SOUTH FULTON, Ga — State regulators are taking new action after a controversial landfill keeps catching fire.

Fires have smoldered for years at the multi-acre private landfill off Bishop Road in South Fulton County.

Now, the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD) says the owner owes many fines for failing to comply with a court order to clean up the site.

“The people who are directly adjacent to it, smell it all the time,” neighbor Micheal Schaepe said.

Schaepe said he gets along with all his neighbors, except one who runs a landfill that has smoldered off and on for years, sending toxic fumes into the community.

“He’s violated EPD rules and regulations for solid waste management, he’s has violated the court he has done that on numerous occasions.”

The city of South Fulton says the EPD has told a judge the owner has failed to comply with court orders to remove material from the site.

“We are very pleased there’s still actions being taken to try to clean up the site and get him in compliance with the laws and clean up the air,” Schaepe said. “Especially since we have a grade school, middle schools and a high school right in the same vicinity where we are.”

South Fulton officials say the EPD has also asked a judge to require the owner Tandy Ross Bullock to extinguish any fires at the site within 24 hours and put fire prevention and smoke suppression measures in place.

The first fire happened in September 2018.

A month later, Georgia EPD opened an investigation into the site and its owner.

Last November, people living nearby begin to express their concerns about how the smoke from the fire was affecting their health.

Schaepe and others living near the site say the landfill and everything in it, needs to go.

“It has to be removed. The material that is buried there has to be removed, “Schaupe said.

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