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Orange County Board of Commissioners <br /> Page 2 <br /> November 2, 2001 <br /> be characterized as controlling emissions or designed to control <br /> emissions . The public record of the adoption of a regulated <br /> recyclable materials ordinance which prohibits burning as a <br /> method of disposal of regulated recyclable materials should <br /> focus on the stated Findings and Purpose of the draft ordinance <br /> under consideration. <br /> Second, at some point I hope the County receives additional <br /> legislative authority to prohibit burning associated with land <br /> development in the County as part of the County' s development <br /> ordinances. You' ll recall that the County received authority to <br /> accomplish this in all but two voting precincts. No amendment to <br /> the development ordinances has been presented to you, however. <br /> This is so because it is my opinion that exercising or not the <br /> County' s police power along voting precinct lines is not <br /> compatible with North Carolina law— The good news is that a bill <br /> which will effectively eliminate the voting precinct problem got <br /> through the Senate this session of the General Assembly. That <br /> means it is eligible for consideration by the House during the <br /> Short Session. Prohibiting open burning of trees, land clearing <br /> debris and construction debris in land development permits will <br /> give the County another valuable tool to stop this practice. <br /> Presently the Towns of Chapel Hill and Carrboro have authority <br /> to prohibit open burning in land development permitting. <br /> Finally I want to comment on the way the draft ordinance <br /> addresses open burning as an agricultural practice, including <br /> horticulture and silviculture (forestry) . The Board had <br /> expressed an interest in the open burning prohibition having as <br /> minimal an impact on agriculture as reasonably possible. <br /> Virtually all agricultural open burning practices avoid <br /> regulation in the draft ordinance. The table in the open burning <br /> section of the September 5, 2001 memorandum from Gayle Wilson to <br /> John Link illustrates that . The way the draft ordinance <br /> accomplishes this is by prohibiting the open burning of non- <br /> reusable wood waste and by defining non-reusable wood waste <br /> narrowly. The definition includes only trees cleared from land <br /> for any purpose other than sale or for use on site. Therefore, <br /> trees cannot be cleared from property, piled up and burned. This <br /> is true, as it must be to avoid arbitrariness, whether the <br /> activity is performed by a land developer, a government or a <br /> farmer. Since trees have value as trees, there are options <br />