ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, September 23, 1996 TAG: 9609230068
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: SMITHFIELD. R. I.
SOURCE: TED ANTHONY ASSOCIATED PRESS
note: below
IT LOOKS LIKE CAVIAR, but Rhode Island's largest expanse of vulcanized rubber is a major health hazard. But experts say today's problems would look like a picnic if it caught fire.
Think tires. Think lots of tires - 15, maybe 30 for each of Rhode Island's million residents. Now picture those tires stacked haphazardly on a rural expanse of land, a mountain of black rubber so vast, so concentrated that pilots flying into Providence use it as a landmark.
Consider, now, that some of those tires sit atop discarded chemical waste deemed dangerous by the federal government. That wetlands surround the area. That the chemicals may be seeping into water that flows into neighbors' wells. And that the lord of this post-industrial manor, under orders to get rid of the tires, hasn't - and even pulls out a shotgun now and then when government guys come around.
Finally, the kicker: Imagine what could happen if this 14-acre bowl of dirty black Cheerios, 35 feet high in some areas, caught fire.
This is the scenario in Smithfield and has been for years. Here, on 200 acres of property tucked in western Rhode Island's gently rolling hills about a dozen miles off Interstate 95, a tenacious man named William Davis has kept regulators at bay, courts busy and firefighters on what amounts to perpetual low-level alert with one of the largest scrap tire piles in the land.
An estimated 850 million scrap tires dot the United States, excluding those in use on cars, trucks, planes, heavy machinery, motorcycles, mopeds and bicycles. Each year adds 253 million more.
Think of it: Tires in back yards. Behind garages. In municipal dumps. Worst of all, in voluminous piles made only of tires - clumps of the 20th century's flotsam, the flammable, mosquito-infested legacy of an industrialized nation that has spent 100 years using cars to get where it wants to go without really considering the consequences.
``Big city or small place, whether it be Detroit, West Virginia, New York, people are asking: `What should we do with these tires?''' says Utpal Dutta, a civil engineering professor at the University of Detroit Mercy's construction materials lab who researches tire disposal methods.
Fire is not the only hazard. Mosquitoes breed faster in tires than in their natural habitat because there are no predators and lots of temperature-consistent, insulated water for larvae to grow. And when dirty tires fill up with grass, skunks and snakes, the cost of cleaning increases and the chance of recycling slims.
Though 48 states now have passed tire-pile legislation, few regulated tire disposal until a decade ago. This helps explain how the dilemma came to be: Piling was a legitimate, acceptable management technique.
When laws finally were passed, some hoarders stopped taking tires and governments often looked the other way when others didn't. ``The thinking was, better to have one pile ... than all these smaller piles you have to chase around and clean up,'' says Michael Blumenthal, executive director of the Scrap Tire Management Council, an industry group.
Rhode Island has 34 million scrap tires. Estimates of Davis' pile range from 8 million to his guess of 33 million.
Davis started taking tires during the 1970s energy crisis; he figured they'd be a source of fuel - and income - someday. They arrived by the truckload for years, winding the serpentine back roads until they reached his estate. For each ton, Davis received a tipping fee - sometimes five cents a tire, sometimes $25 a load. It was a steady, if not lucrative, business.
Then, in the early 1980s, shortly after his land was declared a Superfund site, Smithfield passed zoning laws. Davis obtained a court order that he says let him keep receiving tires.
The state passed its Tire Storage Act in 1992 and ordered Davis to stop taking them, saying he was responsible retroactively for complying with fire and size regulations. He didn't.
In 1994, Davis agreed to get rid of the tires gradually and eventually shipped out 881,981. Virtually all went to Oxford Industry Co. of Sterling, Conn., which burns them in a giant hearth, converts them to power and sells it.
Then, on Dec. 2, 1995, he stopped.
He says the scrap-tire law, which he asserts was aimed at him, ruined the market and rendered the tires worthless.
``If they hadn't passed that, all these tires would be out of here,'' Davis says. ``There's people all over the country want these tires. Why would Oxford come here and pay for them if the state pays them $47.50 a ton to take them?''
To state officials, Davis is violating the legal agreement, giving them authority to remove the tires. But that's expensive. So the state Department of Environmental Management is mulling its next move - probably the creation of fire lanes.
