Franklin County BOC Shuts door on Creosote-Coated Wood Burning, Commercial Poultry Litter Incinerators

By MJ Kneiser, WLHR

Franklin County commissioners have voted to amend the County’s Commercial and Industrial Ordinance to include banning the burning of creosote-coated cross ties and also to amend the ordinance to ban the commercial burning of poultry litter.

In March, in light of issues with the Georgia Renewable Power Plant and the resulting environmental concerns, Commissioner Jason Macomson proposed the amendment to the County’s Commercial and Industrial zoning ordinance be submitted to the County Planning and Zoning Board for consideration.

At their public hearing Monday evening, Planning and Zoning Director Scott Delozier said the planning board agreed with the first paragraph regarding banning the chipping and burning of creosote coated railroad ties, but had issues with the second paragraph.

DeLozier said the Board did not recommend banning the use of incinerators to burn farm waste and poultry litter.

“And there are some farms out there that do use incinerators to dispose of dead poultry, eggs and stuff like that. So, we didn’t want to prohibit that being used on a farm. That was the reason for the farming waste to be struck from prohibited uses,” he explained.

DeLozier noted it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find ways of disposing chicken litter, which is why he said the planning board recommended instead of a ban, to institute a conditional use permit.

Commission Chair Thomas Bridges noted adding a conditional use permit would force a company like Georgia Renewable Power to have to come before the Commission for approval before they could build an incinerator to burn poultry litter.

“If down the road if some plant like GRP wanted to burn poultry litter, if we have a conditional use they would have to come before the Commission and they could stop it right there to keep it from coming into Franklin County,” Bridges noted.

“That’s right. That’s why we recommended a conditional use. If we saw that it was going to be 100% not feasible or not beneficial to anybody, then we could go before the Board and it could be denied. Or we could attach conditions. As a conditional use, it would have to come before the Board,” DeLozier said.

But other commissioners said a conditional use permit would not necessarily keep a commercial entity from being able to build one in Franklin County.

Commissioner Ryan Swails said he believed a total ban as originally proposed was the only way.

“This was something that was a concern when I was on the planning board and GRP wanted to purchase additional land and they were making promises of not burning certain things, and one of the promises was not burning chicken litter,” Swails said. “I guess I don’t understand why we would even open the door for that to be something that’s burned locally. We need to ask ourselves what kind of county we want to be. Do we want to be the county that everyone brings their chicken litter to? I would say, no,” Swails said.

Commissioner Eddie Wester agreed and said allowing even the possibility of a poultry litter burning facility could resurrect the same kinds of problems the County is already having with the GRP plant.

“Are we really willing to allow another incinerator to come into our County and cause EPD problems again? I don’t care what kind of EPD measurements they’re going to be up against, it’s going to be just like what we’re dealing with GRP. There’s still going to be odors and there are still going to be emissions. And we’re opening up our County up to that and opening up our citizens to suffering with this again,” he said.

Commissioner Macomson also pointed out the original amendment only applies to commercial burning of poultry litter.

“This text only applies to commercial and industrial entities. It doesn’t apply to farmers. I agree with Ryan and Eddie. I don’t know why we would want another (commercial) incinerator or even think about burning poultry with all of the issues we’re dealing with in burning creosote railroad ties,” he said. “Think about how much worse that’s going to smell if we’re burning that… I’m all in favor of trying to come up with ways to help poultry farmers get rid of waste, and there are probably a lot of options there. I don’t think that I want to open the door to some kind of incinerator that burns poultry litter. I think once you do it, you can’t close that door.”

Later at their regular meeting, Macomson motioned to pass the amendment as originally proposed to the planning board to ban burning creosote coated railroad ties and ban the commercial burning of poultry litter.

That was seconded by Commissioner Swails and the motion passed 4 to 1 withCommission Chair Bridges opposed.