The city of Dallas has finally accepted a bid for the removal of a huge pile of used shingles known as ‘shingle mountain.’
Blue Star Recycling began dumping shingles on land along South Central Expressway in southeast Dallas near the McCommas Bluff Landfill back in 2018 with the intention of recycling and selling the material, but the shingles just kept piling up and the company eventually filed for bankruptcy, leaving the 60-foot-high, 70,000 ton pile of shingles to pollute the air.
“The ground up shingle is airborne and it’s fiberglass. Those pollutants are airborne, you can see how — it takes my voice because the airborne pollutants have been flying, and they fly into our throats,” said Marsha Jackson, whose health has been negatively affected by the pile’s close proximity to her home.
“[My pulmonologist] told me, ‘Marsha, I hate to say this and it’s just honest, that the only way that you really can be improved, either they move that stuff, or you move, or you die. This is a slow killer and they are not understanding it is slowly killing us,” she said to Spectrum Local News.
Comparison of PM air monitoring data since 8/31 at two places: Joppa on the left and Eastfield College on the right. These kinds of inequities in pollution burdens are out there waiting to be mapped. U can do ur own comparisons at https://t.co/IzLglWL31m pic.twitter.com/F8xEGN8hKu
— SharedAirDFW (@AirDfw) September 23, 2020
Blue Star Recycling is now facing lawsuits from both the city of Dallas and Jackson herself
The City Council put out bids for companies to haul away the shingles and received several proposals, but it wasn’t until October 13th that the City Council finally voted to accept a bid from Q. Roberts Trucking, Inc. for $450,000, reported KLRD News.
“We’ve been talking about shingle mountain for over two years, ever since 2018. We’ve finally got someone to start hauling the shingles off,” said Council Member Tennell Atkins, who represents the neighborhood. “This was not an easy task. We’ve still got to follow the legal rule…we’ve still got to make sure all the ‘i’s’ are dotted and the ‘t’s’ are crossed.”
For now, residents say they won’t get their hopes up or celebrate until the job is complete.