WARREN, Ohio -- Neighbors say they are overwhelmed by the smell coming from a nearby landfill.

NewsChannel5's Chief Investigtor Duane Pohlman has uncovered hazardous materials being dumped in our back yards.

Pohlman: At the Warren Hills Landfill ...

Paige: "It smells really bad."

Pohlman: Toxic amounts of hydrogen sulfide overwhelmed neighbors.

Jackie Bush, neighbor: "Eye irritations, headaches, get sick to my stomach and throw up."

Pohlman: And sickened children.

Tyler: "Whenever I wake up, I can't really see out of my eyes."

Pohlman: The gas came from ordinary drywall. It lines the inside of our buildings.

But when it's taken outside and buried, it begins to break down, producing a dangerous gas called hydrogen sulfide.

EPA tests revealed hydrogen sulfide levels thousands of times higher than what's considered safe.

Warren Hills is now an EPA "Superfund" cleanup site.

Mark Durno, EPA Emergency Response Coordinator: "Anything that could go wrong did go wrong."

Pohlman: There are six construction and demolition landfills in Cuyahoga County alone. And from NewsChopper5, we saw lots of drywall being dumped. But drywall isn't the only threat.

Jack Shaner, Ohio Environmental Council: "Ohio law says virtually any material that is left in a house or a building that is built or torn down can go into one of these landfills."

Pohlman: Jack Shaner is with the Ohio Environmental Council.

Shaner: "These building materials are loaded with toxins."

Pohlman: Just take a look around your own house or office. Some flourescent lights contain mercury. Older treated wood has arsenic, and old paint has lead.

When a building is demolished, all of that ends up at the dump.

Just weeks ago in a memo, Ohio EPA tests of leachate, or runoff, at nine construction and demolition landfills showed extremely high levels of all sorts of bad stuff, including arsenic and lead.

Shaner: "It's a whole toxic soup -- A to Z of dangerous chemicals."

Pohlman: But unlike other states with tough regulations, Ohio still treats these landfills as relatively harmless. Ohio doesn't even require a plastic liner to fully protect groundwater.

Shaner: "This is a public health crisis waiting to happen."

Pohlman: At Warren Hills, it did happen.

Debbie Roth, neighbor: "It was worse than you could even imagine."

Pohlman: The landfill was declared an urgent public health hazard. And the cost of capping it is expected to total $3 million. But that's just the start.

The EPA said it's trying make the responsible parties pay, including Regus Ind. -- a Buffalo-based company that ran the landfill for a year-and-a-half -- and Gilbert Rieger, a lawyer who co-owned the land and a company that leased the landfill to Regus.

He didn't want to talk to me. Instead, he walked in to a garage and stayed there. Finally, he came out.

"Who's going to do the clean up? Who's going to pay for that?"

Gilbert Rieger: "I. I."

Pohlman: "I mean, are taxpayers going to get stuck?"

Rieger: "Call Steve Bell."