After 20 years of repeated environmental citations, the Ashberry Landfill in rural Opp, Alabama, has finally been issued a civil penalty of $151,950 as part of a proposed Dec. 15 consent order issued by the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM).

ADEM officials appeared to crack down on Ashberry back in February, following years of citations but no fines, after another landfill outside Birmingham caught on fire and burned underground for months, putting ADEM in the spotlight and leading many community leaders asking how such a subterranean disaster could have happened. 

But within weeks of that apparent enforcement crackdown, ADEM had conditionally approved a plan to allow operations at Ashberry to continue, taking 10 more months to finally levy a fine on the landfill for noncompliance this month. Even then, the agency chose to discount the fine by more than $30,000 “in the spirit of cooperation.”

M. Lynn Battle, a spokesperson for ADEM, said in a statement that the department’s order included a corrective action plan with “a stringent timeline to remediate the environmental impacts” of violations. 

Ty Ashberry, the landfill’s owner, did not respond to requests for comment on this story. 

A History of Violations

Ashberry Landfill was first granted a solid waste disposal permit in May 2003, according to state records. In the decades that followed, the landfill violated state environmental regulations again and again, promising eventual compliance while ADEM regulators did little to force the issues to resolution. 

ADEM issued its first notice of violation to Ashberry Landfill in July 2005 outlining its failure to comply with three state environmental regulations involving the maintenance of solid waste sites.

Just three months later, the agency issued another notice of violation, this time outlining failure to comply with five regulations. Among the noted violations was use of the landfill for unpermitted household garbage and other waste, including automobile gas tanks, state documents.

Neither notice of violation from 2005 resulted in a fine for the facility. 

In 2010, state officials granted the facility an additional permit to process tire scrap. In the four years prior, the facility had violated environmental regulations 13 times, all without fines or administrative orders against it. 

After becoming a permitted tire processor, the facility again violated environmental regulations in both 2013 and 2019, with both incidents leading to a warning letter from ADEM that did not assess any fee. 

At least one resident complained to ADEM officials in 2019 that the conditions at Ashberry were getting worse. 

“There are mountains of uncovered tires at the facility,” a record of the complaint said. “The mosquito issue has been so bad that residents are having to stay indoors more.”

In response, Ashberry simply told state regulators that the site chemically fogs at least once a week during the warmer months. 

In April 2021, the agency again cited the facility, this time for six violations, and noted that extreme care must be taken in light of “recent fires.”

“As detailed above, during the inspection, a large tire accumulation was noted at the facility,” a compliance chief with ADEM wrote to Ashberry, the facility’s owner. “Due to recent fires at other permitted landfills and the size of the tire accumulation, the Department cautions the Ashberry Landfill, LLC that care should be taken in the management of the tire accumulation in order to prevent fires, including the proper application of cover material.”

Once again, the agency chose not to fine Ashberry Landfill. 

Less than two weeks later, ADEM issued the landfill its sixth notice of violation, citing three violations of state law. A month later, Ashberry Landfill was cited for three more violations. No fines were assessed on either occasion. 

State law requires landfill facilities like Ashberry to cover materials like tires to reduce the risk of fire and to eliminate standing water that may allow breeding grounds for mosquitoes and other pests. 

In February 2022, ADEM issued its first administrative order against the facility, citing 11 separate violations of state environmental law. Still, the agency chose not to fine Ashberry. 

By May, ADEM received an additional complaint from a resident near the landfill. 

“There are tires piled up almost as high as the trees,” the complainant wrote. “Mosquitoes are so bad you can’t even go outside. My family owns that land, and I can’t even take my girls there because of the mosquitoes. My nieces are getting bit, even if they don’t go outside the mosquitoes are so bad…Something has to be done…Nothing is ever done. We have made complaints to people and NOTHING has been done.”

ADEM inspectors visited the facility in the weeks after the complaint. While officials wrote that they did not find mosquito larvae or swarming mosquitoes during the follow-up inspection, ADEM cited the landfill for another four violations of state environmental regulations.

When the Fire Started

Then, in late November 2022, everything changed, as the underground blaze began at the Environmental Landfill northeast of Birmingham. 

For months following, the subterranean fire covered dozens of acres near Moody, its burning material reaching more than 150 feet deep. 

The fire and resulting smoke left residents suffering from health impacts and schools limiting outside activity. All the while, state and local officials pointed fingers as to who should be responsible for dousing the flames. Only after federal officials stepped in was the fire quelled and covered. 

In the aftermath of the fire, ADEM officials took the first aggressive action in forcing compliance at Ashberry on Feb. 1, 2023. Issuing an order to shut the landfill down.

“This Order required Ashberry Landfill and Tire Recycling Facility to cease and desist from the operation of a solid waste disposal facility until written approval is received from the Department,” officials wrote in a document, citing more than a dozen additional violations. 

For the first time, Ashberry Landfill’s operations would be halted—at least temporarily—over its flouting of state law. 

It wouldn’t last. 

By Feb. 14, state regulators had conditionally approved a compliance action plan for the site, allowing operations to continue with the expectation that the facility would comply with state law by June 1, 2023. 

That didn’t happen. 

Two months after the expected compliance date, ADEM inspectors visited the site and determined Ashberry Landfill was still violating environmental code. During one visit, Ashberry’s owner told inspectors he hopes to sell the facility. Any future owner would also be required to comply with state law, regulators warned Ashberry, according to state records. 

As it happened, the fire at the XX landfill reignited in October, nearly a year after the blaze first broke out, leading EPA officials to put boots on the ground in Birmingham once again. 

Fined 

Back at Ashberry, the state finally slapped the landfill’s owner with the proposed fine earlier this month after 20 years of operation and repeated citations for environmental violations. 

As part of the proposed consent order, Ashberry would neither admit nor deny the department’s contentions of repeated violations but agreed to pay the assessed fine of $121,950, discount included. 

“The order requires biweekly reports that ADEM will use to review and track progress.” Battle wrote. “Also, to allow concentration on getting into compliance, the order requires the facility to stop receiving tires in February of 2024.”

ADEM has asked that comments on the proposed order, including any request for a public hearing, be submitted by Monday, January 15.