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                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, April 10, 1993                   TAG: 9304100093
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C3   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: LON WAGNER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

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TIRE TEST A SMOKY BLOWOUT

Environmental experts didn't need sophisticated scientific gear Friday to evaluate a Henry County tire incinerator - they needed just one look at the thick, black smoke shooting from the device to shut it down.

"It was basically very dark, very black smoke," said Frank Adams, an environmental specialist with the Department of Environmental Quality.

"We informed them that the operation that we had seen so far was unacceptable based upon the emissions."

The incinerator is the brainchild of Jack Larson and Jimmy Branscome, a Martinsville-area tire dealer.

The idea is to use tires as fuel to dry waste-water sludge, thereby reducing the amounts of both sludge and tires that need to be taken to landfills.

But Friday's test of the incinerator will send the two inventors back to the drawing board.

"It didn't appear that things were working the way they planned," Adams said. "We told them, `If you can't do better than this, you need to shut the thing down,' which they did."

Adams said the inventors will first have to show the state what went wrong, then show how they will correct it.

If Branscome and Larson can't do that, he said, Friday's test will be the last Henry County sees of the incinerator.

The Henry County Public Service Authority is backing development of the incinerator in hopes of solving its sludge disposal problem. Spokesman Bill Farrar admitted that Friday's problems were significant, but said there is a chance they could be corrected.

"This does not indicate that the project is a failure," Farrar said. "Nobody thought today's run was going to go off without a hitch."

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