A Landfill on Fire and Pollutants in the Groundwater

A landfill fire near Birmingham, Alabama, was declared a state of emergency by the St. Clair County Commission this week. The county now has increased legal authority and the ability to put additional resources towards extinguishing the fire, which has been burning since at least November 25.

Estimates show that the cost of putting out the fire at the Environmental Landfill could be as much as $2 million. Inspectors have reported that unauthorized waste has been found at the site, which is only designed to accept “green waste,” also known as yard waste or vegetation waste.

County Attorney James Hill was quoted in an article published by Advance Local Media, saying, “In order to effectively and correctly address this situation, it will be incumbent upon the state of Alabama and/or the federal government to provide funds necessary to address this particular emergency. These funds are going to need to come from a place other than our local governments.”

This week, the Baxter County Quorum Court in Arkansas voted unanimously to oppose the reopening of a landfill. Harbor Environmental and Safety from Little Rock previously released a report listing pollutants at the site, including arsenic, manganese, barium, and mercury, based on a groundwater monitoring event in October 2022. 

Operations at the landfill stopped in 2012, and Arkansas' Division of Environmental Quality (DEQ) took over closure activities and leachate management at that time. ClosureTurf was used to cap the landfill—"40-mil linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) microspike geomembrane overlain by an engineered synthetic turf and 0.5-inch sand layer," according to the report.

The site is now owned by Ozark Mountain Solid Waste District. Lakeshore Recycling Systems, based in Chicago, has expressed interest in purchasing the landfill.