30% of complaints to agency are tied to burning, data show

Nearly 30 percent of complaints received by the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality since 2011 involve accusations of illegal burning, according to data analyzed by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Since Jan. 1, 2011, the department has investigated more than 2,000 complaints related to burning, out of 9,246 total complaints, according to data accessed by the newspaper last month.

An outsize number of complaints have come from Cleburne County, which is 26th in county population but third in burning complaints, according to the data.

County Judge Jerry Holmes said he’s never heard that illegal burning is an issue in his county. He recalled one fire about two years ago in the northern part of Cleburne County that the Department of Environmental Quality investigated, but he said that’s the only illegal burning case he remembers in his 4½ years as county judge.

Keith Hays, chief deputy at the Cleburne County sheriff’s office, said he’s not seen any illegal burning complaints since he began working in the sheriff’s office at the beginning of this year.

Holmes said he was surprised when the department sent an investigator to look into the fire two years ago.

“That was just the method of getting rid of your household trash,” he said. “But apparently it’s illegal.”

With a handful of exceptions, Arkansas law and environmental regulations bar

people from burning trash on their properties, said Stuart Spencer, associate director of the Environmental Quality Department’s office of air quality.

Illegal burning is the biggest complaint the air division receives, according to Heinz Braun, a branch manager in the division. It’s followed by complaints over dust and odor. The air division received the department’s second-most complaints — 2,920 — from 2011 through late March, behind the water division’s 3,487 complaints.

Because the department sends someone to investigate each complaint, the volume of burning complaints can be a nuisance for the agency, Spencer said.

Under state regulations, burning trash is illegal. But Arkansans can burn yard waste, certain entities can conduct controlled burns on forestland and farmers can burn their fields.

“The general takeaway is, don’t burn your trash,” Spencer said. “It is surprising how many people think that’s something you can do.”

Burning trash emits particulate matter, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, among other compounds, into the air, Spencer said. Concentrated levels of particulate matter can cause some people to have breathing problems, he said.

Generally, he said, the department encourages composting yard waste and clearing farmland some other way than by burning.

Many complaints about burning may stem from concern that someone is violating a burn ban or not controlling the flames, Spencer and Conway County officials said.

Alex Campbell, chief deputy in the Conway County sheriff’s office, and County Judge Jimmy Hart said they weren’t aware that illegal burning was a problem in their county, which ranks 36th in population but 11th in illegal burning complaints.

Conway and Cleburne counties offer trash pickup in rural areas, but residents can decline the service.

Hart said he thinks fewer people decline trash pickup now, so fewer people are burning their garbage.

“The way the world works today, nobody’s got time for those things,” he said of going to the effort to burn. “Things used be slower.”