‘Stinks so bad’: Kansas residents worry smoldering landfill on a Superfund site is making them sick

GALENA — Tammy Allen’s front porch overlooks the trash-scattered hills of the Galena Landfill, built on an area once called Hell’s Half Acre.

In the past three years, Allen’s house randomly began to fill with a mix of odors that she believes cause her headaches, nausea and vomiting.

“The smells come and go, and you never know when they’re going to hit,” Allen said. “There’s one that smells like a dirty garage … and there’s one that smells like stale cigarette smoke.”

Although she has lived near the site for decades, Allen said problems with smoldering landfill fires and bad smells increased in the past two or three years.

Allen is part of a group of Galena residents, Neighbors for Clean Air, fighting for additional oversight and remediation at the landfill, which is operated by Jordan Disposal LLC. 

Ashley Wells, who lives near the landfill, founded the group as people throughout the small southeast Kansas town shared concerns and frustrations about health issues and the noxious odors that sometimes flood the downtown area.

Two Galena residents filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court asking for a class action lawsuit to be approved. Multiple people filed environmental complaints to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, Wells said, as well as to city and county officials and also to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The landfill is blocks from Galena’s downtown area, with residences and even a child care facility surrounding it. The southeast Kansas town of about 2,700 people is a stop on Route 66, and as the iconic highway’s 100-year anniversary approaches, the landfill is next to a sightseeing area busy with tourists taking pictures.

Wells said her family didn’t initially smell bad odors, but that changed about three years ago.

“What we’ve been smelling is that hydrogen sulfide, what they have now found to be tested and confirmed that it is hydrogen sulfide, and it’s a very strong rotten egg smell,” she said. “Each year, it just keeps getting worse. This past winter, 2025, it was very bad. One week, just an example, there was four nights out of seven in a row that I had my house smelling like hydrogen sulfide. Very difficult to sleep when you’re sitting there smelling that. It makes you sick to your stomach. It gives you a headache.”

A representative of the family-owned Jordan Disposal said he couldn’t comment about the situation because there is pending litigation.

A Superfund site

KDHE certified the landfill in 1997, agency records show. KDHE and the EPA approved expansion in 2011 so the landfill could serve as a dumping ground for Joplin, Missouri, debris after an EF-5 tornado swept through the city and killed nearly 160 people.

Jordan Disposal didn’t take over landfill operations until 2019, according to the company’s court filings.

The landfill is certified as a construction and demolition landfill, which limits the items that can be dumped to what the name implies, only solid waste resulting from the construction, remodeling, repair and demolition of structures, roads, sidewalks and utilities, and things like untreated wood and sawdust. Such landfills aren’t required to have a liner, according to KDHE.

Because the Galena Landfill didn’t have a liner, approval to put tornado debris there required two levels of waste screening, the first conducted by the EPA in Joplin and the second conducted at the landfill before the debris was dumped, KDHE’s website said.

However, residents contend it would have been impossible to screen the debris effectively, as the Columbia Missourian reported in 2012 that there were 350 trucks coming in daily, dumping 12 tons of trash per minute.

“In the August (2025) fire, they did have a propane tank blow up out there that is not supposed to be in a (construction and demolition landfill), so that tells us things do get missed,” Wells said. “You know it happens.”

Wells said she doesn’t think anything “malicious” was done but believes the emergency situation made it easier to miss items that shouldn’t be in an unlined landfill.

Local residents worry about the history of the area and other contaminants known to be there. The area was once a Superfund site, with 599 mine hazards found in and around Galena, many on Hell’s Half Acre, according to the Kansas Geological Survey.

From the 1800s through 1970, a 115-mile area was mined for lead and zinc, leaving significant contamination, according to the EPA.

“The hundred years of mining also left the region with serious environmental problems,” the Kansas Geological Survey said. “When the mines closed, the pumping stopped, and the abandoned tunnels filled with water. The water in these tunnels became contaminated by iron sulfide (from pyrite and marcasite) and other metallic sulfides, which remained in the mine walls or were left behind by the miners. In addition to becoming very acidic, the water contained dissolved metals, some of which are very toxic. This water, in turn, contaminated local ground water, springs, and surface water.”

The EPA said millions of cubic yards of mine tailings, which are ground rock and wastewater left from the mining process, were brought to the surface and left in piles covering more than 4,000 acres.

“These mine tailings contaminated soil, surface water, sediment, and groundwater with lead, zinc and cadmium, the primary contaminants of concern,” EPA documentation said.

Remediation was done throughout the area, beginning in the 1980s and continuing today, the Kansas Geological Survey said. The EPA divided the county into six subsites that include Galena, Baxter Springs and Treece.

