For eight weeks, an underground landfill fire has been belching out smoke and odors across the Moody/Trussville area and beyond. Now there are workers on the site to begin the difficult work of putting the fire out.
On Wednesday, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey signed an order declaring a limited state of emergency in St. Clair County to address the ongoing underground inferno at a 50-acre state-permitted landfill in Moody at the intersection of Annie Lee Road and Blackjack Road. At the state’s request, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is now taking the lead role in the disaster response.
On Thursday, Alabama Today spoke with St. Clair County Chairman Stan Batemon about the situation.
“There are bulldozers on site working to cover up the fire,” Bateman said.
The Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM) had taken a lead role in the disaster. Their early opinion had been to build a fire break around the site so that the fire was contained to the site and then to let it burn itself out. Days became weeks, and weeks became months, and thousands of people in the suburbs ringing the eastern edge of Birmingham have woken up each day to the smell of smoke – lots of smoke. Still, the fire has not burned itself out. Now ADEM is taking a back seat to the federal authorities, attempting a more aggressive approach to dealing with fire.
Alabama Today visited the site Thursday night, and there were trucks, machinery, and workers on site to begin the hard, dangerous work of putting out the multi-acre underground inferno. Flames could be observed shooting from the top of the large manmade hill in dozens of places. The smoke was not as heavy or as malodorous as in earlier trips to the site.
Alabama Today asked Batemon how much is all of this cleanup effort going to cost St. Clair County.
“Not anything,” Batemon said. “At least for now. It is being handled like a Superfund site.”
State Senator Lance Bell said residents have been phoning him constantly to complain about the smoke.
The landfill was permitted by ADEM but was not closely monitored and regulated. It is not a lined landfill that accepts garbage and other waste. The site is permitted to be strictly limited to limbs and other yard waste.
Many Moody residents insisted that the smoke smelled more like burning plastics or old tires. The EPA requested that ADEM monitor the air quality and water quality around the site. The testing shows that the smoke is consistent with what you would find from burning wood. Residents of the area have had to deal with ongoing odors from the fire and the smoke since November, over the Christmas holidays, thru New Year’s, and to the present.
It is not known at this time how long putting the fire out will take or what the effort to combat the raging inferno will cost the taxpayers.
Once the fire is out, there is a possibility that the site operator could be assessed penalties associated with the cost of putting out the fire. Work is ongoing at the site.
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