VIDEO: DEM pisses on Charlestown New Year’s Bonfire

Tells Charlestown “don’t do it anymore”

BANNED!

By Will Collette

Well, it’s great to see the Department of Environmental Management pollution fighters on the job. They may have missed the outrageous – and unhealthy – clouds of silica dust blowing off the notorious Copar quarry, but they’re not going to let Charlestown get away with burning wood pallets.

DEM’s judgment of Charlestown’s immensely popular New Year’s Eve bonfire at Ninigret Park is that it constitutes an unpermitted municipal waste fire. A violation of state law.

DEM issued Charlestown with a Notice of Intent to Enforce (NOIE) after this year’s December 31^st bonfire, informing the town that any future bonfires would be subject to harsh consequences.

I'm not making this up. Read DEM's order to the town by clicking here.

Then Town Treasurer Pat Andersen sent this e-mail to DEM, attempting to get that NOIE lifted:

Tracey D'Amadio Tyrrell

Supervising Environmental Scientist

RIDEM Office of Compliance and Inspection

235 Promenade Street

Providence, Rhode Island 02908

tel. 401-222-1360, ext. 7407

fax 401-222-3811

From: Patricia Anderson [mailto:panderson@charlestownri.org]

Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2013 12:25 PM

To: Tracey Tyrrell

Cc: Jay Primiano

Subject: Notice

Good afternoon Tracy ,

I have left a few messages regarding the “Notice of Intent to Enforce” for the Town of Charlestown (SW 2013-8).

We do not operate a solid waste management facility at the area of Plat 7 Lots 45-1 and 45-2. This is Ninigret Park . We did burn some pallets on the evening of December 31, 2012. It was a New Year’s Eve Bonfire that was also attended by Charlestown Fire and Rescue.

Per your regulations on Open Fires (4.3b) Bone fires composed of clean, untreated wood or cellulose derivatives for festive occasions conducted by an institution are exempt from the regulation.

Could you please rescind the Notice of Intent to Enforce”?

Thank you for your consideration.

Pat Anderson, Treasurer

That's Tom Ferrio on top of the pile looking for an environmental violation

No dice, Charlestown. DEM’s position is that the pallets (graciously donated each year by Arnold’s Lumber and assembled by Frank “Frankie Pallets” Glista) are not clean wood. 

They are recyclable municipal trash. And burning them in a pile, even under the careful supervision of the Charlestown Fire District and the delight of hundreds of residents, many of them children, is not proper recycling. 

They need to be converted into toothpicks.

Here’s DEM’s e-mailed response:

From: Tracey Tyrrell [mailto:tracey.tyrrell@DEM.RI.GOV]

Sent: Friday, February 22, 2013 9:13 AM

To: Patricia Anderson

Cc: Jay Primiano ; Laurie Grandchamp

Subject: RE: Notice

Ms. Anderson;

Thank you for your response with regards to the Notice of Intent to Enforce (OC&I SW 2013-08) (the “NOIE”). The Office of Compliance and Inspection is aware of the Air Regulation 4.3 (b) which exempts open burning of clean wood, however the exemption applies to the requirement to get an air permit. Pallets are considered a solid waste, (but a recyclable waste), to which burning is not an acceptable form of recycling. I have made an inquiry to DEM’s Office of Waste Management (OWM) to determine if a variance or some other method may exist to allow this activity to continue for your town. In the interim, the NOIE must remain in effect until such time that DEM determines if the activity can continue. Please be advised that there may be other state, federal or local regulations that would also apply. I will respond to you as soon as OWM makes such a determination.

Thank you,

Tracey D'Amadio Tyrrell

Supervising Environmental Scientist

RIDEM Office of Compliance and Inspection

235 Promenade Street

Providence, Rhode Island 02908

tel. 401-222-1360, ext. 7407

fax 401-222-3811

OK, granted that burning the pallets isn't the same as burning logs in a fireplace. Maybe the simplest solution is for Charlestown to chop down a bunch of trees on town lands. Since we seem to be getting more and more severe storms, maybe we should stockpile fallen trees and big tree limbs from every storm.

Or maybe DEM could get its head out of its ass.

I find it pretty outrageous that they are prepared to take such drastic enforcement action on this carefully executed exercise in civic fun while leaving the 100+ Charlestown and Bradford households to suffer from Copar’s dust clouds.

Add to that the fact that Charlestown’s New Year’s Eve bonfire is just one of several that routinely happen in our area. For example, the Andrea Hotel’s Guy Fawkes Day bonfire that also used pallets and even construction debris.

Finally, there’s the question of how this enforcement action came to pass. Generally, DEM will not take this kind of enforcement action on its own – DEM enforcement is complaint-driven. So who dropped the dime (that’s an anachronistic expression meaning who blabbed) to DEM?

Was it Planning Commissar ruthless Ruth Platner? Was it someone in the Arnolda neighborhood - they seem to protest whenever there’s any human activity at all in Ninigret Park.

Or was it some other anti-social spoil sport? Someone who has it in for Frankie Pallets? Quick – who’s the first person who pops into your mind?

Will this enforcement notice from DEM trigger CCA Town Councilor Deputy Dan Slattery into another frenzied campaign to turn over control of Ninigret Park to outside agency, as he did during last year’s Battle for Ninigret Park?

I have put the question of how DEM decided to get involved in this perennial activity – complaint or uncharacteristic independent initiative - to Ms. Tyrell at DEM and have not received a response as this article goes to press. If she does reply, I’ll report on her answer.

Meanwhile, let’s celebrate the virtues of preserving trees by watching this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRDSj62tlvQ