Discarded tires were recently in the news. The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency had issued a substantial penalty to a scrap yard operator for not properly storing tires.

The violation alleged, among other things, that there were too many tires stored at the site and that the piles of tires were too high.

This problem, or course, is not isolated to just Ohio. It is a national epidemic. All too often residents in towns all across the nation turn on the TV at night to hear of tire fires in their own communities.

The concern is real, and the call for punishment of mismanaged landfills and scrap yards is well-founded. Often mismanaged tires end up having significant environmental effects on entire communities.

The black smoke of a tire fire can be seen for miles and many times evacuations are required. Improperly stored tires can ignite, causing horrible, polluting fires that are not easy to contain and that are costly to cleanup.

Since tires are made of petroleum products, when they burn, they release oil that keeps feeding the fire. That's exactly why these fires are so difficult to fight. One tire can produce two gallons of oil when ignited.

Water does little to put them out. While it may help stop the fire from spreading to other structures, it takes lots of soil and sand to put these monsters out. And that may not be an easy task in the case of a large, out of control fire.

A notorious Virginia fire consumed several million tires and took nine months to control. Three states were affected by the pollution -- which included arsenic contamination.

A California fire was so large that local authorities could not even control it. The Federal government was called to respond, and the response cost several million dollars and resulted in wide spread pollution.

All of these instances point our attention to one fact. Local officials must keep a close eye on tire dumps. Tires can be recycled, a preferred method to dumping them unused into landfills and scrap yards.

Several million tires a year are discarded. Recycling alternatives include using the tires as fuel as well as domestic applications, such as gym mats, noise barriers, and artificial mulch.

Since these tires contain so much petroleum, it appears that the fuel options might make the most sense. Some utilities and industries are already using tires for various fuel uses.

While re-use cannot yet account for all of the discarded tires, citizens should call for its possibilities to be explored in their own areas. If nothing else, recycling is one other way to limit our oil dependency.

If you live near a tire dump, make inquiries to be sure that someone is ensuring compliance with local and state regulations. Don't assume this is happening, as complacence may overcome enforcement.

If you are not getting answers to your questions, consider asking state regulators to take a look. And if the problem appears to be out of control, ask your neighbors to become involved. While a single resident may be easily overlooked, its harder to ignore organized community members.

Published: December 22, 2005

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Stuart Lieberman, Esq. writes about environmental issues. He was a New Jersey Deputy Attorney General assigned to the State Department of Environmental Protection from 1986 to 1990. Currently he is a shareholder in the environmental law firm of Lieberman & Blecher, P.C., located in Princeton, New Jersey. Stuart can be reached at slieberman@liebermanblecher.com.