Bethany is burning debris from November ice storm
BETHANY — Officials in Bethany hope to have the last bits of tree and brush debris from the November ice storm disposed of by the end of the month.
Steve Harzman, interim city manager, said all the debris from the storm that struck two days after Thanksgiving has been collected and piled in a large open area in Eldon Lyon Park, on NW 36 west of Rockwell Avenue. There it is being reduced to wood chips, then disposed of through a controlled-burn process.
Harzman said about 50,000 cubic yards of debris were collected after the storm that broke tree limbs, mangled shrubbery and downed electric power lines, cutting off power to many customers in Bethany and other areas of the metro area.
Bethany’s tree limbs and underbrush are being disposed of through the air curtain destructor method, a controlled-burn process that Harzman described as the “cleanest method of burning available.” The process utilizes two burn units, leased by the city of Bethany. Resulting wood ash is then deposited in a 20-foot-deep pit and buried, Harzman said.
The pit is not visible to passers-by, and Harzman said the entire area is surrounded by a security fence and monitored during actual burns by security personnel under overall supervision of the Bethany Fire Department.
The burn units “super-heat the wood,” Harzman said.
The operation is being carried out in compliance with state Environmental Quality Department permit requirements, said Harzman, who was named interim city manager after the February retirement of John Shugart, who had been city manager since 2005.
The air curtain destructor method is “the only approved burn method in Oklahoma County,” Harzman said. “We’re burning as much as we can; we want to get this over with and move on.”
Skylar McElhaney, Environmental Quality Department spokeswoman, said regulations governing use of air curtain burners exclude burning of rubber, plastics, asbestos, upholstery, carpeting and other items that generally produce unreasonable amounts of air contaminants. Burns must adhere to a checklist of department requirements in order to gain approval, she said.
“Bethany has met all the criteria we require to approve an emergency disposal site,” McElhaney said.
She said Bethany has received department approval for two sites, both inside Eldon Lyon Park, for staging/stockpiling, wood chipping and emergency burning.
Harzman said Bethany has applied for Federal Emergency Management Agency reimbursement for all storm-related cleanup expenses, including leasing the air curtain burners, but thus far has not received approval for assistance. No estimate of storm-related cleanup expenses has been made, he said.