By Jim Balloch
The Knoxville News-Sentinel

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — It was supposed to be out three weeks ago.

But as of Tuesday, the fire at the illegal landfill on Tedford Road was still burning.

"It has reignited twice, and they keep discovering more pockets," said Jamey Dobbs, one of a group of citizens and residents who have been pressing the county on the issue."Unless they expose everything, we will remain at some risk of the site reigniting."

Crews from Renfro Construction Company worked Monday and Tuesday to reach what county officials believe is the last of a series of underground fires that have been burning and sporadically reigniting since December.

"This one is very deep, in the very bottom, "County engineer Bruce Wuethrich said. "People have been asking me, 'Is the fire out?' And I've been having to say, 'It's in remission.' "

A lot of smoke from the site is generated by efforts to eliminate the fires, when work crews uncover a fire and Rural/Metro firefighters put water on it, he said.

The latest estimate as to when the fire will be out?

"Probably by the end of the week, we should be all the way through the entire vein, and have dug all the way to the bottom," Wuethrich said.

The landfill is a pit that Knox County officials say contains mostly demolition debris, such as brush, stumps and concrete. Other types of materials, such as pipe and railroad ties, have been found, but officials say there are not enough of them to create toxic or hazardous waste.

Some area residents are not completely at ease with those assurances and have called for additional testing.

Officials say tests completed so far indicate no current danger to air or drinking water, but results of another round of tests are not in yet.

In December, carbon monoxide levels at the site prompted a temporary evacuation of nearby residents. The carbon monoxide level has subsided, but residents complained of continued smoke and of nauseating odors.

Renfro was hired when it was determined that county equipment was not large enough to safely handle excavation at the site. In mid-February, a Renfro official expressed some confidence that it would take only a few more days to complete excavation operations.

"At the time he made that comment, we were unaware of this deep vein," Wuethrich said.

Additionally, he said, time was consumed by the practice of making sure there were no hidden hot spots left in excavated areas before moving on to excavate the site since December.

Wuethrich says the only areas that burn are those that have not been excavated.

"We knew we would have to move lots of material back to where we had excavated, so we wanted to eliminate any hotspots before we put dirt back on top,"he said. "The longer we waited, (the more confidence we had) of no hot spots."

Knox County's cost for dealing with the landfill have exceeded $200,000, Wuethrich said.

Wuethrich and other county officials have said property owner Ronald Woody, whose own home is adjacent to the site, will be billed for reimbursement. However, the county is looking into recently received information that the portion of the site where the fire actually began may be owned by another party.

Any pursuit of reimbursements will be handled by the Knox County Law Department, Wuethrich said.

Once the fires are out, it is not likely that the county will haul the remaining material away, unless soil tests indicate "there is an environmental reason for doing so," Wuethrich said.

Likely, the site will simply be capped, but that decision is ultimately up to the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation.

Meanwhile, final results of some additional soil testing could be back sometime this week.

Those tests were ordered as a follow-up to results of earlier testing that indicated a material that should not have been present but may simply be the result of exhaust fumes from the equipment being used in the excavation, he said.

"We decided we wanted to do additional testing, to see if there is any threat," Wuethrich said.

Dobbs said that based on recommendations from a hydrologist, she has requested the Knox County Health Department approve even more testing of water, but has not yet received a response.