For more than a week, residents across southeast Calgary have lived with smoke and odour from a massive fire burning deep within the ECCO Recycling landfill near Quarry Park.

The fire began September 6, 2026. It has affected approximately 43,000 square metres - an area roughly equivalent to eight CFL football fields - and has been extremely difficult to extinguish because fire is burning deep within buried landfill material.

The Calgary Fire Department has reported challenging ground conditions and limited site access. Heavy equipment has been required not only to expose buried fires, but also to improve roads so crews can safely access affected areas.

Smoke has spread into surrounding residential communities. The City issued a health advisory warning that people exposed to the smoke may experience headaches, coughing and irritation of the eyes, nose and throat. Provincial monitoring has recorded intermittent exceedances for fine particulate matter (PM2.5), with some monitoring periods reaching concentrations comparable to the high-risk category of the Air Quality Health Index.

This facility is not located in an isolated industrial area.

It sits directly across from established residential communities and near the Remington YMCA in Quarry Park, childcare facilities, businesses, pathways and other community amenities. The future Quarry Park Green Line LRT station is planned immediately adjacent to the site.

And this is not the first fire.

Major fires at the ECCO site have been publicly documented in 2014, 2019, 2022 and now 2026. In 2019, ECCO’s owner told Global News that fires at the facility were “fairly common” and estimated that approximately 10 to 12 had occurred during the company’s first 27 years at the site.

The regulatory history raises further concerns.

The City of Calgary refused ECCO’s 2024 application to continue its temporary landfill use. ECCO appealed that decision, and the Subdivision and Development Appeal Board denied the appeal in October 2025.

The City is now pursuing a court injunction concerning the landfill. Mayor Jeromy Farkas has stated that the City determined ECCO continued to accept waste at the landfill contrary to its development permit and is asking the court to require ECCO to discontinue the dry-waste landfill and decommission the site.

Separate court proceedings concerning ECCO’s Materials Recovery Facility have already resulted in an injunction. A Court of King’s Bench judge found a history of non-compliance with municipal requirements and ordered ECCO to stop unlawfully storing dry waste and remove material stored outside permitted areas.

ECCO disputes aspects of the City’s allegations concerning landfill operations, and the separate landfill matter remains before the court. The purpose of this petition is not to prejudge that proceeding. It is to demand a safe, transparent and permanent resolution for surrounding communities.

The long-term future of this property is already changing. ECCO has proposed progressively reclaiming the landfill, removing existing material and eventually allowing the property to transition to mixed-use, transit-oriented development beside the future Quarry Park Green Line station.

We believe it is time to make that transition permanent.

We call upon The City of Calgary and the Government of Alberta to:

1. Permanently end the disposal of new landfill waste at the ECCO Quarry Park site and vigorously enforce all existing municipal development-permit, stop-order and court requirements applicable to landfill operations.
2. Do not renew, extend or replace municipal or provincial approvals in a manner that permits continued landfill disposal at the Quarry Park site. In particular, when ECCO’s current provincial environmental approval — publicly identified as EPEA Approval 19045-02-00 and scheduled to expire on June 20, 2027 — reaches the end of its term, any subsequent authorization should be limited to activities necessary for lawful materials recovery, landfill closure, decommissioning, reclamation and environmental monitoring — not the disposal of new landfill waste.
3. Accelerate the decommissioning and reclamation of the existing landfill and establish a binding, publicly accessible timeline with clear milestones, environmental safeguards and progress reporting. The goal should be to safely remove or remediate the existing landfill as quickly as reasonably possible rather than allowing reclamation to continue indefinitely.
4. Release the complete air-quality monitoring results from the September 2026 fire, including pollutants tested, monitoring locations, actual concentrations, peak measurements, averaging periods and applicable health-based thresholds.
5. Conduct and publicly release a comprehensive review of the September 2026 fire, including its cause, the materials involved, the size and composition of the affected waste pile, fire-prevention measures, emergency access, water availability and whether any conditions involved in the fire were previously subject to regulatory enforcement.
6. Review and publicly disclose the site’s complete history of significant fires, complaints, inspections, stop orders, development-permit violations and environmental enforcement, together with the corrective actions required following previous incidents.
7. Review coordination between municipal and provincial regulators to determine whether existing oversight and enforcement mechanisms adequately protected surrounding communities and whether stronger requirements are needed for waste facilities operating in close proximity to residential development.
8. Maintain transparent air-quality monitoring for as long as smoke or underground fire activity remains present and establish clear protocols for rapidly notifying affected communities when pollution levels or smoke conditions deteriorate.
9. Ensure the site’s transition away from landfill use is coordinated with the long-term redevelopment of the property and surrounding area, including the planned Quarry Park Green Line station and future transit-oriented development.

Why This Matters:

Southeast Calgary has changed enormously since this landfill was established.

Quarry Park, Riverbend, DouglasGlen, Douglasdale, McKenzie Towne, New Brighton, Copperfield and other surrounding areas are established and growing communities where tens of thousands of people live, work, attend childcare, exercise and spend time outdoors.

A waste facility capable of sustaining large, deep-seated fires for days or weeks — and sending smoke into surrounding residential communities — deserves the highest level of regulatory scrutiny.

Residents should not have to wait for another major fire to ask whether a landfill still belongs in the middle of a rapidly growing residential area.

The City has already taken action seeking to end landfill operations. ECCO itself has proposed reclaiming the property. A future Green Line station is planned immediately adjacent to the site.

The direction of this property is already clear.

It is time to stop adding to the problem, permanently close the landfill to new waste, accelerate the safe reclamation of what is already there, and move forward with a safer future for southeast Calgary.