The Wyoming Dept. of Environmental Quality Air Quality Division has granted a “limited” setback waiver that will allow two weekends of open burning in the Lovell town limits.
In a letter dated Nov. 5 and received at town hall on Nov. 16, Air Quality Division Administrator David Finley wrote that, in response to the Town of Lovell’s request that he reconsider his denial of a setback waiver, he has waived the setback requirement for two weekends (Friday and Saturday, according to Finley) “between now and December 31.”
As of Tuesday, Town Administrator Bart Grant had drawn up a resolution authorizing citizens to conduct open burning of “leaves, grass, weeds, limbs or other forestry type materials” on Friday and Saturday, Nov. 20-21 and Nov. 27-28, from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., with a burn-down period from 4 to 6 p.m. each evening.
All fires must be extinguished – with no smoke – by 6 p.m. each day.
The council met in special session Wednesday and voted to approve the open burning resolution.
In his letter to the town, Finley wrote that it has been the Air Quality Division’s practice to allow open burning waivers “where towns have limited options to manage this potentially high volume waste stream without burning, and where previous open burn waivers have generally not resulted in citizen complaints.”
Finley wrote that the DEQ received “at least two complaints” including one from a local physician who stated that it was his position that “smoke from open burning within the town had an adverse health impact on his patients.
“Since the rule which limits open burning to areas that are no closer than 500 feet to an adjacent property line was adopted for the express purpose of preventing health impacts from open burning, I denied the Town’s fall waiver request,” Finley wrote.
Finley noted that, after the denial, the town worked with the county and the Big Horn County Solid Waste District about accepting brush, grass, leaves and the like at no charge at the North Big Horn County Landfill, and he was pleased to see the free dump days for such material on Nov. 6-7.
Finley would also like to see the town encourage alternative methods in town for disposing of yard waste such as composting. Because of the efforts made by the town and solid waste district, he granted the setback waiver for two weekends.
“I also understand that you are working with the landfill board, and perhaps on your own, to establish longer term solutions for composting this material, either at the landfill or at a town-managed compost facility,” Finley wrote. “However, I know that it may take you some time to put these alternate solutions into place. Therefore, I have reconsidered my decision to deny the Town’s waiver request, but want to ensure that any open burning conducted in Town this fall does not harm the health of residents, particularly those with existing respiratory conditions.”
With that, Finley said he would waive the setback requirement for two weekends between “now” and Dec. 31.
“I strongly recommend that you continue to work with the landfill board, or on your own as a Town, to develop a system which is acceptable to all town residents, to allow management of this type of waste without burning,” Finley summed up. “Composting of this waste is an excellent solution, in my opinion, as it both gets rid of the waste without creating environmental consequences, and it results in production of a usable, valuable material.
“I hope that this limited waiver will allow the Town to develop an alternate solution which will eliminate any need to seek a waiver of this type next year.”