How persistently do Bay Area landfills leak methane, and did repairs change that?
This tracker reads back through public satellite and aircraft passes over five Bay Area landfills. It estimates how often each site was seen emitting and how much, tests whether a measured change followed each dated repair or inspection, and compares the satellite view with what operators report to the EPA.
Regulators already learn about individual plumes. The gaps are persistence, follow-up and the comparison with reported figures, and every result here is a screening indication for investigation.
How it works
Six steps, from a pass to a comparison. Use the arrows, or the left and right keys when the strip has focus.
More in Methods.
Latest findings
No results yet
Nothing has been published yet. The first data update is expected in November 2026.
Counters, landfill cards and the latest update appear here once the first snapshot is published.
What satellites can't see
- Sentinel-2 only sees plumes of about 2 tonnes per hour or more, so it is a check on large events, not a main detector.
- Satellites only see in daytime and in clear skies, and sources publish about 30 days after an observation.
- Annual figures are methane above a detection floor in those conditions, not a site's total emissions.
- Plumes close to another methane source are marked ambiguous and never assigned to a landfill.
Data and credits
Built from public data: NASA EMIT, ESA Copernicus Sentinel-2, Carbon Mapper (non-commercial use), the US EPA Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, Air District public records, CalRecycle and the US Census Bureau. Full credits and terms on the data page.