Amarillo City Council approves outside evaluation of landfill operations after Stinky Fire

AMARILLO, Texas (KFDA) — The Amarillo City Council has approved an outside company to evaluate operations at the city landfill following the Stinky Fire.

77 homes were lost or damaged in the Stinky Fire that raged nearly three weeks ago, starting at the Amarillo landfill.

The council approved the item for the evaluation and recommendation regarding site operations at the city of Amarillo landfill.

Don Tipps and Mayor Cole Stanley asked for a third-party evaluation of the landfill in a press conference during the fires.

The city is currently undergoing internal evaluations, but similar to the city’s financial policies, a third party has been approved to provide full transparency.

“What we have is we have our internal eval that’s with Donnie Hooper going through everything, policy, procedure, equipment, what should and shouldn’t be out there. He’s looking back over several months. What was the condition of the landfill? Were there some deficiencies? And if so, how does he correct that moving forward? So we’re thankful for that, but we can’t stop there with the circumstances that the public has faced. And everything else that’s gone on, we as council requested an external operation eval,” Stanley said.

The Texas Fire Marshal’s, TCEQ, and the city are all undergoing their own evaluations into the landfill and the cause of the Stinky Fire, which city officials say will be released once the investigations are complete.

The city will spend nearly $35,000 on this assessment from general funds.