(C) Iowa Capital Dispatch
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DNR accuses man of illegal burning for decades • Iowa Capital Dispatch [1]
['Jared Strong', 'More From Author', '- March']
Date: 2024-03
A northern Iowa man who has been repeatedly warned for decades by state conservation officers not to burn various types of waste was recently fined $2,500, according to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.
Duane Alan Tesch, 73, of Carpenter, owns property in several cities that have been the subject of nuisance complaints in recent years, court records show. In July 2023, he admitted to burning a fiberglass water tank as part of his effort to tidy his site in Grafton, the DNR said in a recent order. The department further alleged that he burned a mattress, box spring, speaker, wheeled cart and other items.
“Mr. Tesch stated that he is under a lot of pressure from the city of Grafton to clean up the property, and he was just trying to get it done,” the order said.
The DNR fined him for the incident — which was reported by neighbors — and noted the numerous admonitions he has received from the department for similar situations dating back nearly 28 years.
“Mr. Tesch has a long history of illegal open burning and illegal open dumping,” the order said.
He was the subject of DNR investigations in 1996, 2000, 2003, 2007, 2010, 2016, 2017 and 2018 for burning construction waste, appliances, furniture, household waste, tires, plastic and other items.
Tesch allegedly boasted to a neighbor in one of those complaints that “maybe someday he will just light the plastic pile and burn it as the DNR would have forgotten it by now,” the order said.
Some of those investigations coincide with other times that city and county governments sought to penalize him for his unsightly properties. Mitchell County accused him in 2016 of establishing a junk yard on a Toeterville property that did not have proper zoning for such a facility. A judge dismissed the county’s request for an injunction by finding that the county had used the wrong court procedure to enforce its ordinance, but the judge verified that the site was “junky.”
Tesch was also cited for nuisance properties in Carpenter in 2019 and Nora Springs in 2023, court records show.
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