An underground fire at a landfill north of Birmingham has now been burning for at least six weeks with no end in sight, and nearby residents worried about their health are demanding more from the Alabama Department of Environmental Management.

“We need to start calling our state representatives and senators to start putting pressure on ADEM,” one resident said after an emergency session of the St. Clair County Commission called to discuss the ongoing fire.

The County Commission declared a state of emergency at that meeting in order to seek assistance from state and federal governments to put out the fire, and have promised a plan in the coming days.

Another suggested taking the salaries of “the ADEM people” to pay for in-home air purifiers for residents whose homes are blanketed with smoke when the wind is blowing in their direction. A third said ADEM was “the only agency in the state of Alabama that needs to be dissolved.”

Despite those increasingly vocal frustrations, ADEM Director Lance LeFleur said his agency, which enforces environmental laws in Alabama, has done all it can do within its legal authority to help local officials fight the fire and to prevent the blaze before it started.

“[ADEM has done] everything that we have been authorized to do and then some things that we have not been precluded from doing, but we have not been authorized to do,” LeFleur said.

“We are taking steps beyond what our regulatory mandate would be to try to help address this situation.”

That includes, he said, providing the County Commission with recommendations for contractors who have experience dealing with these types of fires and requesting mobile air monitors from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to install around the fire, which are expected to come online today. LeFleur said that ADEM does not have mobile air monitors, but EPA does.

He said those air monitors are normally only deployed in events like a fire an at industrial facility that might have additional contaminants, but that ADEM had requested they be used in this case to help ease residents’ minds about potential contaminants in the fire.

“We’re not being callous,” LeFleur said. “We are going above and beyond to try to assist with this.”

LeFleur also said the state was limited in what it could legally do to prevent fires like these from starting in the first place.

The fire started at a “green waste” landfill called Environmental Landfill, Inc., which is tucked away in unincorporated St. Clair County between the Birmingham suburbs of Trussville and Moody. Such facilities are only supposed to accept vegetative waste like fallen trees, brush or leaves.

Those facilities are not directly regulated by ADEM, and are not inspected at regular intervals.

“If it’s not a regulated entity, the only time that we can get involved in their operation is when there is a complaint that we investigate,” LeFleur said. “And if there is some violation, such as the unauthorized disposal of regulated waste, then we can be involved.”

AL.com’s John Archibald reported that the landfill had been investigated by ADEM in 2018, where inspectors reported finding unauthorized waste including household garbage, construction waste, scrap tires, and appliances. The inspector also noted that there was a “fire hazard potential” at the site and the “suspected presence of special waste,” which could include medical or infectious waste, industrial wastes or hazardous wastes.

LeFleur said that inspection, and a previous inspection in 2013, were performed in response to complaints filed with the department.

He said the owners removed the wastes cited in the 2018 inspection report and that the department has “no reason to believe,” that there is anything other than wood or vegetation in the fire.

Efforts by AL.com to reach the landfill owners for comment have not been successful.

LeFleur also said that since green waste landfills aren’t regulated by law in Alabama, ADEM is not required to, nor does it have the authority to conduct inspections of green waste landfills, or to put restrictions on their operations unless there is a complaint registered with the department.

“If there’s no disposal of regulated waste, we have no authority to regulate them,” he said.

LeFleur said that the EPA does not regulate green waste landfills and that he’s not aware of any state environmental agency that does. He said that trying to regulate a natural product like fallen trees “becomes a very slippery slope.”

“Green waste is disposed of in I don’t know how many locations all over the nation, and in Alabama,” LeFleur said. “Any time land is cleared, there’s green waste that is generated.”

He compared the Department to the State Troopers on the highway, saying police can’t pull over drivers who might speed. They have to wait until the violation — either a fire or observed illegal dumping of non-vegetative waste — occurs, and then respond.

“I understand people are frustrated,” LeFleur said. “They want this smoke to stop. And the only way to stop that smoke is to put the fire out. That’s what needs to happen.”

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Birmingham-area landfill fire still burns after 6 weeks