DALLAS — Two years after the city of Dallas cleared away the massive environmental hazard known as Shingle Mountain, crews are back at that same site for another clean-up project.
The rattling sounds of bulldozers, trucks and machinery that come with this effort are for once welcoming noises for Floral Farms residents. They say they’re proof relief is coming.
“If you had seen it before, while we’re walking, you can see that mountain up there,” resident Marsha Jackson said.
The environmental hazard used to sit just feet from her bedroom.
“Over 100,000 tons of roofing shingles,” Jackson said. "And it caused health and environmental problems for us."
Soaring 60 feet high, the illegal dump operated as Blue Star Recycling. Jackson and her neighbors began complaining to the city of Dallas about it in 2018.
“So we did have to do some advocating and we had to protest,” Jackson said.
It took years of complaints, months of litigation, and national scrutiny over environmental disparities to get the city to take over the property in 2021.
But when they moved the shingles from the land, they found another issue - contaminated soil.
“It started back in the 70s when it was a landfill,” said Dallas Mayor Pro Tem Tennell Atkins “When people just dumped their debris on this property.”
Monday contractors began the process of removing the 40,000 cubic yards of decades-old tainted dirt.
Trucks will carry the soil just over half a mile to a landfill. When it’s all gone, they’ll replace it with clean soil. They plan to be done by the end of October.
They’ll have air quality checks and water monitoring during the process. It’s costing the city around $3 million.
Jackson said her neighbors are just happy to get it out of their backyards.
”You know we thought this day would never come,” she said.
The city of Dallas doesn’t have concrete plans for what will happen to the land once clean-up is done, but residents say they hope it becomes a community park.