most trash incinerators are decommissioned after approximately 22 to 27 years of use.  

Our Position on Agritourism

November 17, 2025

The following statement was issued the week of November 10, 2025 by four organizations who are involved in protecting and preserving the Ag Reserve, including SCA. Please feel free to distribute it. And please consider commenting on it in the section below.

Position Statement PDF

Centering Agriculture in Agritourism: A Joint Position Statement on Agritourism
11/3/2025
Montgomery County Farm Bureau, Montgomery Agricultural Producers
Montgomery Countryside Alliance and Sugarloaf Citizens Association

In 1980, Montgomery County enacted a visionary solution to stem the loss of farms and farmland. It created the Agricultural Reserve, which has been lauded as the nation’s most innovative and successful farmland protection effort. Montgomery County has reaped the benefits of this initiative every day. The Ag Reserve has preserved farms and farming opportunities; it enables local food and grain production; it protects water and air quality for the region; and it provides an array of outdoor recreational opportunities for the entire County. The farms of the Ag Reserve contribute $281 million annually and support over 10,000 jobs in the County.

Maryland lost an average of 2,400 acres of farmland each year between 2017 and 2022. Montgomery County’s land use policies have helped stem the loss of producing farms here, but maintaining thriving farms requires care.

The Ag Reserve remains one of the County’s best ideas – an achievement many other jurisdictions envy. The fundamental purpose of the Reserve—to protect thriving farms—will be strengthened through enhanced connections between producing farms and residents in the County’s urban and suburban areas.

Agricultural tourism is thriving in the Ag Reserve. Many farmers are enhancing revenue by building new markets for their farm products. For decades, thousands of visitors have flocked to Ag Reserve farms to shop at farm stores, for “pick your own” produce, harvest festivals, wineries, breweries, cideries, corn mazes, educational farm tours, animal visits, farm-to-table dinners, and equestrian events. Agritourism connects consumers with local farms not only for purchasing local products but also to build greater understanding about how food is produced and why it is important to support a strong local food system.

A Fragile Balance

Why then is the subject of agritourism becoming somewhat controversial? It’s simple: Some landowners (or land speculators) seek to profit from land planned and zoned as protected farmland by introducing commercial activities that are not associated with farming. Land in the Reserve has been zoned to ensure that it will remain reasonably affordable for farmers to lease or purchase. Business investors who are not farmers, if allowed to divert land from the primary use of farming, will attract other land investors with non-farming ideas. Providing for non-agricultural commercial uses of the Reserve is already driving up the cost of land for bona fide farmers, including, importantly, next 2 generation producers. Promoting competition for land from distinctly non-agricultural commercial uses does not support the Ag Reserve and the local agricultural economy. Rather, it undermines it.

Welcome to the new Royce Hanson Conservation Park in Dickerson

October 14, 2025

Kudos to Montgomery County, the Montgomery County Parks Foundation, and an advocacy group of County residents for creating the Royce Hanson Conservation Park at Broad Run.

This new 475-acre park at 21765 Club Hollow Road in Dickerson will celebrate farming and the Ag Reserve—through educational programs, interpretation of the area’s rich agricultural history, and the enjoyment of nature.

With trails and recreational opportunities for hikers, cyclists, and equestrians, there’s something for everyone.

Most important, the new park celebrates Dr. Royce Hanson—a true visionary—and the County policymakers that worked with him to create the Ag Reserve in 1980.

Born in Depression-era Oklahoma, Dr. Hanson grew up to become an academic, a public servant, author, urban planner, conservationist, and advocate for farming, wilderness, and outdoor recreation. He served two terms as Chairman of the Montgomery County Planning Board, first from 1972 to 1981, and again from 2006 to 2010. From 2009 to 2022, Dr. Hanson served on the Board of the Montgomery County Parks Foundation.

Thanks to his and the County’s commitment, the Ag Reserve—comprising a third of the county—has become a national model of agricultural preservation in a densely populated area.

The Montgomery Parks Foundation has launched a $100,000 fundraising campaign to enhance the park’s facilities and educational programming. You can donate via the Foundation’s website.

Our Position on Solar Energy in Montgomery County and Maryland

Updated: July 18, 2025

Note: The Summer 2025 issue of PLENTY magazine features an article by SCA President Steven Findlay on the new state solar law, which went into effect July 1. The piece explores how the legislation evolved, what it does, and the debate surrounding it.

Click here to view/download the full article.

Below is an updated web post on this issue. Details on the new law—which are complex—can be found in the PLENTY piece and are not addressed in this post.

A new state law—The Renewable Energy Certainty Act—went into effect on July 1. It aims to significantly expand solar energy generation in Maryland. It does that by:

• Streamlining regulations for the assessment of proposed ground-based solar facilities

• Giving solar companies easier access to farmland—around 120,000 acres throughout the state, and

• Preventing counties from denying permits for utility-scale solar projects.

We’ll now see how the law affects the solar industry—whether it prompts a flood or just a trickle of new proposals. We’ll see how the state’s Public Service Commission (PSC), which is charged with reviewing solar proposals, adapts its process to the new law. We’ll see how easily the state’s energy companies and regulators accommodate new solar proposals—that is, accept them for addition to the grid, and in what timeframe. And, finally, we’ll see just how many landowners/farmers in the Ag Reserve are interested in converting some of their land from agriculture to solar energy generation.

Before the law passed the legislature in April, no certainty existed around the scope of landowner interest, beyond the anecdotal and a few projects already in process.

Joined by Montgomery Countryside Alliance (MCA), the Montgomery Farm Bureau (MFB), and Montgomery Agricultural Producers (MAP), SCA will be closely tracking implementation of the law and solar proposals in the Ag Reserve and Montgomery County.

The state’s Department of Agriculture is due to release a fact sheet and Q&A on the law soon. We’ll share those with you when we get them.

Solar companies continue to contact landowners in and near the Ag Reserve, offering to evaluate their land for possible solar development. Neither state nor county officials appear to be tracking those offers. Landowners have reported solar offers that would net them 10 to 20 times more money than leasing to a farmer.

That issue and the concept of converting historically agricultural land to non-farm use triggered fierce opposition to the new law in some quarters. SCA shared that concern and fought to amend the bill.

Our main concern: the law appears to create a “slippery slope” that could undermine the ag economy and Ag Reserve over time. But just how steep that slippery slope might be depends on many factors—not the least of which is how the entities that regulate energy supply react.

The most important of those entities is PJM Interconnection. PJM is responsible for operating the wholesale energy market in 13 states and Washington, DC, including Maryland. For years, PJM has told state lawmakers and regulators that it was “backlogged” on solar projects—because such projects had proliferated. Will that backlog now change under the new law and amid rising energy demand? It’s not clear.