Alert: Dioxin Leak at Dickerson Incinerator Prompts Call for Closure
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 20, 2026
Media Contact:
Lauren Greenberger
Vice President, Sugarloaf Citizens Association
lgreenberger@hotmail.com
Dioxin Leak Adds Urgency to Shuttering Montgomery County’s Aging Trash Incinerator
DICKERSON, Md. — Alarmed by reports of a recent massive dioxin leak at the aging Montgomery County trash incinerator in Dickerson, MD, Sugarloaf Citizens Association (SCA) urges the Montgomery County Council to move forward expeditiously with plans to end trash burning and haul the county’s waste to vetted landfills outside the County.
The incinerator, operated by Reworld, is currently the endpoint for all the county’s non-recyclable solid waste.
In November 2025, a report by the county’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) revealed that the incinerator was emitting nearly double the permitted limit—and 21 times more dioxin and furans than the last test in 2024. There is no safe emissions limit established for these toxic chemicals.
The dioxin leak from the 30-year-old incinerator comes amid longstanding concerns about health hazards to the community and local agriculture associated with trash incineration, which also produces other toxic chemical emissions such as mercury, sulfur dioxide, arsenic, beryllium, lead, nitrogen oxides and fine particulate matter into the region’s air.
“Further delay by DEP or the County Council is unacceptable,” says Lauren Greenberger, SCA vice president. “We have advocated for an alternative to incineration for more than a decade, given the incinerator’s profile as the worst single source of air pollution and greenhouse gases in Montgomery County. This recent leak is yet more evidence that this aging facility is a continuing dire public health threat.”
Reworld estimated in 2025 that it would cost from $50 million to $100 million to keep the facility operating safely and efficiently for another 7 to 10 years. More recently, DEP cited potential costs as high as $365 million in that timeframe. Most trash incinerators are decommissioned after approximately 22 to 27 years of use.
SCA supports efforts by the executive branch and County Council to overhaul the County’s current trash management system. We are encouraged to learn that a pending contract could soon be awarded to a company that will manage the system. The choice of the winning bid launches a process of evaluation by the Council and the public. That evaluation will focus on the bidder’s plans, the expected transition period to a new system, and the cost.
When implemented, the plan will initiate hauling the County’s trash by truck (and maybe in the future by rail) to landfills, most likely outside Maryland. Montgomery County lacks its own viable landfill site. Truck hauling of trash to the nation’s roughly 3,000 landfills is by far the most common waste management system in the U.S. Only about 13% of our nation’s trash is still incinerated.
This transition would mean that the Dickerson incinerator would be shuttered—once the new system is up and running.
Montgomery County Council President Natali Fani-Gonzalez has asked DEP and County Executive Marc Elrich for more information on the transition to landfilling and ways to reduce the County’s volume of trash. She has also said in recent weeks that she will “not allow” the transition to landfilling to be debated by the Council absent full details related to waste reduction, trucking to one or more landfills, and closing the incinerator—and the associated costs of a coordinated plan for all of that.
“We understand Ms. Fani-Gonzalez’s desire for more details. We’d like those details, too.” said Steven Findlay, SCA president. “But our concern is that her approach could significantly delay closure of the incinerator and the transition to a better, more environmentally safe, and less costly system. After years of dithering and at least a million dollars spent on consultants, the time has come to get this done.”
SCA requests that the County DEP disclose the nature, duration, and scope of the dioxin leak at the Dickerson incinerator and engage the Maryland Department of the Environment to assess related health consequences.
For more information on Montgomery County’s solid waste management transition from incineration to landfill, see:
About Sugarloaf Citizens Association: SCA is a nonprofit organization of volunteers founded in 1973. Our primary mission is to preserve and protect the Agricultural Reserve — the 93,000 acres of northern Montgomery County zoned in the 1980s for farming, land conservation, and open space.
We also advocate for sound environmental stewardship and climate change policies in the Ag Reserve and for the county as a whole — for the benefit of all residents.
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