AL-QURAIN, Kuwait The residents of Kuwait's outer suburban neighborhood of Al-Qurain on Sunday celebrated the happiest Earth Day they have ever had -- especially after living next to the Persian Gulf state's biggest and smelliest landfill dump for nearly 15 years.

The country's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) inaugurated Earth Day in front of government officials, foreign ambassadors, and to the general public in what seemed to be a miracle for the 60,000 Al-Qurain inhabitants who have had to suffer the stench of rotting garbage from a one-kilometer square landfill that served as the community's only centerpiece.

Al-Qurain residents who were once stigmatized for living in oil-rich Kuwait's lowest prestige neighborhood and who became the butt of jokes, are now pleased to show off their odor-free area, which may soon become one of the country's greenest.

Moreover, those who live closest to the dump site may get an added bonus of free electricity for their homes for at least the next 30 years to come.

---------------- How Did EPA Do It? ----------------

No one ever anticipated that Al-Qurain, some 15 kilometers south of the capital Kuwait City, would ever be developed, let alone inhabited.

So the municipality, without any foresight or control, started dumping all of the country's garbage and solid waste there. Since the area had been quarried for its topsoil, a big gaping hole in the ground accommodated the garbage just fine.

Garbage dumping -- out of sight, out of mind -- continued for 15 years until the landfill grew to be one kilometer square and 25 meters deep.

EPA engineers estimated the dump contains between five and six million cubic meters of solid waste.

With the government running out of subsidized housing for its citizens, Al-Qurain land plots went on offer, but only those utterly desperate for housing or willing to put up with the awful stench would consider the neighborhood.

"It was so much garbage it was overwhelming," said EPA Director General Mohammed al-Sawari. "Nobody could stand being near the place for five minutes let alone live there."

"And nobody wanted to deal with it -- especially the government," which grew deaf to the complaints of bad odor wafting in and out of peoples' homes, he added.

The dump produced a lethal cocktail of methane, carbon-monoxide, carbon-dioxide, nitrogen, and hydrogen sulfide. Worse, a spark one day set off fires within the dump that nobody could extinguish.

In 1999 Al-Sawari, with a lean budget of 200,000 dinars (653,000 dollars) and a group of die-hard environmentalists volunteered to "deal with" the hazardous refuse heap on fire.

EPA engineers set out to Europe and other places looking for advice. Consultants were invited in.

"We had an idea of capturing the noxious gases and in fact, we found an entire town near Baden Baden, Germany where energy was harnessed from landfill. We also saw examples in Sweden and in Britain," explained the project's Egyptian Manager Farhat Mahrouse, who proudly set alight a colorless, and orderless methane gas flare emanating from one of several pipes installed down bore holes into the heart of Al-Qurain's mother lode.

Undaunted by the scope of the refuse, EPA first scraped off and hauled away the top layer of garbage amounting to 28,000 truckloads full, or about 500,000 cubic meters.

Then 400,000 cubic meters of "gatch" or what Kuwaitis call a type of pebbly nonporous sandstone, was brought in from the desert to cover the burning heap. Fires went out. The smell grew faint.

Degassing began by drilling more than 300 bore holes into the gatch-covered landfill. Pipes were inserted down the holes and eventually connected in a gridwork underground.

"We were happy to find our bore holes begin producing 3,000 cubic meters of methane gas per hour," said Mahrouse noting that EPA then began to continuously flare the gas from 30 bore holes about one year ago. Eventually they will all be diverted to an electrical generator and a main flare whose chimney proudly stands ready to be connected.

Sensitive EPA air quality monitors on site now record some of the cleanest and freshest air in Kuwait.

"The site can produce the gas for around 30 years and the real bonus is that we can produce 3.8 megawatts of electricity continuously. We are hoping to give this energy free of charge to about 300 homes -- to the closest ones who suffered the most from the bad smells," said Al-Sawari. "They deserve it."

Property prices are expected to rise in Al-Qurain especially now that EPA has planned out a verdant tree-lined park atop of the once burning dump featuring swimming pools, gardens, a Greek theater, an astronomy observatory, soccer fields and more.

Earth Day has taken on meaning to Al-Qurain residents who at one time had lost all hope in feeling good about their unique neighborhood, according to DPA.