Residential Waste Burning

“The word on the street” is that Supervisor Lynn Morgan wants to regulate yard waste burning.  Any additional costs and prohibitions would unfairly fall on lower income people. Many feel that this represents the importation of city style into rural Amador County, and also assaults the reality and tradition of self reliance.

Lynn seems honestly concerned about the negative health effects for a limited number of people. And while undoubtedly some others will complaint about additional trash trucks rumbling down their quiet rural roads, there is nothing inherently wrong with a system of trash bins. She has the Air District Director involved. Certainly there are incremental costs already, plus the opportunity cost of not devoting time to something that helps more people. What percent of Upcountry residents really want to inhibit residential burn piles?

Even if the consumer doesn’t pay directly for the bins, someone has to. If the need or demand is sufficient, then the private sector would provide this service. Yard waste and slash can become salable compost, mulch, wood pellets and biomass electricity. A facility such as this has the perfect site, as many have suggested, at the former Pioneer cedar mill. The investment in high tension lines is lost, given its intended and prior use. The prior use as an organic tomato greenhouse came about not because there was a critical shortage of organic tomatoes, but because the grower got three government guaranteed loans each patching up the failure of the previous loan. They could not borrow themselves out of debt any more than we can directly or indirectly not pay a price for abandoning the high tension line investment. Wasted investment, however small, accumulates over time and contributes to economic decline and increased debt.

I see the broader picture here, and laugh to myself thinking that, undoubtedly, some progressives see the lack of a yard waste/slash facility as a “market failure”. But the opposite is true. Government involvement sealed the destiny of the cedar mill site. Are we creating or solving problems here? Will the approach of more government that probably hindered solving the problem once before solve it now?  Is there now no other way to look at a problem, real or imagined, than government involvement? I would bet that a businessperson risking their own money and doing a market study for unmet demand could tell rather quickly if this is an economic or subsidy endeavor.

And if nothing changes what is the cost? None of us are perfect, and we all define our activities thus. If a few people have to stay indoors a few days of the year, how horrendous is that? How important is efficient, low cost yard waste/slash destruction for fire safety? How important is local tradition that’s the smell of fall to many? What was once an individual response and perhaps adaption is now a public demand. What does this change in attitude signify for today and for tomorrow?

Copyright 2015, Mark L. Bennett