Demolition company sued over landfill violations just months before fire broke out.
Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection sued the owner of a local landfill months before a fire broke out, but the case ended in September when the owner died.
The fire began in October and has covered nearby neighborhoods with smoke almost every day since Oct. 15, leaving locals fretting about health conditions and unable, at times, to go outdoors. However, that was not the first time fire had been an issue at the landfill.
In April, the DEP submitted a complaint and petition for enforcement against Demolition Disposal Inc. The petition alleges the landfill workers “accepted and then failed to segregate and properly dispose of waste other than construction and demolition disposal debris” in violation of the landfill’s permit. The landfill also did not have a “trained spotter” on duty while waste was being received and workers did not “prohibit open burning of solid waste.”
“The facility has not demonstrated that the fire has been extinguished … and that one or all three components of fire (fuel, oxygen, temperature) have been removed or controlled,” Kirk White, an assistant general counsel, wrote in DEP’s complaint.
But fire was not the only problem at the facility, White wrote. Landfill officials also failed to monitor ground water or control stormwater at the facility.
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