Farmer Went To Jail For Building Tire Fence

Farmer went to jail for building tire fence TIRES/WHEELS Miscellaneous 17-3-39 "Get it in writing," is the advice given by Gerald Booher, a Pennsylvania farmer who ended up in jail last January in a dispute related to the 1/4-mile long, 7-ft. high tire fence on his farm that he constructed out of old tires. Booher says he went ahead with the fence after receiving a verbal okay from the local Department of Environmental Resources. He was later fined $20,000 by the D.E.R. for storing municipal waste without a permit and ordered to remove the more than 200,000 tires, a job he says would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Booher's farm borders on over 2,000 acres of wooded state game land. Deer damage was so severe in recent years that he was forced to stop growing crops on adjoining fields. The state game commision re-fused to cost share a fence to protect the crops, telling him instead to shoot all the deer necessary to protect his crops. Booher, who serves as a supervisor on his local township board and also owns and operates a local mill, did not want to do this and eventually hit on the idea of putting up a tire barrier. He got the tires cost-free from a scrap dealer who welcomed the fence-building project as a way to get rid of old tires. Tires were stacked in a pile 7 ft. high and about 10 ft. wide. "You have to make it big enough so deer can't jump over it. They won't walk on the tires so they make a great fence," notes Booher. Tires are stacked like bricks so they interlock. Booher says it makes a great maintenance-free barrier to wildlife and sits well back from the road so it's not an eyesore to anyone. Tires never deteriorate, so he felt there was no threat to the environment.

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