LOUDOUN COUNTY ASKED TO HELP CLEAN
OUR AIR , BY STOPPING OPEN-AIR BURNING OF WASTE AND POLLUTION BY DEVELOPERS

Loudoun County is urged to make further amendments to the Chapter 1080 ordinance that governs solid waste. These changes are needed to cure the rampant open-air burning of solid waste from activities of developers, which makes our air unhealthy, unsafe, and dirty. The burning is causing disease. When developers clear-cut their land to make way for houses, who knows what polluting trash (not just wood) they are burning? The evidence disappears in a developer's fire!

Mr. Burton is asked to "play the hero" in this situation. Burton is on the clean air committee of the Washington Metropolitan Council of Governments. He has been very active in opposing power plant emissions. He also represents the Mercer District and Ticonderoga Farms.

The $100 permit benefits developers and encourages development in Loudoun County. It lowers their costs, so they can sell more houses at low prices, and pocket bigger profits. WHY is the County helping developers be more profitable and build houses faster?

This affects the entire County, not only one neighborhood. When developers burn, they are doing it on HUGE tracts of land, that they are clearing for houses and roads. Our air is being polluted because County regulations allow unlimited open-air burning of "solid waste" generated by land development activities (like a third-world country) for only a $100 permit. ("Solid waste" regulations apply, because wood debris is called solid waste under the ordinance.)

Even though Chapter 1080 was recently revised, the changes did nothing to address this problem. Unfortunately, the Board of Supervisors upset the balance between waste disposal options. The 1999 amendments actually made burning more attractive to developers, in comparison. Therefore, there is a "burning need" to revise Chapter 1080.

Ticonderoga Farms is further concerned that once developers start such fires, they may toss everything else in the area on the fire as well, not just wood. After all, the evidence goes up in smoke. Off-the-record discussions with developers have supported these fears. Thus, the air is being polluted by burning of all sorts of improper material, not allowed even under the $100 permit.

And nonsensical County policy has no rhyme or reason to it: The alternative to a known program of dirty pollution, certain to cause damage by burning and polluting our air is that the County requires a multi-million dollar fee for alternatives such as composting (recycling wood and leaves), or massive, multi-million dollar industrial facilities for processing wood debris into forms which can be disposed of in landfills or used in other ways. Are you confident that your County government knows which way is up? Isn't this lack of logic disturbing?

Naturally, developers prefer to take the $100 fire route, to the detriment of public health, especially for children and the elderly. Their self-serving pollution is at least LOGICAL. But how can we explain the County's self-contradictory policy? County regulations need to return to common sense.

This policy contradicts a constant chorus in favor of slow development. It lowers costs for developers and encourages building of more homes, which sell at lower prices.

 Furthermore, there are other urgent reasons why the Solid Waste ordnance (Chapter 1080) must be amended. The current Chapter 1080 directly contradicts State law in many major ways, and imposes massive penalty bonds on farms who engage in composting. Nearly every government on Earth is actively encouraging composting by providing simplified and expedited permit procedures -- as the State mandates. Loudoun County stands alone on the planet by making it as difficult (and arguably more difficult) to compost commercially than to run highly-complicated and expensive alternatives such as sanitary landfills. Landfills handle biological waste (e.g. food garbage and biologic waste). Farmers who dare follow recommendations of Organic Gardening, American Farmland Trust, the State Legislature, U.N., Virginia Tech University and many others are faced with multi-million dollar penalties under the current Chapter 1080. This should also be fixed.

Our County, our children, our elderly and our everyday citizens would be better off if open-air burning were banned except for special safety or agricultural and controlled forestry purposes. At a minimum the permit fee should be increased from $100 to at least $10,000 to $500,000, to cover costs of inspection and social services to those harmed (just as the U.S. Justice department and State governments are now trying to get reimbursements for tobacco damage).