What's the story with the big pile of 'dirt' outside of Shepherd?

Today's question is about a huge pile of what turns out is not exactly dirt. It's actually a new specialty landfill at the center of a years long controversy over what we do with some of the stuff we throw away and who bears the environmental cost. Learn more now on The Big Why.

Austin Amestoy: Welcome to The Big Why, a series from Montana Public Radio where we find out what we can discover together.

I’m your host, Austin Amestoy.

This is a show about listener-powered reporting. We’ll answer questions — large or small — about anything under the Big Sky. By Montanans for Montana, this is The Big Why.

Joining me this week is Jackie Coffin, news director at Yellowstone Public Radio. So welcome, Jackie.

Jackie Coffin Hi Austin, it's great to be back on The Big Why again with another story from east of the Divide.

Austin Amestoy Jackie, where are you taking us today?

Jackie Coffin Our first stop is here in Billings proper to meet our question askers at the West Park Senior Living Community where it turns out we have some Big Why super fans.

Austin Amestoy Oh, Big Why Super Fans you say?

Jackie Coffin Oh yes, every Tuesday a group of residents and staff gathers together to listen to The Big why and discuss our stories. I joined them for one of their listening sessions. Those participants include Tony Falbo, a resident who had a question.

Tony Falbo My question was, you know, I go to Roundup once in a while and we see this big mound over there, like all dirt. What is that?

Austin Amestoy A big pile of dirt, huh?

Jackie Coffin Huge pile of what turns out is not exactly dirt. The pile Tony is asking about is actually a new specialty landfill at the center of a years long controversy over what we do with some of the stuff we throw away and who bears the environmental cost.

Austin Amestoy Wow, so a very important, controversial, not exactly dirt pile. I can't wait to hear more, Jackie. Where does this story begin?

Jackie Coffin So to understand the dirt pile in Shepherd, we actually have to start just east of Billings over in Lockwood at a place called Pacific Steel and Recycling.

Austin Amestoy You know, I grew up in Laurel and so I went there all the time with my dad to drop off our cans back in the day.

Jackie Coffin Yeah, I think a lot of people know it for that type of recycling, but I headed there not to talk about recycling cans, I was curious about what happens to our bigger recyclables, namely cars. Pacific Steel takes whole vehicles from all over Montana, the Dakotas, and Wyoming. In fact, they're the only auto shredder for hundreds of miles.

Austin Amestoy So I'm picturing this as a big machine with some kind of big teeth that can just eat whole cars.

Jackie Coffin Yeah Austin, you're not far off. Touring me around the recycling yard in Lockwood is branch manager Jason Heath.

Jason Heath That pile and that pile would be like 700 cars.

Jackie Coffin Wow! The yard is full of mountains of old cars, washers and dryers, train cars, farm equipment ...

Jason Heath Coal cars that were in that derailment in Miles City.

Jackie Coffin And heavy machinery with giant claw hooks at the end, picks them up, sorts them into piles, and feeds them into shredders that can chew through hundreds of cars a day.

Jackie Coffin Heath says depending on the year of your car, about 70 to 85% of it can be recycled. But the important thing for our story today isn't what gets recycled, it's what doesn't get recycled. Heath says along with tens of thousands of tons of recyclables, they wind up with roughly 25,000 tons of stuff from all those old and totaled cars that can't be recycled every year. On the yard in Lockwood, this auto shredder residue, or ASR as they call it, sits in big piles outside of the shredder.

Jason Heath So this here is ASMR.

Jackie Coffin It looks essentially like dirt and is partly made of dirt with shredded bits of wire, little bits of styrofoam, plastic, and fabric. Sometimes they call this car waste fluff.

Austin Amestoy I am seeing some hints of our big pile of dirt here Jackie. So what do they do with all this fluff?

Jackie Coffin Well, they used to just dispose of it in the Billings Municipal Landfill. But a few years ago, they proposed dumping it in a new site, and that's where the saga begins.

'Austin Amestoy Let me guess, a site in Shepherd?

