One step closer to permanent wood heat ban in California?

[EddieWalker]

Next they will be saying we can't make dust with our tractors!

Wasn't that the reasoning for Global Cooling in the 70's. All the dust going into the atmosphere from farming was responsible for the planet cooling and the next ice age.

 

[RedNeckGeek]

I want to make sure I understand;
So the clean air people want to ban wood burning in a controlled burn. (fireplace/woodstove) And replace it with the out of control wild fires that will now have much more fuel since we cannot collect wood and burn in our stoves any more. I'm not sure I can see the logic in this, I need more education. One way or another the wood is going to burn. Heating our homes or larger wild fires.

Agreed.

You could probably get a government grant and research that, just as long as your conclusion supported the current administration's position. But also understand that the same amount of CO2 is produced whether the wood burns or is just left to rot.

If your homeowner's insurance isn't willing to write a policy because your home has a wood stove, it's time to find another insurance company. FWIW, I purchased a new wood stove last year, and the only requirement Liberty Mutual imposed was that I pull a building permit to cover the installation.

Next? Our county already has ordinances requiring dust control during grading operations, and I'm willing to bet they're not the only ones.

BTW, whoever said gun control legislation never gets any traction hasn't been paying enough attention. Time to wake up and smell the coffee:

https://gunowners.org/

 

[Texas Dawg]

Let your imagination run wild, because if you can think of it, so can they. To top it off, they probably already have a plan to regulate it.

 

[mjarrels]

No need for fire departments, they can be disbanded for additional cost savings.

mark

 

[dave1949]

The article did mention the impetus for the new regulation is failure to obtain EPA compliance.

Quote:



This new proposal goes much further.

It recommends that after Nov. 1, 2016, Bay Area homes and commercial buildings could not be sold if they contained old fireplaces, stoves or other wood-burning devices that failed to meet federal EPA emission standards.



Having a little knowledge of how things work it is not unusual for whatever group to lobby or convince the legislative body or public to implement enabling legislation and then come back and say new regulation is necessary to achieve EPA compliance... almost like one hand washes the other.

According to this site: Spare the Air - Todays Air Quality wood smoke accounts for one-third of 2.5 micron or less particulate matter in the Bay Area. It is the largest single stationary source of particulate matter by far.

Studies by the Air District indicated that wood smoke was responsible for an average of one-third of the PM in the air basin during the winter months and almost 70 percent of the PM in Santa Rosa. Wood burning also generates carbon monoxide and toxic air pollutants such as benzene and dioxin.

The EPA is mandated by law, The Clean Air Act, to identify and evaluate air pollution sources, and address them if needed--often forced via legal actions taken against the EPA by environmental groups. The EPA is saying the Bay Area fails to meet the standards necessary for good health. What is done about that is local politics. You are blaming the messenger in this case. The air is either healthy or it's not.

The new EPA standards for wood burning emissions will help address the issue over time as stoves are replaced or new stoves installed. Accelerating the removal of the worst wood burning practices through code enforcement at the time of sale is strictly a local initiative. Your complaint is against local control taking an approach you do not agree with, but it is local control and not the EPA swooping in to get your stove or fireplace.

I can sympathize with the position the Bay Area is in due to a confluence of weather factors, population density and 1.4 million wood burning appliances. You have more Bay Area wood burners than we have people in Maine. But, bottom line the question is do you want clean air or not? It would seem, without much insight to Cal. politics, that the democratic majority in your area is willing to sacrifice wood burning to achieve clean air. You do have Proposition initiatives to apply corrections when needed when they can achieve a majority-right?

The Jotul Stoves representative (their US operations are based in Portland, Maine) said of the new EPA requirements that it would be cheaper to build everyone a nice woodshed and teach them proper wood burning than to reduce the pollution of already clean stoves--those that meet the 4.5 grams per hour now. He is probably correct but how many people will listen to common sense and be receptive to learning something and apply that new knowledge? The idiots will whine about government interference either way. It's hard to have much sympathy for pollution spewing people who demand the right to be ignorant.

 

[ultrarunner]

You're missing the point... it is already illegal to spew pollution and no sympathy needed or conferred on those that violate existing law.

