ARLINGTON — After each big winter storm, Dennis Somerville ignites piles of fallen trees and broken branches.
The retired Everett firefighter says he’s meticulous about his burning. He never uses burn barrels, which leave debris smoldering, and instead relies on quick-burning wood piles.
Like many people who live on large, wooded lots in north Snohomish County, Somerville is furious about a proposed ban that would make his fires illegal.
The proposal would ban the burning of trees, stumps, shrubbery, leaves and lawn clippings in King, Pierce and Snohomish counties.
“I can’t fly this stuff into space,” Somerville said, looking at photos of mangled branches in his yard. “It’s a real problem. I’ve been devastated by this.”
Nodding, fellow retired firefighter Rich Greenshields added, “What are we going to do with our stuff? Eat it?”
The Puget Sound Clean Air Agency proposed the ban to help reduce air pollution. Outdoor burning causes 6 percent of the region’s air pollution, according to the state Department of Ecology.
“It’s not a huge effect on regional air quality, but it’s a very huge effect on a neighbor who’s having to breathe it; having to close their windows and stay indoors; having their kid go to the emergency room with an asthma attack,” said agency spokeswoman Alice Collingwood. “So it really has a direct neighbor-to-neighbor impact and a quality-of-life impact.”
The proposal aims to start clearing the air July 1 by banning fires used to clear lots where developers plan to build subdivisions and shopping centers. The ban on burning residential yard waste wouldn’t go into effect until July 1, 2010. Agricultural burning would not be affected.
Somerville and Greenshields were among the few dozen people who protested the proposal at a meeting Tuesday night in Arlington. Hosted by the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency, the meeting gave people a chance to ask questions of agency staff and fill out comment forms.
The forms were the only way for meeting participants to communicate with the board of directors, which is scheduled to decide on the proposal following a hearing in Seattle on Feb. 28.
Many of the people who attended the meeting were angry that the board of directors didn’t show up. Some people left as soon as they realized the board wasn’t there.
“We thought we were going to come and hear a presentation and someone would actually listen to us,” said Cheryl McGuire, an Everett School District teacher who sometimes burns debris outside her Arlington home. “This has been a real disappointment.”
Mathalie Mericle and Lea Camero drove all the way from White Horse Meadows near Darrington to oppose the proposal.
For them, the proposal is an assault on their country lifestyle. They live off the land, growing their own organic vegetables and burning branches and leaves when necessary. For them and many other country dwellers, the added expense and inconvenience of lugging their lawn waste to the dump — plus the pollution their trucks would emit en route — outweighs any perceived benefit of the ban.
“It’s a destruction of a way of life,” said Mericle, a retired teacher. “It would be the end of an era of freedom. I choose to live with the old ways because I want to tread lightly on this earth.”
Mario Pedroza spent the evening listening to people complain about the proposal. Pedroza, a supervising inspector with the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency, has sat through five community meetings on the proposal and has come to expect opposition.
“I haven’t found anyone who’s in favor — ever,” he said.
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