Wells said the EPA recently tested the soil in her yard and found enough lead to require remediation. Anyone in the county can have the test done, and the EPA removes the top few inches of soil and replaces it with clean soil, she said.

Wells said residents are left with many questions about the mine shafts and how that affects the landfill.

“We’d like to see a very thorough investigation,” she said. “What could be going down into the shafts? What’s going on underneath the surface? From what I understand, they have only done surface temperatures for the hot spots. We’d like to see ground penetrating radar. How big is this fire? We have asked multiple times at council meetings, and we cannot get an answer.”

Environmental contaminates

Peyton Kessler, a registered nurse and the Cherokee County health officer, is worried about health effects and the limited duration testing of air quality that was done by KDHE and EPA. The agencies put in a monitor March 12, 2025, and removed it the next day, according to the KDHE website. 

The fire in August 2025 elevated Kessler’s concerns, especially as the landfill has continued to smolder, she said. Shredded railroad ties were approved as an acceptable form of cover for the landfill, which is fine when it is in solid form, Kessler said.

But when it burns, the creosote in the railroad ties becomes airborne as a gas, she said. When she called KDHE about a different situation — a planned town bonfire that would be built on top of railroad ties — Kessler said she was told that “under no circumstances should that bonfire contain those railroad ties, that they should have those removed because it could be very dangerous to those standing around and those standing downwind.”

Given their stern warnings about possible health problems, Kessler said, she doesn’t understand why there isn’t more concern about smoldering fires at the landfill where railroad ties burn.

KDHE placed a Drager health monitor near the landfill and posts daily updates on environmental air quality. Kessler said it only tracks hydrogen sulfide, so she purchased air quality monitors recommended by the EPA to begin gathering her own data. Those can be found online at PurpleAir by zooming in on a map to the Galena area.

KDHE spokeswoman Jill Bronaugh said the agency is working with the city of Galena and Jordan Disposal and is assessing and monitoring the landfill conditions. In a May 19 letter to both entities, KDHE warned Jordan Disposal to complete work defined by a KDHE action plan by June 19.

“Jordan Disposal is providing KDHE with periodic updates on the work being completed,” she said.

In the letter, KDHE informed the city and Jordan Disposal that the landfill recorded a hydrogen sulfide concentration that exceeded 1 parts per million on March 16, which requires the owner or operator to initiate one month of assessment monitoring.

“Further exceedances were recorded on April 18, May 2, May 7, and May 11,” the letter said. “The Landfill remains in assessment monitoring while KDHE determines what actions must be taken.”

The letter said KDHE believes the high hydrogen sulfide readings are exacerbated by a fire that began in March. Citing statutes, KDHE told Jordan Disposal and Galena city officials that when that fire was discovered, the company was required to use proper firefighting methods until all “smoldering, smoking, and burning cease.”

Jordan Disposal submitted a firefighting plan and KDHE approved it on March 25.

“The approved plan specifies that Jordan Disposal will continue excavation of smoldering waste for 5 working days which is approximately 40 working hours,” the letter said. “However, KDHE did not establish a date by which the excavation work must be complete.”

As of May, Jordan Disposal hadn’t performed “excavation work as required by the Plan,” the letter said.

Once the company has worked to put out the subsurface fire, it must submit a report to KDHE by June 19 saying whether the fire is completely out, the letter said.

“If subsurface smoldering conditions remain present after June 19, 2026, Jordan Disposals and the City of Galena shall retain a qualified consultant and submit a long-term fire mitigation and extinguishment plan to KDHE,” the letter said.

Pending litigation

A proposed class action lawsuit was filed May 26, 2026, in U.S. District Court, alleging Jordan Disposal at its Galena Landfill fails to properly manage contaminants such as hydrogen sulfide gas and liquid waste called leachate through the use of proper remediation techniques.

Stacy Hendrix and Opal Barry, two Galena residents, filed the lawsuit with representation by Pittsburg attorney Patrick C. Smith and Detroit attorney Steven Liddle, who is known for leading class action, environmental-based lawsuits.

Hendrix said in the initial filing that her family doesn’t want to spend time outside in their yard or let their daughter play outside.

“We don’t want to grill because it stinks so bad you won’t want to eat,” she said.

In a response filed June 2, Jordan Disposal attorneys said the company denies all allegations in the lawsuit.

Hendrix and Barry propose that homeowners and residential renters within 1.5 miles of the landfill be included in the class action because they have been harmed by noxious odors and decreased property values.

They estimate there are more than 1,300 residences in the class action area.