Council Votes 6-5 to Keep the Dickerson Incinerator Open for the Long Term

The Montgomery County Council voted 6-5 on Tuesday, Nov. 10, to approve a resolution supporting keeping the Dickerson Resource Recovery Facility open for the long term as the county’s primary method of disposing of solid waste, according to a Council news release. The vote came against the recommendation of County Executive Marc Elrich, who had urged the Council to close the incinerator. (Video of the vote.)

The resolution states the Council’s position on the county’s long-term disposal of solid waste. Council staff had called the choice “a binary one”: keep using the Dickerson Resource Recovery Facility for the long term, or close it in the short term and move to long-haul disposal at out-of-county landfills, according to the Council staff packet. Both competing resolutions listed Council President Natali Fani-González as lead sponsor.

How each member voted

Council President Natali Fani-González and Councilmembers Shebra Evans, Evan Glass, Sidney Katz, Dawn Luedtke and Kate Stewart voted to keep the incinerator. Council Vice President Marilyn Balcombe and Councilmembers Andrew Friedson, Will Jawando, Kristin Mink and Laurie-Anne Sayles voted no.

Councilmember	Seat	Vote
Natali Fani-González, Council President	District 6	Yes (keep)
Marilyn Balcombe, Council Vice President	District 2	No
Shebra Evans	At-large	Yes (keep)
Andrew Friedson	District 1	No
Evan Glass	At-large	Yes (keep)
Will Jawando	At-large	No
Sidney Katz	District 3	Yes (keep)
Dawn Luedtke	District 7	Yes (keep)
Kristin Mink	District 5	No
Laurie-Anne Sayles	At-large	No
Kate Stewart	District 4	Yes (keep)

In the Council’s release, five members explained why they supported keeping the facility:

• Evan Glass (at-large), chair of the Transportation and Environment Committee, said he could not support shipping trash to a landfill in Virginia because of concerns it would increase carbon emissions, citing “hundreds of additional diesel trucks” and landfill methane, and said the costs of the Executive’s proposal “have never been shared publicly or privately.”
• Sidney Katz (District 3) said the county’s process “needs to include rail as a primary means of hauling waste,” and cited concerns from communities near the Shady Grove Transfer Station about long-haul trucking.
• Kate Stewart (District 4) said keeping the facility open would ensure the county “continues to control what happens to our solid waste” and address racial justice concerns.
• Shebra Evans (at-large) called keeping it open “the more responsible approach for Montgomery County at this time.”
• Dawn Luedtke (District 7) said continuing to use the waste-to-energy facility while expanding composting is the best practice “without burdening other communities.”

Council President Natali Fani-González, lead sponsor of both competing resolutions, said the Council had “fully explored all the issues and are moving forward with the most effective solution for our community.”

What happens next

The resolution asks the County Executive to start a facility planning effort to scope the capital upgrades the incinerator needs to run reliably and meet its permit requirements, while considering the latest technologies to reduce emissions, according to the release. It also seeks further action to remove recyclable metals from the plant’s ash, reiterates support for a new in-county food-waste composting facility and for investigating advanced waste processing, and asks the Executive to address each measure in the amended FY27-32 Capital Improvements Program.

The Council has already appropriated $28 million to design and build a food-waste composting facility, at the existing yard-trim site in Dickerson or another location, the release says. The plan would be carried out once capital funding is submitted, reviewed and approved.

Council staff wrote that the feasibility and final cost of the upgrade would have to be confirmed through additional facility planning and requests for proposals for the design and construction work.

In a Nov. 5 letter to the Council, Elrich wrote that “Either choice will require long-haul of trash in the short-term,” and that keeping the incinerator “would require long-distance hauling during the facility’s major refurbishment or rebuild.”

The cost estimates the Council had

Estimate	Amount	What the packet says
Arcadis report (2025), used in DEP’s projected charges	$356 million	Includes full boiler replacement and selective catalytic reduction (SCR) emissions controls; a 15% contingency and inflation were added
Reworld, the plant’s operator	“$200 million RRF renovation”	Reworld’s April 2026 unsolicited proposal assumes $122 million from FY28 through FY31 and another $146 million across FY32-FY41; it does not include boiler replacement or SCR
Sugarloaf Citizens Association	$800 million to $1.3 billion more than Arcadis	Estimated capital costs compiled by the association and sent to the Council

Rockville and Shady Grove

Rockville’s Mayor and Council asked the county in an Oct. 12 letter, signed by Mayor Monique Ashton and all six councilmembers, to complete a traffic analysis covering “Shady Grove Road, Route 355, I-370, I-270, and other affected roadways and intersections” before choosing a preferred option, and raised “the proposed 3 a.m. start time for hauling operations.” The letter said Rockville “is not asking the County to preserve or close” the incinerator. We reported on the letter Oct. 14.

Neither resolution before the Council set truck routes, hauling hours or protections for neighborhoods near the Shady Grove Transfer Station. The Council’s release does not say whether the adopted resolution addresses them.

Rockville City Councilmember Adam Van Grack, who had raised concerns about long-haul trucks at the Shady Grove Transfer Station, wrote to residents after the vote: “While this solution is not perfect, this was the correct decision of the proposed options (Options 1 or 2) in my opinion.” He said he will be watching “the possibility that temporary long-haul trucking could still be necessary during major renovations.”

Our Oct. 27 story has DEP’s projected household trash charges under each option.

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