HARRISON – Brush-burning has been banned indefinitely at the town transfer station after a state environmental official discovered that tires were being burned with the brush.

Selectmen on Tuesday said they’ll still allow residents to bring brush to the Route 117 station, but the town needs to find another way to dispose of the brush now that it can no longer be burned.

Town Manager Mike Thorne said Department of Environmental Protection official Randy McMullan ordered the ban after driving by and noticing black smoke coming from the station Aug. 7 at a time when it was closed.

Upon investigation, he noticed two tire rims in a pile that was still smoldering from a burn sanctioned by permit by Thorne. Eventually, seven tire rims were uncovered in the ashes.

Thorne said transfer station attendants were unaware that tires had been mixed in with the brush.

“It’s pretty easy to sneak tires into a burn pile. That’s obviously what happened,” Thorne said.

Sheila Smith, chairwoman of the Board of Selectmen, added that someone “dropped them in because they didn’t want to pay a fee – and now we’re penalized for it.”

McMullan also cited other violations of state rules during his impromptu inspection – a can of acid, considered hazardous waste, trash left in the hopper, and unprocessed household items left for disposal by a church after a yard sale, Thorne said.

McMullan gave the town an Aug. 24 deadline to dispose of the ash from the burn pile at a licensed hazardous waste facility. The pile first has to be tested, however, Thorne said.

Selectmen were reluctant to stop accepting brush from residents, since residents pay property taxes to support the station. But Selectman Scott Andrews said it might be time to refuse contractors bringing in big loads of brush, or else charge them a fee to cover the cost of chipping services.

Selectmen also agreed to explore an agreement with the Norway-Paris Solid Waste Corporation, which operates a licensed brush-burning facility at its Frost Hill stump dump on Route 117 in Norway. “We need to explore all options,” Smith said.

Earlier in the evening, Smith Street resident John Ebinger questioned why transfer station attendants refused to allow him to dispose of a small stump at the station.

Smith said the town wasn’t licensed to burn stumps, because it does not own a grinder. She suggested Ebinger could dispose of his stump by bringing it to a local man, Rick Dyer, who runs a composting business.

Thorne said the Casco Transfer Station will take stumps from nonmember towns, for a fee. “We haven’t accepted stumps for years. We can’t legally bury them.”

Added Smith, “It’s not us that sets the rules, it’s the state.”

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