Jackie Coffin Yep, Austin, you've got it. A few years ago, Pacific Steel bought a 320-acre parcel of land in Shepherd to bury the fluff. They also proposed taking steps to keep things safe and contained, and avoid any toxic material going into the ground or surrounding environment. Thing is, though, people live nearby that proposed site.

Austin Amestoy Right, I'm guessing this is where things started to get controversial.

Jackie Coffin Totally. Shepherd is an unincorporated community northeast of Billings, along Highway 87 on the way to Roundup. It's spread out, not a ton of people, but many of them have chunks of property they care a lot about. Like Anellise Deters, who moved from Billings to Shepherd about seven years ago with her husband and children. She said she wanted.

Anellise Deters ...To raise my kids in an environment that they can free roam and I don't have to worry about traffic or anything too harmful besides rattlesnakes.

Jackie Coffin Deters lives up the road from the new landfill. We met up to look at what this new landfill means for her community. From the road, we see a large swath of sagebrush pasture framed by a butte to the west. In the middle of the area is a large tan hill next to a staging site where trucks are moving in and out, dropping off loads of that dirt-looking shredder material to be deposited and buried.

Anellise Deters I mean, there were cows out here grazing before, and now it's a landfill.

Deters is one of the organizers of a group called Stop the Shepherd Landfill that formed not long after Pacific Steel announced its plans. Deters says when she found out about the landfill.

Anellise Deters I freaked out. I was like, wait, what?

Jackie Coffin That was October, 2023, and essentially the starting point of a two-year fight between a group of community members, Pacific Steel, and eventually the Montana Department of Environmental Quality. Stop the Shepherd Landfill members started going to public meetings, submitting comment, rallying people on Facebook. And calling on Montana DEQ to deny Pacific Steel its operating permit.

Austin Amestoy Why are Deters and other members of the group so concerned?

Jackie Coffin Well, Austin, as you can imagine, no one really wants a new landfill in their backyard. Beyond that, they worry about the possible contaminants in this shredder residue, the potential of it leaching down to the water table, and maybe even blowing in the wind. Deters also worries the shredder residues may be a source of forever chemicals known as PFAS.

Anellise Deters We're extremely concerned about these cancer causing particles.

Austin Amestoy I am guessing they voiced these concerns to Pacific Steel and DEQ?

Jackie Coffin Oh, they certainly did. One of their biggest worries is that, to them, the state just didn't do a thorough enough environmental assessment of the impacts of the site.

Austin Amestoy Right, I'm pretty familiar with the term Jackie, this is part of that system for determining the impacts of a potential project on the environment, right?

Jackie Coffin Yep, Austin, it sure is. And to be clear, DEQ did do what's called a formal environmental assessment. In fact, the state sent me a whole pile of documents that included their analyzes. But in the policy world, an environmental assessment is one step less thorough than a formal Environmental Impact Statement, which is what the group wants done.

Austin Amestoy What is Stop the Shepherd Landfill doing now? After the state approved the landfill's operating permit last June, The group sued to get that more thorough environmental review. In the meantime, they are asking a Yellowstone County judge to freeze landfill operations while the case is ongoing. The judge just hasn't made any decisions around that yet. It's kind of been in limbo since.

Austin Amestoy So what are state environmental regulators saying about all this?

Jackie Coffin They won't comment on it too much as it is still actively moving through the courts, but they sent me a statement standing by the process they went through in granting the landfill its permit.

Austin Amestoy So there you have it, the landfill is in operation, DEQ stands by its process, and the court battle over this landfill is kind of in limbo as the judge reviews the case. Jackie, thanks for being here.

Jackie Coffin Happy to do it, Austin.

Austin Amestoy: Tony, I hope you and the other residents of the West Park Senior Living Community have enjoyed this answer to your question.

Now we want to know what makes you curious about Montana. Submit your questions below, or leave a message at 406-640-8933. Let's see what we can discover together! Find us wherever you listen to podcasts and help others find the show by sharing it and leaving a review.