``He acts like he wants to do the right thing and get them out of there,'' says Terence Tierney, an assistant Rhode Island attorney general battling Davis in court. ``But I'm not sure his actions agree.''
Blumenthal's solution: Publicize the scrap-tire problem, create a market, and establish and enforce regulations.
``There is value in tires,'' Blumenthal says. ``However - and this is a very important point - large masses of stockpiled tires are not considered an asset. They are considered a liability. The adage is, collect enough of anything and keep it long enough, and it'll be worth something. That works for baseball cards and comics. It doesn't work for tires.''
``I like it that they think I'm wacko. It keeps them guessing,'' Davis says.
He is a garrulous man, and his voice, as usual, is booming. It booms even when he's telling secrets, and it's usually laced - laden, really - with profanity. Davis cusses the way teen-agers use the word ``like,'' and when he utters more than a few sentences without an expletive, the effect is vaguely jarring.
Davis lives in a region called ``mixed glacial deposit,'' mostly second-growth forestland, open fields and wetlands. It is replete with birds, spotted salamanders, wood frogs and bullfrogs, water snakes and all manner of mammals.
``Everybody thinks they're going to walk into a pit with green monsters crawling out of it and a tire pile all over,'' Davis says. ``That's all tucked away. This is a beautiful place.''
But industrial detritus is sprinkled throughout - abandoned, rusty vehicles, twisted metal and plastic that hint at chaos beneath the beauty. And, of course, the tires - rising from a clearing, rolling along blackly to the horizon.
When Ohio firefighters smothered burning tires in gravel, Stuart Robinson kept tabs. When a crane plucked gobs of flaming tires from a burning pile in Canada, Robinson watched with great interest. And when a pile went up in southern New Hampshire and smoldered for nine months, few outsiders were more interested than Smithfield Deputy Fire Chief Stuart Robinson.
Behind his desk on a summer afternoon, Robinson seems the ideal firefighter - unflappable, face friendly, eyes steely.
So it comes as no surprise that Tire Mountain doesn't torment Robinson, who would lead the charge of the fire brigade if it ignited. But be sure of one thing: If it happens, he's prepared to be the point man for some highly complicated and technical maneuvers.
He pulls a thick black binder from an overstuffed file drawer. It contains The Plan.
Boiled down, it goes like this: The Smithfield Fire Department would summon reinforcements and import water and flame-retardant foam from a giant trailer nearby. Speed is crucial; the window of opportunity is brief.
They'd try to remove the burning section, like amputating an infected limb, and pipe would be laid to pump water from Davis' ponds. The DEM would monitor air quality to determine if the thick black smoke made evacuation necessary.
If all else failed, firefighters would extinguish tire by tire, picking the pile apart.
The state wants Davis at least to chop down trees that could act as lightning rods and cut roads for firetruck access. Davis calls such work impossible.
Tell that to Robinson.
``This would probably be the biggest tire fire that this country has ever seen - from a fire perspective and from an ecological perspective,'' Robinson says. ``And here we sit in the middle, wondering whether it's going to go up.''
What of these tires? One day they must go somewhere. Energy remains the most viable, though limited, option. Some civil engineers in Oregon, Florida and Michigan are testing road pavement that contains ground-up tires.
Davis casts his battle as one of property rights, and likeminded people see a pattern - the government interfering with people who have minded their own business on their property for years.
So everyone waits. The state plans. Firefighters wonder. And Davis lives on, sharing each day with an ocean of black rubber.
``This is only work if you don't enjoy it,'' he says. ``I love it. But now, every time I look at these tires I see the face of someone who works for the state. And just like the tires, they all got holes in their heads.''
LENGTH: Long : 171 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. AP William Davis, the owner of this sea of tires -by CNBestimates range from million to 33 million - says he wants to start
getting rid of them, but claims scrap-tire laws have made them
worthless. color
2. AP Smithfield Fire Department Deputy Fire Chief Stuart Robinson
is s worried about the possibility of William Davis' tires catching
fire, he developed a strategy simply called ``The Plan.''
3. AP Not all the land William Davis owns is a wasteland. Sections
have ope fields and wetlands and are home to a variety of wildlife.