The River Birch landfill sits at the end of a dusty gravel road near Waggaman in Jefferson Parish. Some vistas look as expected, with trash trucks and garbage piles and scavenging birds. Other areas are covered with gentle, grass-covered hills that are almost pristine. And the real surprise is in the landfill’s renewable energy office. 

A 4,000-square-foot compound featuring walls of video screens showing real-time data feeds and three-dimensional models of industrial equipment feels more like a NASA control room — or a James Bond villain’s lair — than the command center of a garbage dump.

Tucked behind a blast-proof door, 15 engineers and technicians there are running an on-site natural gas refinery along with the landfill. Additional projects are underway that are all aimed at generating energy from refuse.

Local businessman Fred Heebe is this endeavor’s mastermind, though he doesn’t have a Mars landing or global domination in mind. Instead, he wants to show how to innovate in the waste disposal and energy business. And grow his fortune in the process.

Heebe and his team oversee a massive operation that’s been converting the gas produced by rotting garbage into pipeline-grade natural gas for more than a decade. Now, River Birch has upcoming initiatives that Heebe said will increase its energy output and efficiency — and help him create what he called the world’s first “carbon neutral” facility of its kind.

“With all the technologies we plan to implement, you’d have the same level of carbon emissions if there was no landfill here at all,” said Brian DeJean, the River Birch gas plant’s chief operating officer. “We’re shooting to lower the emissions or turn them into a valuable product.”

A changing industry

Over the last 30 years, some of the biggest garbage dumps in the country have installed gas and liquid collection systems to reduce noxious odors and environmental hazards created by the decomposition of organic waste. The changes have been spurred on by federal regulations and incentives.

More than 500 of those facilities — the privately owned River Birch included — also have installed technology to convert that captured gas into energy. 

The River Birch refinery ranks as the nation’s seventh-largest supplier of pipeline-grade natural gas derived from landfills, according to federal regulators. Heebe said the actual ranking is higher, based on recent improvements, and that his company could move further up the list over the next three years when three new projects come online.

One will create beverage-grade carbon dioxide. Another will convert sewage waste and other organic matter into natural gas and CO2. And a third will make natural gas and CO2 from old tires and plastics.

Expanding empire

Heebe has owned River Birch with his stepfather, Jim Ward, since 1999.

Waste management is a tough business, and the two politically connected and powerful local businessmen engaged in some major fights with competitors to grow their landfill operation over the decades. After Hurricane Katrina, federal prosecutors targeted Heebe in a wide-ranging corruption probe related to the local waste industry.

But he and Ward emerged unscathed after they unearthed a scandal in the local federal prosecutors’ office that led to the resignation of U.S. Attorney Jim Letten and scuttled the bribery probe. They were never indicted, and in 2021 they settled a yearslong civil racketeering lawsuit brought against them by competitor Waste Management for an undisclosed sum. 

In recent years, they’ve rebuilt their reputation largely through the landfill business, which court documents say is worth more than $250 million. In 2020, River Birch took over the contract to operate the adjacent parish-owned landfill after widespread complaints about odors and other problems at that facility that River Birch was called in to solve.

At the time, Jefferson Parish Council member Dominick Impastato noted that state regulators commended River Birch for its “complete lack of odors.” In 2023, River Birch won a $38 million contract for curbside trash pickup in the parish. And earlier this year, the Jefferson Parish Council approved a plan for the operation to expand its footprint by hundreds of acres and into neighboring St. Charles Parish.

The hills are alive

For Heebe, 72, the focus now is continuing to modernize the waste-management business. And to turn trash into gas, first you need to pile up a lot of it.

River Birch employs a little over 70 full-time workers to manage the infill of trash, while another 75 are dedicated to energy projects. Another 300 operate the trash-hauling trucks that collect household garbage from Jefferson Parish, St. Charles Parish and other areas.

Working section by section across the 499-acre property, crews create new areas for dumping by pumping out water and adding liners, sand and pipelines to remove liquids. Then they load in the trash.

It takes about nine months for crews to fill one 200-foot-by-1,000-foot section of the property, known as a “cell,” to a height of 60 feet.

River Birch estimates it will be 30 to 40 years before every section of the property reaches that height. Crews could keep stacking up garbage for decades to come until the area reaches its maximum-allowed height of 199 feet.

“If we went to 200, we’d need a little red light on there for the airplanes and helicopters,” Heebe said.

After trash mounds grow to 20 feet, River Birch workers install extraction wells, essentially giant perforated straws, to suck out the gas that builds up when bacteria consume organic waste in household garbage.

As they feast on banana peels, chicken skin and half-eaten pizza, these microorganisms emit methane and carbon dioxide, along with other gasses and materials.

Or, as Heebe put it: “That’s billions and billions of little farters down there.”

In all, River Birch has more than 20 miles of gas-collection pipelines across its property and the neighboring Jefferson Parish landfill. It sends the gas to its on-site refinery, where it’s processed and then piped to Atmos Energy, a utility with hundreds of thousands of Louisiana customers. The landfill produces 5,500 dekatherms of gas per day, which DeJean said is enough to service about 1,800 homes daily.

New projects

Landfill gas is roughly equal parts methane and carbon dioxide, and after separating them, River Birch sends the methane to Atmos and then cleans the carbon dioxide with a thermal oxidizer before releasing it into the atmosphere.

But Heebe has plans to end those emissions. He plans to turn it into beverage-grade carbon dioxide by refining it until it is 99.9% pure and scrubbed of contaminants so regulators deem it fit for human consumption.

“It may end up in your Coke,” said Heebe.

Meanwhile, River Birch is investing in a new “digester” that will convert sewage sludge and other waste materials into more natural gas and carbon dioxide.

Perhaps the most ambitious project is the planned refinery that will make methane and CO2 from waste tires and plastics.

Because of a chemical process called “vulcanization” that makes them last for miles on the road, tires are notoriously difficult to break back down into rubber and other components for reuse. So Heebe’s team plans to use new technology to reformulate the molecules to create more methane and CO2.

Louisiana has a serious waste tire problem, and the state Department of Environmental Quality is considering new policies to encourage recycling and ensure proper disposal. If successful, the River Birch plan poses a potential solution.

The digestor, beverage-grade carbon dioxide refinery, and waste tire refinery each will require at least 30 workers, said DeJean, who predicts the CO2 refinery will be up and running in two years, and the tire project in three years or less.

River Birch did not disclose financial details of the investments, although federal incentives for renewable energy projects no doubt help make the numbers work.

“If we can attract other people to this waste energy push, then the timeline will be accelerated,” he said. “There’s value in the CO2. So, instead of wasting it, let’s bring it to commerce.”

Years from now, when the trash at River Birch has lost its power to produce energy, and the facility reaches its maximum capacity, Heebe said there’s always one more way to turn a profit.

“In Houston, most of their closed landfills have been turned into public golf courses,” he said. “So you may see some nice rolling hills here one day at par three.”