One of the companies running the still-burning Wingfield Waste and Recycling Centre was visited by the Environmental Protection Agency last month and is in the midst of a legal dispute with the environment watchdog, InDaily can reveal.

Legal action between the EPA and Adelaide Resource Recovery is pending. The EPA yesterday declined to specify the exact nature of the court action.

A large fire ignited at ARR’s timber waste pile at the dump yesterday morning, sending thick black plumes of smoke into the air – with winds carrying the plume down across Adelaide. The fire later spread to a nearby pile of plastic waste.

After questioning from InDaily, a spokesperson for the EPA yesterday confirmed they had visited the ARR site recently.

“The Environment Protection Authority did as part of its normal business practice conduct a site inspection at the Adelaide Resource Recovery site at Wingfield in the last month,” the EPA spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

“There is currently legal action pending between the EPA and Adelaide Resource Recovery so no further comment will be made at this time.”

InDaily is not suggesting that there is a connection between the fires and the recent EPA visit or the legal action.

After InDaily put the EPA’s statement to the company, ARR general manager Matt Size released a statement saying the company was working “positively” with the environmental regulator.

The depot has been the site of repeated blazes over the last few years. Firefighters attended three separate fires in three months at the waste dump last year.

A search of newspaper and TV news archives reveals more fires at the depot requiring firefighter intervention – in January 2012, November 2011, February 2010 and November 2009.

Multiple tenants operate the Wingfield Waste and Recycling Centre, with ARR handling soil, building and construction waste.

InDaily understands the legal action between the EPA and ARR concerns an appeal of an older court case about the storage of dirt on ARR’s premises.

ARR was appealing against a requirement from the EPA for low-level contaminated waste – dug from the Adelaide Oval construction site – to be stored in a closed shed. ARR wanted to use the soil as landfill capping.

MFS northern commander Alan Fisk yesterday told the ABC waste fires were an expected risk when operating waste dumps.

“Unfortunately it’s part of the nature of the salvage and waste recovery businesses that it does happen through nobody’s fault.”