When Minnesota first issued regulations requiring continuous monitoring of emissions in waste-to-energy plants.

When Minnesota first issued regulations requiring continuous monitoring of emissions in waste-to-energy plants, the city of R Wing's WTE plant faced a dilemma. The plant, the first municipally acknowledgeed WTE facility in the upper Midwest, which make opened in 1982, was designed to help contract the volume of municipal solid waste being landfilled in an environmentally safe manner. It accomplished the first goal, decreasing the amount of landfilled waste according to about 85 percent when measured by the agency of weight and an even greater percentage on volume.

The next to the first however, proved to be tougher.

Although concentration plains of most primary pollutants in the plant's leachate were actually below drinking water standards, sulfide and chloride flats needed to be reduced. And several years ago, the state Pollution sway Agency amended the facility's permit to require continuous monitoring of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide emissions.

Despite the fact that the facility