County: No leaf burn ban for now

If you're accustomed to burning your fallen leaves every autumn, breathe easy.

Or at least as easy as possible within a thick haze of smoke.

The McHenry County Board on Tuesday put off action until at least December on tough new regulations that would ban burning leaves and other landscaping waste for large numbers of residents for whom it has become a fall tradition.

The measure, proposed by a special county committee of health advocates, community leaders and police and fire officials, would ban leaf burning within 150 feet of any residence in the county, essentially barring the practice for anyone not living on a multi-acre property.

Unhappy with the lack of alternatives for leaf burners and concerned about questions of who would enforce the new rules, board members voted 12-10 to hold off a decision until Dec. 4 at the earliest. County Board Chairman Ken Koehler cast the deciding vote.

"If you're going to pass an ordinance that's going to affect a lot of people like this one, then we need to have alternatives and they have to be affordable alternatives," Koehler said.

Proponents believed the proposed ordinance struck a balance between the needs of property owners who burn their landscape waste and county residents who suffer through burning season with respiratory problems.

"This is something that's being driven by air quality," county Department of Health Administrator Patrick McNulty said. "For people with severe respiratory problems, such as asthmatics, (burning) can cause very serious difficulty with their breathing."

The most noticeable change in the proposed ordinance was a ban on burning within 150 feet of a residence, a distance five times greater than the 30-foot requirement under the county's current regulations.

The ordinance would limit burning to the months of October, November, April and May between dawn and dusk.

Under the proposal, a first-time violator would face a $100 fine and subsequent offenses would lead to a fine of up to $1,000. Recreational bonfires and agricultural products are exempted from the new rules.

The new rules will not affect most residents living in municipalities since about 70 percent of them already ban leaf-burning altogether, McNulty said. However, it will impose tighter restrictions than the ones currently enacted in Huntley, Barrington Hills, Lakemoor, Fox Lake and Port Barrington.

Supporters of the plan urged the board to pass the measure Tuesday and not enact it until April, giving the county ample time to research alternative disposal methods to put in place next fall.

"We have to have the will to pass this and then work hard at finding solutions," Virginia Peschke, chairman of the board's Public Health and Human Services Committee.

But the slight majority believed the county needs to have the alternatives in place before taking away residents' ability to burn.

"I think we should have an ordinance placing restrictions on the burning of leaves and landscape waste, but it should be a well thought out ordinance," board member Nick Provenzano said. "Let's take this (upcoming) burning season, get some alternatives in place and if they work, then let's vote on it."