Colorado’s trash is about to get more expensive, and county leaders are sounding the alarm that the squeeze will hit residents long before anyone sees cleaner air on the horizon.
A new statewide landfill methane rule, Regulation 31, is set to kick in and county officials say it could force local governments to hike garbage fees, scale back services, or find millions of dollars for gas-capture systems on a tight timeline. Rural areas, where a single landfill often anchors regional waste service, are especially nervous that tipping fees will climb and smaller operations could struggle to hang on.
The Air Quality Control Commission adopted Regulation 31 in December 2025. The rule tightens when and how landfills must control methane, adds new monitoring tools, and gradually phases out open flaring, according to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. State officials estimate the rule could apply to as many as 32 landfills and cut about 12.53 million metric tons of carbon-dioxide-equivalent emissions by 2050.
County leaders say the costs on the ground tell a different story. Morgan County Commissioner Tim Malone told CBS News Colorado that building a gas collection and control system can run roughly $4 million to $6 million, with at least another $1 million a year for monitoring, reporting, and maintenance. "It’s just unrealistic, some of the numbers," Malone said. Local officials warn that if they push tipping fees too high, residents might turn to illegal dumping instead of the landfill gate.
How the rule works
Regulation 31 uses a methane-based trigger that pulls more landfills into the state’s orbit. Any landfill with at least 450,000 tons of waste in place must submit methane-generation reports by June 30. Sites that cross certain methane-generation thresholds then have to file a design plan within a year and get a gas-collection system up and running about 18 months after that, as reported by Waste Dive.
The compliance toolkit leans heavily on technology. Remote sensing, including satellites and drones, as well as quarterly surface monitoring are built into the rule in an effort to spot leaks more quickly and keep them from lingering. Regulators ultimately softened some of the monitoring intervals during the rulemaking process, but they also extended requirements to many mid-sized sites that had not previously been covered.
What lawmakers are doing
As counties tally up potential costs, state lawmakers are trying to line up some money. SB26-101, introduced this session, would let counties pull from several existing state funds to help cover landfill methane work. The bill text on the Colorado General Assembly website lays out possible uses for the Community Impact Cash Fund, the Air Quality Enterprise Fund, and the Local Government Mineral Impact Fund on projects tied to the new rule.
The measure is sponsored by Senators Byron Pelton and Dylan Roberts. Pelton told CBS News Colorado that county officials are on board with cleaner air but are worried about what it will cost their residents. The bill cleared the Senate Transportation & Energy committee and is now headed to the full Senate for debate.
Recycling may shift the calculus
One big moving piece in the background is Colorado’s new producer-funded statewide recycling program, which aims to cut down the amount of trash heading to landfills in the first place. The final plan for that system was approved in December, and the Producer Responsibility Organization in charge must start implementation within six months, effectively by June 2026, according to Circular Action Alliance.
If recycling expands and more organic waste gets diverted, counties could see less "waste in place" building up in their landfills. That, in turn, could slow methane generation and potentially nudge some mid-sized landfills below the thresholds that trigger gas-collection requirements, which might ease the financial hit for certain communities.
Environmental and public health advocates counter that the status quo is already costly in its own way. Colorado’s landfills emit about 1.3 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent each year, a little more than 1 percent of the state’s total greenhouse gas output, according to reporting by Colorado Newsline. Supporters of Regulation 31 argue that capturing methane will not only cut climate pollution but also help reduce local air toxics near landfill communities.
County leaders are not necessarily disputing the environmental benefits. Their message is that state officials need to pair ambitious rules with real funding and realistic timelines, or risk turning basic trash service into a budget-buster. As lawmakers and regulators weigh tweaks to timing and money, local governments are already looking ahead to the next few budget cycles, trying to figure out how to keep both the air and the balance sheets clear.
