Selma Ward 7 City Councilwoman Bennie Ruth Crenshaw said the former waste landfill, or Cell 1, on J.L. Chestnut Boulevard is overflowing, and she wants the city of Selma to take action.

“I worked with council representative Susan Keith and (former) council representative Monica Newton to try to get funds from the city to improve the area,” Crenshaw said. “I wanted a high fence put around the area to keep people from dumping in the area.”

City officials said the landfill, which closed on Oct. 31, 2009, is no longer taking waste. Selma landfill manager Larry Friday said the closure of the first landfill meets Alabama Department of Environmental Management guidelines and the new landfill, which opened the same year, is located at 4555 Water Ave., but designated for construction and demolition waste only.

“It cannot accept industrial or household waste,” Friday said. “We have not had an instance of people dumping household waste in the closed landfill.”

Friday said since household waste loads to the former landfill have declined, the city doesn’t generate enough waste to warrant an expansion of the current landfill or add new ones.

“We keep a watch on the landfill and inspect every load twice a week to make sure no household waste loads come through, and if they do, we send it back,” Friday said.

“There’s a fence around the closed area,  and we keep a record of all waste.”

To Friday’s knowledge, he hasn’t received any complaints from city or Dallas County residents concerning sanitation problems.

“We’ve passed every ADEM inspection and we periodically test for methane gas and surface water,” Friday said. “We have yet to receive a notice of violations.”

Friday said the county operates two temporary solid waste transfer stations for household garbage use, one located on County Road 4 and the other on Highway 41, to be picked up and later taken to a landfill in Brewton.

“The stations are open six days a week from 7 a.m. until 4 p.m.,” Friday said. “The garbage is carried off once a week. The city landfill has nothing to do with the county’s temporary transfer stations.”

Friday said he’s grateful to the community for their continued cooperation.

“We’ve been fortunate,” Friday said.

“We commend our neighbors and the generators of waste for the lack of problems.”