New Group Demands Dallas Close Growing “Shingle Mountain” Operation “If City Doesn’t Act, We Will”
Calling itself “Southern Sector Rising,“ a new alliance of Dallas groups and individuals organized to fight for the closure of Southern Dallas’ “Shingle Mountain” as well as broader environmental justice policy reforms debuts at Dallas City Hall Wednesday at 12 noon.
Blue Star Asphalt opened what it calls a used shingle landfill and recycling center along South Central Expressway in Dallas in 2018 with the promise not to store over 280 tons of waste for more than a week at a time. According to its own estimates, it now has at least 50,000 tons of used shingles and another 10,000 tons of shredded shingle dust it says is its recycled “product” that’s been piling up on-site for close to a year.
Neighbors have complained of air pollution, noise, and odors. They also cite respiratory problems they say started only after the company began operating. Blue Star’s site has been the subject of at least four Robert Wilonsky columns in the Dallas Morning News since December and prompted Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price to write a letter criticizing both the state and the City of Dallas for letting the site get so out of hand.
According to resident Marsha Jackson, her granddaughter gets an asthma attack if she lets her play in her back yard too long. Bianca Morales say her and her children have been coughing up black phlegm. “This company doesn’t care about our health or community,” complained Jackson. She says Blue Star’s CEO Chris Ganter laughed at her when she told him about her granddaughter’s health problems.
Jackson and others will be showing up at City Hall on Wednesday to initiate their own actions against the facility as well as goading Dallas City Hall to take a more aggressive official stance. They also plan a weekly picketing of the facility every Saturday beginning this coming March 23rd from 12 to 2pm. A second effort called Earth Day Action has said that if the City doesn’t move to close Blue Star by April 22 – Earth Day – it will stage a sit-down blockade of new deliveries of shingles at the site.
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