To The State DEC: Ban Burn Barrels
Strengthen The Brush Fire Permit Process
We attended the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s public hearing on its proposed ban of all Open Burning at its Norrie Point Environmental Center in Staatsburg on Tuesday, June 24. Homeowners, farmers and contractors from Clinton, Milan, Red Hook, Rhinebeck, Olive, Gardiner, Highland, Esopus and Greene County, among other locations, spoke vigorously of the proposed Open Burn ban in terms of home rule erosion, unfounded mandates, economic hardships, property rights, and a set of laws that seem to have overshot their original intent.
At the recent hearing, the majority of statements asked whether the state were more concerned with the burning of garbage or brush. The state replied by noting how the current system of burn permits, overseen by local towns and villages, had been put into place a century ago as a means of keeping watch for potential forest fires from the fire tower system then in place statewide. Any seen plume, it was figured, could be matched against lists of permitted burns for a day. Now, with that tower system obsolete, it was too hard keeping up with burns to allow any, officials said.
A former Clinton town supervisor pointed out that the new agricultural exemptions didn’t make sense in terms of real farming where much of the hardest work had to do with keeping the edges of fields back. Which meant burning brush. And what, he added, would happen to the state’s Open Space initiative if spaces couldn’t be kept open because of the expenses necessitated by wood chippers and other means of timber removal, he asked. And where would the new piles of wood chips be kept or gotten rid of to?
Farmer H. Sheldon Boice of Olive talked about how careful he, and everyone he knew, was when they did controlled burns. Then he pointed out how important it was to the cemetery association he headed to burn brush from the 57 pine trees under their care. Any added expense from renting or purchasing chippers, or having wood hauled away, would likely be too much for them. Contractor Terry Elmendorf, also of Olive, said the only way he could clear most of the steep lots he’d building on is with fire. What was he to do?
Others spoke of keeping their home lots looking clean and brush free. Of working hard to live life as asked, recycling all they could and burning the rest. What had they done wrong? As the evening went on, people talked at length about the history of mankind’s use of fire as a healthy tool for land control.
Answering questions on behalf of the state, DEC Official Bob Stanton said the regulations had been written per a vague order by former governor Eliot Spitzer, and would be open to changes once the current public hearing process, including receipt of written comments, was completed this month.
We heartily support such changes. As with most of the folks we heard last week, we believe it makes sense to ban burn barrels. But we also believe permitting should continue for controlled burns involving brush.
Eventual banning of all open fires might make sense in the future, if the climate change trends some are predicting turn out to true, but let’s get there slowly, empirically.
We trust the state will do the right thing on this one but to make sure, how about everyone sending written comments to Robert Stanton, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, Division of Air Resources, 625 Broadway, 2nd Floor, Albany, NY 12233. Telephone (518) 402-8403; Email: 215fires@gw.dec.state.ny.us. They’ll be accepted through 5 pm, July 10. Let’s make sure this one works for us…
PS