Dozens of Montgomery County residents packed a Derwood town hall on Wednesday, Sept. 2, to weigh in on the future of the county's aging trash incinerator. The council must decide before Thanksgiving whether to close the 31-year-old plant or spend an estimated $365 million to upgrade it.

The choice will affect trash bills for every household in the county, including Potomac. Yet the county's own analysis found the cost difference between the two options amounts to less than $10 per year for the average single-family home.

Councilmember Sidney Katz and Councilmember Dawn Luedtke hosted the forum at the county's Highway Services Depot on Crabbs Branch Way in Rockville, alongside the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), The Banner reported. County officials laid out two paths: shut down the Resource Recovery Facility in Dickerson and truck waste to a landfill in Henrico County, Virginia, or refurbish the plant for continued use.

Neither option satisfied the standing-room-only crowd.

One attendee who lives near the Shady Grove transfer station said she already deals with odors and truck traffic and asked what other options exist. Resident Jerry Chow questioned the county's reliance on a Virginia landfill, asking what would happen if the state changed terms and refused to accept Montgomery County's trash.

Council President Natali Fani-González has pushed for a decision by Thanksgiving. A new council takes office in December and will begin budget talks in the new year.

"If we don't do it this council, then it gets dragged on for the next council," Katz said. "That's not efficient."

The incinerator has operated in Dickerson since August 1995. Its three furnaces burn about 1,800 tons of waste daily and generate enough electricity to power 27,000 homes. But the facility reported emissions of dioxins and furans, toxic air pollutants, above state limits from two of its three boiler units in November 2025 and February 2026, according to the county's DEP. Repairs brought the plant back into compliance, the county said.

Waste Dive reported that one unit had been emitting dioxins more than three times the state limit before it was taken offline. Maryland also ended support for incineration through its Renewable Portfolio Standard, cutting the revenue the county earns from electricity the plant produces.

Under the closure option, an advanced waste processing system would sort trash into recyclables, compostable material and remaining waste. That remaining waste would go to the Shady Grove transfer station and then to the Henrico County landfill. Closing the incinerator would also allow food-scrap composting at an existing Dickerson facility using funds the council already approved. Keeping the incinerator open would require $27 million for a new composting site elsewhere.

Kaley Laleker, chief of zero waste programs at the DEP, said the county should strengthen recycling and composting regardless of which path it takes. She also said officials should consider a landfill in a less marginalized area. County records describe the current Henrico landfill site as having a large low-income and minority population.

A county traffic study found that closing the incinerator would slightly increase truck traffic near the Derwood transfer station, but called the impact minimal.

County Executive Marc Elrich, whose term ends in December 2026, proposed $43.9 million in his fiscal year 2027 budget for a six-month waste-hauling contract aimed at ending incineration by the end of 2026. The council rejected that approach and kept incinerator funding through June 2027. Fani-González said in March that Elrich had not presented a viable closure plan, according to Bethesda Magazine.

DEP Director Jennifer Macedonia told the crowd the feedback would shape formal proposals subject to public hearings. The county issued a request for proposals for advanced waste processing on July 14; responses are due Sept. 14. No vote on the incinerator's future has been scheduled.