Senate Bill No. 252
(By Senator Schoonover)
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[Introduced January 29, 1996; referred to the Committee
on Natural Resources.]
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A BILL to amend and reenact section three, article fifteen,
chapter twenty-two of the code of West Virginia, one
thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, relating to
the disposal of yard waste by owners or tenants on private
property.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That section three, article fifteen, chapter twenty-two of
the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one,
as amended, be amended and reenacted to read as follows:
ARTICLE 15. SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT ACT.
§22-15-3. Special provision for wood waste; yard waste.
(a) The purpose of this section is to allow for the
combustion of wood waste without a solid waste facility permit and to allow facilities to use wood waste as an alternative fuel
and to provide for the proper collection and disposal of yard
waste generated by residents and tenants who own private property
in residential areas or rural areas of the state.
(b) "Wood waste" means wood residues from logging
operations, sawmills, wood product manufacturing, furniture
making operations, recycling of wood products and other
industrial processes, but does not include wood waste which
contains hazardous constituents, including copper chromium
arsenate, which would cause such wood waste to be regulated
pursuant to article eighteen of this chapter.
(c) "Yard waste" means grass clippings, weeds, leaves,
brush, garden waste, shrub or tree prunings and other living or
dead plant tissues, except that, such materials which, due to
inadvertent contamination or mixture with other substances which
render the waste unsuitable for composting, shall not be
considered to be yard waste: Provided, That the same or similar
waste generated by commercial agricultural enterprises is
excluded.
(c) (d) For purposes of section two of this article and
section two, article four, chapter twenty-two-c of this code:
(1) Wood waste and yard waste is are not "solid waste"
unless disposed of at a solid waste facility. or an open dump
(2) Wood waste is a material which may be used as an
effective substitute for commercial products or raw material
feedstock.
(d) (e) The use of incineration technologies in an energy
recovery incinerator for the purposes of combusting wood waste is
not prohibited and no solid waste facility permit is required.
The provisions of this section do not allow the combustion of
wood waste without a source permit from the director if such
permit is required by article five of this chapter or the rules
promulgated under the provisions of said article.
(e) (f) Yard waste, as described in subsections (a) and (c)
of this section, may be disposed of in a manner consistent with
one or any combination of the following:
(1) Disposal in a publicly or privately operated commercial
or noncommercial composting facility.
(2) Disposal by composting on the property from which
domestic yard waste is generated on adjoining property or
neighborhood property if consent is obtained from the owner of
the adjoining or neighborhood property.
(3) Disposal by open burning where such activity is not
prohibited by this code, rules promulgated hereunder or municipal
or county codes or ordinances.
(4) Disposal in a publicly or privately operated landfill,
only where none of the foregoing options are available. Such
manner of disposal will involve only small quantities of domestic
yard waste generated only from the property of the participating
resident or tenant.
(g) The rules promulgated pursuant to section eight, article
eleven, chapter twenty of this code will be amended by the
division of environmental protection to faithfully and accurately
reflect the intent and purpose of this section regarding the
disposal of yard waste.
(h) The division may promulgate legislative rules, in
accordance with the provisions of chapter twenty-nine-a of this
code, to effectuate the purposes of this section.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to provide that "yard
waste" does not constitute "solid waste" except under certain
circumstances and to establish permissible methods of disposing
of the same.
Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken from the present law, and underscoring indicates new language
that would be added.