Dive summary:

• Palo Alto, Cal. is looking to keep its 51-acre landfill uncapped to buy time to investigate the possibility of building a waste-to-energy facility on 10-acres of the site.
• The council agreed to ask regulatory agencies for a 16-month delay on capping the landfill in order to have time to fully process their plan.
• The landfill is already overdue on capping and dangerous methane and other harmful gasses are still seeping out of the landfill making it risky for environmental agencies to kick the can much further.

From the article:

While  the Santa Clara County Department of Environmental Health and other regulatory agencies agreed last year to let Palo Alto postpone the work until the 2013 construction season, city staff said they doubted another delay would be granted given the uncertainty swirling around the waste-to-energy facility.

"We still don't even know if an energy-compost facility will be approved on site," said Ron Arp, the city's manager of environmental control programs. "We won't know that until we bring a recommendation to you in early 2014."

Interim Assistant Public Works Director Phil Bobel said the city could be assessed as much as $10,000 per day for being out of compliance. ...