Hervey Range Landfill Gas Project

Hervey Range Landfill Gas Project is a landfill gas project located at the Hervey Range Landfill, approximately 25km west of Townsville in Queensland. It was registered in May 2015 and covers an unknown registered project area, although the wider landfill site itself spans roughly 74.6 hectares.

Landfill gas projects under the Carbon Farming Initiative involve installing a new gas collection system or upgrading an existing one. The standard requirement of these systems is to capture methane gas generated at the landfill from decomposing legacy and non-legacy waste and combust it. This is typically done via a flare or an engine. By combusting methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas, and converting it into less harmful carbon dioxide, the project successfully reduces the site's net emissions.

The Townsville and Hervey Range region supports a mix of conservation, residential, and agricultural land uses, including cattle grazing. The area is situated in the dry tropics and experiences a highly seasonal climate, characterised by high rainfall during the summer wet season and a semi-arid dry season. Local soils are heavily influenced by these conditions, featuring predominantly highly reactive clays that swell when wet and bake hard during the dry season, alongside mixed sandy loams.

The biogas facility is owned and operated by the proponent, LMS Energy, in partnership with the Townsville City Council. The project was contracted to the Commonwealth in April 2017 under contract CAC668305, and successfully completed its abatement delivery requirements in June 2022. To complement the ongoing gas capture and rehabilitation of the site, Townsville City Council invested $4 million into an Australian-first capping initiative for a local council, laying an environmentally friendly bituminous geomembrane over the waste to actively prevent rainwater from entering the landfill.