Live Oak ordered to shut down, again

Last week, a Cobb County Superior Court judge upheld an oft-challenged state Environmental Protection Division order to shut down the smelly Live Oak landfill just outside Atlanta city limits.

A spokeswoman for the company that operates the landfill, Waste Management Inc., would not comment on the ruling or say whether the company would continue its legal fight to keep the landfill open.

Live Oak is scheduled to shut down in December, barring any further legal action.

Two years ago, EPD inspectors visited the landfill and found that Waste Management wasn’t covering sewage sludge with soil, as required by law. The result of that and other violations was a stench that drove hundreds of south DeKalb and south Fulton county residents indoors.

Waste Management twice appealed EPD’s order to shut down. The latest ruling, delivered April 13, was the company’s third — and possibly final — defeat.

About 86 percent of the 4,500 tons of trash dumped at Live Oak each day comes from the city of Atlanta. That means that if the most recent ruling stands, City Hall has just eight months to come up with a new place to deposit Atlanta’s trash.