Stearns County, MN Trash & Recycling: Yard Waste Collection (2026)

F of the Land Use and Zoning Ordinance sits inside the Vegetative Alterations standards for the Shoreland Overlay District and reads in full: burning of yard waste is prohibited within the shore and bluff impact zones or on steep slopes. The ordinance defines each zone precisely. A Bluff Impact Zone is a bluff and the land located within twenty feet from the top of a bluff. A Shore Impact Zone is the land located between the ordinary high-water level of a public water and a line parallel to it at a setback of fifty percent of the required structure setback for the applicable lake or river classification, except for lakes classified as General Development, which have a shore impact zone of fifty feet.

A Steep Slope is land having average slopes of twelve percent or greater, measured over horizontal distances of fifty feet or more, that are not bluffs. The ban sits alongside related vegetation rules in the same section: fertilizer and pesticide use must be applied to minimize runoff, phosphorous fertilizer is barred entirely within the shore impact zone, and intensive vegetation clearing in these same zones is likewise off-limits except under an approved erosion control plan. The Stearns County Environmental Services Department administers the Shoreland Overlay District and reviews vegetation-alteration and shoreland-permit applications; homeowners burning brush or leaf piles too close to a lake or river bluff, or on a qualifying steep slope, are the addressees of this ban, regardless of whether they also hold a burning permit for the pile itself.