Calgary landfill with weeklong fire flouted waste storage bylaws: judge

CALGARY – A Calgary judge says the local company home to a weeklong landfill fire likely chose to disregard municipal bylaws and orders.

The landfill at ECCO Recycling & Energy Corp., which states on its website that it’s a private landfill and recycling business, has had a stubborn fire smouldering in the stomach of its waste piles for more than a week. 

Smoke drifting into nearby communities has led to worried residents about the kinds of fumes they’re inhaling and a letter from the mayor to the province.

Meanwhile, the Court of King’s Bench filed a decision on the City of Calgary’s request for an injunction against ECCO, who it says ignored a stop order issued in August 2025 for how it had been wrongfully storing waste.

The court ordered the company on Friday to stop its unlawful storage of waste materials outside of designated areas and to stop storing dry waste in the recycling site. 

In his decision, filed on Friday, Justice James Eamon said the company has willingly refused to comply with municipal regulations and the stop order, and has flouted land requirements for a long time. 

“The history of the matter clearly demonstrates an open and continuous disregard by ECCO of these requirements which are unlikely to be thwarted without the intervention of the court,” Eamon wrote.

Alec McDougall, ECCO president and founder, said in an emailed statement that the company will comply with the court order.

Mayor Jeromy Farkas said Monday that the city has been pursuing enforcement action against the company for a long time.

Farkas said these issues show there needs to be more regulatory scrutiny for these types of land uses, but added it’s too early to say if the fire is ECCO’s fault.

“If the rules were not followed I’m certainly going to be seeking maximum accountability for the individual operator,” said Farkas, adding existing rules should be reviewed anyways.

Grant Hunter, Alberta’s minister of environment and protected areas, issued a statement Monday evening in response to a request from Farkas and Ward 11 Coun. Rob Ward. It had asked for detailed air quality data examining the smoke from the fire.

Hunter said public health officials found smoke is the main concern and is the only pollutant that has exceeded provincial air quality guidelines.

Hunter also said the landfill is unauthorized to house hazardous waste and, if its found to have flouted those rules, the ministry may investigate and penalize.

Brett Poland said he brought his one-year-old daughter to hospital on Monday, because her asthma had flared up in the days after the smoke began.

He has no proof her asthma was triggered by the smoke, he said, but necessary emergency room visits for the child are rare and have only happened twice before, when she was sick with a cold or flu.

Poland said his family of five can smell burnt plastic from his home in the Acadia neighbourhood, about three kilometres northwest from the landfill, even when they don’t see much smoke. 

He said he spent about $1,000 on a handful of air purifiers on Saturday, including one for his daughter’s room, but that didn’t appear to help manage her asthma symptoms. 

He said an emergency room doctor told them to leave the area, if possible. He’s considering relocating with his family to Okotoks, a town south of Calgary.

“It’s not just the air quality. It’s what’s in that air,” Poland said Monday afternoon, before the provincial statement and report was released.

“What I’m concerned about is long-term health concerns for anyone that is breathing that stuff in right now.”

The fire department said it was called to the blaze Sept. 6 and had it under control the following day. 

The department released a health advisory Friday warning of eye, nose and throat irritation or coughing and headaches for those breathing in the fumes.

Steve Dongworth, Calgary fire chief, said there is a large cost to fighting a fire at this scale and that bill will be passed to the owner of the property, but didn’t know the amount yet.

“There’s some private contractors on-site now, for one thing, and that would be a cost,” Dongworth said.

“It’s above and beyond what we would consider to be kind of normal response and, in some ways, preventable.”

Dongworth said crews are attacking the pile — which is about 40,000 square metres, or the size of about seven CFL football fields, and at least 20 metres tall — all hours of the day.

However, while the plan is to extinguish the fire quickly, there’s no timeline for when it could be out.

He said crews have changed strategy, now opting to dump soil and fill over the fire to minimize smoke, while using water to stifle flames when needed.

“It’s a substantial pile of what appears to be mostly construction waste and we know with these kind of landfill fires, talking to other people and based on our experience, the fire could be very deep inside that pile,” said Dongworth. 

“So I don’t want to give any false sense that covering this patch with soil will necessarily finish the fire but we’ll see.”

He said the cause of the fire remains under investigation.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 14, 2026.