Tontitown (KATV) – Citizens in a Northwest Arkansas town have filed a class action lawsuit against Waste Management, claiming that high levels of air pollution from a landfill near residential areas are threatening their health and the local environment.
Tontitown in Washington County is known as Arkansas’ picturesque Little Italy, with vineyards and wineries and a rich Italian heritage.
But it’s also home to Northwest Arkansas’ only landfill, Eco-Vista. And like the NWA region, it’s expanding… much to the chagrin of Tontitown and its residents, who respectively are engaged in two lawsuits against Eco-Vista: one to halt the expansion and the newest, a class action lawsuit filed earlier this month by roughly one-third of the town’s population, to hold the landfill accountable for what they say are hazardous emissions from its gas plant.
“These plants are causing issues with these vapors because they’re burning gas off of the landfill,” said plaintiff Kenneth Lovett.
Plaintiffs say the Eco-Vista gas plant, which takes gas emitted from the landfill and converts it into renewable energy, does not adequately filter harmful, noxious chemicals out of emissions.
Lovett says the ideal method would be a form of liquid filtration called a scrubber, but instead Eco-Vista uses a charcoal filter.
Air testing by Arkansas’ Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health last year showed that relatively high levels of five volatile organic compounds, acrolein, benzene, carbon tetrachloride, chloroform, and naphthalene were potentially a health risk to locals.
“Acrolein was tested at 4900 percent, benzene at 209 percent over the EPA RSL limit,” Lovett told KATV.
RSL, or regional screening limits, are benchmarks used by the EPA to determine the potential for health risks posed by chemicals at contaminated sites… but they are not enforceable.
The Arkansas Department of Health concluded in a 2024 report that Tontitown residents near the landfill may be at risk and recommended more testing.
According to the lawsuit, plaintiffs who live in the vicinity of Eco-Vista have reported experiencing a range of adverse health effects, including nausea, dizziness, and headaches.
“The citizens were actually having—some of them have gone to the hospital with these health issues,” Tontitown Mayor Angela Russell told KATV.
Russell is not a party to the class action lawsuit, but she does live right next to Eco-Vista. She shared photos of dead birds and dying trees on her land bordering the landfill.
“I ended up going to the hospital last December. The emissions were so bad in my bedroom that it was causing me to have dizziness, nausea, just very confusing. It was just unbelievable how it affects your body,” Russell said.
And it’s not just the gas that locals say is the problem. They say red dye testing showed that liquid from the landfill is leaching into creeks in the area—here are photographs they say substantiate these claims.
Many believe Eco-Vista never should have been built where it stands, on top of porous karst. And Russell says one of the landfill’s cells was built with no liner underneath it.
“We need a landfill, but it can’t be on top of a karst, limestone formation, and it needs to be away from a population center,” said State Rep. Steve Unger, (R) District 19.
Locals say the issues started as far back as 2021, but it was 2023, when the renewable energy gas plant was built, that they really ramped up. After hundreds, perhaps thousands of complaints, they say they’re fed up with a lack of accountability on Eco-Vista’s part.
“They’re not a good neighbor. They were having meetings with us until March of 2022. They stopped all communication with us,” Lovett said. “They know what’s going on, they know there’s an issue, and they continue to do it. They don’t care who they hurt, they don’t care when they hurt them.”
“I really wish that Waste Management would just cut their losses, cover this up with dirt, and look for a place that a geologist would say is safe to have a landfill—and that is not up here,” Unger said.
Waste Management declined to be interviewed, saying it does not comment on pending litigation. In lieu of an interview, we have emailed them some questions and are awaiting a response.
Plaintiffs told KATV that the first court date is set for September this year.
