Compost Fire Not Unanticipated Documents Show Officials Worried About Conditions At Site Since 1994

The West Plains composting facility where piles of yard waste have smoldered for 12 days has been a fire concern for at least five years.

Public documents show that Ecocycle’s neighbors began warning of fire danger in 1994. They were joined over the years by a growing number of public officials.

After first supporting the business, thenCommissioner Steve Hasson fretted in a 1994 memo about the “prospect for conflagration” at Ecocycle. District 10 Fire Chief Dick Gormley documented concern about fire danger in 1996 letters. County inspector Tom Mosher noted in 1996 that waste piles had grown so large, Ecocycle “has literally become an unlicensed, illegal and uncovered landfill site.”

As a result of those concerns, the company was ordered to temporarily stop accepting compost material in 1996. A year later, Ecocycle was the subject of a hearing that could have resulted - but didn’t - in revocation of the special county permit that allowed the controversial facility to open in 1992.

The fire that started May 6 is the second in seven months at Ecocycle, where stumps, grass and other yard wastes are turned into top soil that’s sold to gardeners.

A fire in October burned for about a week. The one burning now appears more tenacious, thwarting at least $30,000 worth of publicly funded efforts to extinguish it.

“There is no danger of it escaping and going anywhere right now, but the smoke continues to be a problem,” said Fire District 10’s Gormley.

On Monday, that smoke continued to hang low over Ecocycle and scattered homes whose owners have fought the company since before it opened.

During an interview Monday, Ecocycle owner Heidi Boyd was at a loss to explain why two fires would spontaneously combust within such a short period.

She suggested they may have been intentionally set, but would not elaborate.

“I just think it’s a possibility,” she said.

Gormley said the fire is under investigation, but doesn’t appear to be suspicious. It’s possible that the October fire was never completely extinguished but burned underground until recently, he said.

“We haven’t ruled out anything,” said Gormley.

Boyd said she’s sorry that neighbors must breathe smoke from the fire, which shows only occasional small flames. A bigger concern, she said, is the fear that public agencies may shut down Ecocycle.

“Our business was just destroyed,” she said, citing bad publicity. “We have employees who have children.”

Officials from the county, the fire district, Spokane Regional Health District, the city’s Solid Waste Project and Spokane County Air Pollution Control Authority plan to meet this afternoon to discuss the fire and other concerns about Ecocycle.

After meeting with angry neighbors Friday morning, county Commissioners Kate McCaslin and John Roskelley agreed to pay a contractor $10,000 to put out the fire. The money bought about a half day’s worth of work.

Gormley said the fire district has put about $20,000 into the effort “and that’s a very conservative figure.” Last year’s fire set the district back $20,000 to $25,000.

Boyd said she’s checking with Ecocycle’s insurance company to see whether it will help pay to extinguish the fire.

“But we’re property owners and taxpayers (to the fire district) … so it doesn’t seem like we should have to pay,” she said.

Fire District 10 Commissioner Paul McBride said it seems unfair that district taxpayers must bear the burden for putting out the fire after expressing concerns about the company in 1996.

In August 1996, the Spokane Regional Health District ordered Ecocycle to stop accepting compost. The order was lifted the following month, after Gormley confirmed that the company had installed the proper water system.

But, Gormley warned, the company should not be allowed to add to compost piles that were already so large the chief worried how firetrucks could move between them. The Health District concluded there was no legal justification for continuing the ban since Gormley could cite “no specific fire code violations.”

Mosher’s unfavorable inspection led to a 1997 hearing to consider whether Ecocycle should lose its permit for violating conditions set by the county.

County Hearing Examiner Mike Dempsey decided the company could remain in business, but set new, tougher standards. That order hasn’t been enforced because Ecocycle’s court appeal of the ruling is still pending.

Ecocycle’s start was every bit as tumultuous as its recent history.

County officials approved the business over objections from the Solid Waste Project, which operates the regional trash incinerator and pays a contractor to run a competing compost facility.

Phil Williams, the city’s director of solid waste disposal at the time, warned Ecocycle partners Jim Boyd and John McCormick that the city could run Ecocycle out of business by dropping its own collection rates.

Williams said he had not intended the comment as a threat, but Boyd and McCormick took it that way, as did Hasson and then-Commissioner John McBride, who overheard the comment and became the company’s champions.

A year later, the city began accepting yard waste for free. McCormick and Boyd, who charge a dumping fee, complained of unfair government competition, saying they couldn’t get the hot, green materials they needed to make composting work on woody materials like stumps and branches.

In 1994, after illegally accepting some chicken manure, the company asked for permission to start accepting large amounts of manure, along with scrap fruits and vegetables from grocery stores. The county initially granted the request; Boyd said it has since been tied up with appeals by neighbors.

Boyd said the company now has reached the proper balance between green and woody material and no longer needs the manure or food scraps.

Map of area.

WHAT’S NEXT Meeting today A meeting to discuss the fire at Ecocycle will be at 3 p.m. today at the Public Health Building, 1101 W. College Ave., Rooms 320 and 321.