Source: Facebook

Source: Facebook

Shreveport, LA – The Department of Environmental Quality issued an administrative order on Wednesday requiring that the landfill located about a mile north of Cross Lake in Shreveport completely cease operations.

Per the statement, which can be read in full here, the department is requiring the ceasing of all receiving and/or disposing of new materials at the dump out of an “abundance of caution”.  They are currently testing the environmental conditions at the site and monitoring the air in the area.

This order comes after a weeks of fires and billowing smoke at the dump, a problem that landfill employees and local fire workers have been unable to extinguish. By July 1st, according to the statement by DEQ, the landfill operator must submit a revised version of a fire mitigation plan so that it can be stopped.

Many fires occur in landfills that do not use “daily cover”, or a top layer of compressed soil which is laid over a day’s deposition of waste. Without it, biological decomposition creates substantial heat and can cause material in the landfills to ignite.  It is not clear if the Shreveport landfill has always spread a daily cover.

Source: Shreveport Times

Source: Shreveport Times