Open-burning law approved - 11 years later

An open-burning ordinance the city of Columbia Falls thought was a law, wasn't.

But now it is.

Confused? That's OK, everything was cleared up at the City Council meeting Monday.

During its regular meeting, the council voted to bring the ordinance off the table and approve it on second reading - an action that had been tabled in July 1994.

Despite the fact it never got final approval, the ordinance was written into city code and police have been enforcing it ever since.

Now, they truly have the clout to do it.

In the coming weeks, the old law will be updated to accommodate circumstances that have developed since 1994, clarify wording and add a precise definition of "open burning."

It all came about because of a recent inquiry into the city's open-burning ordinance.

In 1993, then-fire chief and now-council member Don Barnhart said city residents burning trash in barrels or burning off weedy patches had caused a couple scares. One, he said, spread to burn a neighbor's structure and another caught fire to his own building.

Barnhart discovered the city had no authority to regulate such burning, learned that neighboring cities did, and approached then-City Manager Roger Hopkins with the need for an ordinance.

The city attorney drafted an ordinance, and the council passed its first reading. A final vote was slated for July 5, 1994, but ensuing discussion that evening put the skids to it.

Developer Conrad Peterson had been preparing to build the River Haven subdivision, and needed some time to burn off the collected slash from his clearing at the south end of Nucleus Avenue that summer. Peterson eventually defaulted on the development. A new landowner now is developing Cedar Park subdivision in the same area.

County commissioners had been planning to close the trash-disposal "green boxes" site on the west edge of town. Council members wanted some time to think through alternatives for citizens needing to dispose of their trash before yanking the burning privileges.

Other concerns with ordinance details also gave them pause, and the council that night decided to table the ordinance until it could be refined.

It never was.

But somehow, through city manager and other changes at City Hall, it became part of the city code.

"Five or six years later, I was told there is an ordinance," Barnhart said, adding that he had authored the ordinance and never recalled it being adopted. "It was a surprise to me."

There have been questions over the years, he said.

Now, they've been answered.

"This was not a law, and we've been enforcing it for 10 years," City Manager Bill Shaw told the council.

He proposed rectifying the situation by adopting the ordinance and putting the law in place for now, then amending it over the coming weeks.

The council gave direction for a rewrite, saying there must be a clear definition of open burning and a provision for reasonable exceptions. Shaw said he will come back to the council in the near future with proposed amendments to the ordinance.

Reporter Nancy Kimball may be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com