Statement
Statement from the Montgomery County Department of Environmental Protection on Reported Emission Exceedance at County's Resource Recovery Facility
For Immediate Release: Friday 20 February
Reworld Montgomery, Inc. (Reworld), the operator of the County’s Resource Recovery Facility (RRF), conducted compliance testing on Dec. 22 and 25, 2025, for Unit 2, one of the RRF’s three boilers, and received preliminary test results on Jan. 13, 2026. The preliminary results exceeded the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) permit limit for dioxins and furans. The test results were subsequently confirmed on Feb. 12, 2026, and indicated that Unit 2 total dioxin and furan emissions averaged 97.79 ng/dscm at 7% oxygen, surpassing the permitted limit of 30 ng/dscm at 7% oxygen.
According to Reworld, Unit 2 had already been taken offline on Jan. 4, 2026, for a major refurbishment outage as part of the ongoing capital improvements at the RRF. After receiving the preliminary results on Jan. 13, Reworld initiated additional maintenance inspections and performed repairs on Unit 2 to address causes of the exceedance. Reworld is projecting a Unit 2 start-up date of Feb. 25, 2026, with compliance testing in early March and laboratory results by mid-March.
As noted in a statement issued on Dec. 17, 2025, Reword had previously identified an exceedance on Unit 3. Unit 3 has subsequently completed re-testing and on Feb. 2, 2026, Reworld reported the compliance results showed that Unit 3 was back into compliance, with dioxin and furan emissions of 1.43 ng/dscm at 7% oxygen.
Unit 1 completed refurbishment and was restarted on Feb. 11, 2026. Compliance testing for Unit 1 is scheduled for Feb. 26 and 27, 2026, with results expected to be received 10 days after test completion.
The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) takes the health and safety of residents very seriously. DEP has requested detailed information from Reworld in conjunction with the Northeast Maryland Waste Disposal Authority (NMWDA), which owns the RRF and contracts with Reworld to operate the facility for the County’s benefit. Additionally, DEP has tasked an expert health risk assessor to conduct an assessment of the potential impact of the dioxins/furans exceedance and will share the results with the public when they are available.
# # #
Media Contact: Cindy Peña, Celinda.Peñ[email protected],
Release ID: 26-008