Permitted solid waste facilities

The Division of Environmental Quality (DEQ) permits Arkansas's solid waste facilities through its Solid Waste Management office, whose Technical Branch is chiefly responsible for permitting them. DEQ says permits are required for several classes of landfills and for composting, transfer stations, material recovery and waste tire processing. The office's staff also review facilities as they are permitted, monitor groundwater near landfills, supervise landfill closures, and run the Landfill Post-Closure Trust Fund.

In a Phase I ESA

DEQ's permitted facility records are the Arkansas form of the state landfill and solid waste disposal site records that ASTM E1527-21 lists as a standard source. The general reading of a landfill listing is on the landfills and solid waste page.

Four Arkansas details bear on a permitted facility.

• A permit is not always a landfill. DEQ permits transfer stations, composting operations, material recovery and waste tire facilities as well as landfills, so a permitted facility at an address is not necessarily a landfill.
• Landfills report every year. DEQ requires all Class 1, 3 and 4 landfills to submit an Annual Engineering Inspection Report (AEIR). Ask whether the file holds the reports for a landfill near the property.
• Older landfills closed under older rules. DEQ says landfills in Arkansas before 1991 were regulated but generally made no provision for upkeep and monitoring after they closed. The Landfill Post-Closure Trust Fund, set up by Act 747 of 1991, exists to deal with pollution at some of those closed landfills. The fund is paid for by fees on solid waste disposed of in Arkansas, and it is meant to pay for problems after closure at landfills certified closed under the rules in force when they closed. DEQ decides when a facility qualifies to use the fund, hires the contractors and oversees the work, and the page expects a number of older landfills to need help from the fund in future years. Newer landfills must have closure plans and post bonds for closure and post-closure care.
• Financial assurance follows a permit. DEQ requires the owners and operators of permitted solid waste facilities to show financial assurance covering closure, post-closure care and corrective action.

Illegal dumps are a separate record, searched among DEQ's complaint data; see Pollution complaints and inspections.

Where to look a site up

• DEQ's Solid Waste Management page links the Permitted Facilities Data Search, which it describes as giving solid waste facility information and inspection reports. This handbook did not open it.
• DEQ's Solid Waste Facility Permits page links two PDFs it labels Active Class 1 and Class 4 Landfills map and Active Transfer Stations and SW Recovery Facility Map, which this handbook did not open, and a Permit Data System Search.
• DEQ's Office of Land Resources lists the Solid Waste program at 501-682-0877. The Pollution Complaints page gives ee.help.solwaste@arkansas.gov for solid waste and illegal dump complaints.

Getting the file

DEQ takes Freedom of Information Act requests by email at EE.FOIA@arkansas.gov, and its Records Management Section arranges visits to review files. See Records Management and FOIA requests.

Sources

Arkansas Division of Environmental Quality pages, read October 13, 2026, no modified date shown:

• Solid Waste Management
• Solid Waste Facility Permits
• Landfill Post-Closure Trust Fund Summary
• Databases
• Office of Land Resources
• Pollution Complaints
• Contact Us
• Records Management