The Bay Area has Spare the Air days where under penalty of law wood heat is banned...

The Air Quality Management District's law enforcement arm issue citations on an escalating scale... plus there are billboards, print and on air news plus other media urging citizens to turn in scofflaws anonymously.

I've attended hearings and wrote letters asking why EPA Catalyst equip stoves are not exempt from the burn bans when they clearly are not the problem and was told letting some burn and others not possess enforcement problems... so it's not those of us that are doing the right thing.

Internally, the agency has said the real issue is an inspector must "Witness" the smoke to issue a citation and this the agency says is proving difficult... imagine actually having to see the crime as a condition of issuing a citation?

Regulatory agencies have an incestious relationship in where each can almost always point the finger at another as justification of action.

Wood is America's natural resource and it has been proven time and again that a proper wood fuel fire with season hardwood is extremely clean burning.

President Carter called all patriotic Americans to heat with wood to break our dependence on foreign oil... the Federal Government gives tax breaks to encourage.

So again... I am not the problem here and I greatly resent being punished or subjected to scorn when my limited wood burning is not causing the problem...

The simplest way to sum up the article is wood burning BAD.

If this was not the case why then the push to replace with gas inserts?

 

[ultrarunner]

Another way to put it...

Regulators are shifting away from pollution and going after possession... possession of a chimney!

The new law targets fireplace ownership... and under penalty of law forces removal at the owner's expense.

No need to actually cause pollution to violate the pollution laws.

Might as well throw out an extreme example since I'm here...

My grandmother bought her home new in 1959 and has NEVER used her fireplace once for a fire EVER... she uses it for her plants and has the most beautiful garden growing in her living room...

Why should she be forced to remove or otherwise alter this benign architectural feature of her home?

 

[dave1949]

Your missing the point...

The Bay Area already has Spare the Air days where under penalty of law wood heat is banned...

The Air Quality Management District already has a law enforcement arm and does issue citations on an escalating scale... plus there are bill boards, print and on air news plus other media urging citizens to turn in scofflaws anonymously.

I've attended hearings and wrote letters asking why EPA Catalyst equip stoves are not exempt from the burn bans when they clearly are not the problem and was told letting some burn and others not poses enforcement problems.

Internally, the agency has said the real issue is an inspector must "Whitness" the smoke to issue a citation and this the agency says is proving difficult... imagine actually having to see the crime as a condition of issuing a citation.

All of the regulatory agencies have an incestious relationship in where each can almost always point the finger at another as justification of action.

Wood is America's natural resource and it has been proven time and again that a proper wood fuel fire with season hardwood is extremely clean burning.

So again... I am not the problem here and I greatly resent being punished or subjected to scorn when my limited wood burning is not causing the problem...

The simplest way to sum up the article is wood burning BAD.

If this was not the case why then the push to replace with gas inserts?

I understand your position, I really do. However, those who seek to transform what the Bay Area people do to each other about wood burning into an anti-EPA rant are off base. That is my point.

These worthy discussions tend to spiral into nonsense, as in "the EPA is coming after your backyard grill" or "limiting agriculture dust."

The EPA gave a $15K grant to some university students who proposed an environmental sustainability study project around how grill pollution can be limited. Probably not a good use of $15K in tax dollars but it has nothing to do with the EPA proposing to regulate backyard grilling--which never happened. Idiotic ideologues on TV and in newspapers would like you to believe it happened though.

Whether anything useful was learned in the student project, I have no idea. Grilling meat does produce carcinogens as fat burns and we eat it, that's about all I know about it. Notice the articles about it could be summed up as "the EPA is coming for your grill" and not anything factual about the smoke particulates or the carcinogens, or if the students came up with a reasonable method of reducing those. An outright appeal to anti-EPA emotion--which they feed daily--and no facts.

Yes, the EPA looked at agricultural dust--that is their job to look at pollution sources and potential methods of controlling them. Looking doesn't mean anything will be done. At a minimum, the amount of dust and its impacts (if any) needs to be understood. We do have a serious agricultural run-off water quality problem in this country.

 

[Dr_Zinj]

No too long ago my aunt and uncle who live in Santa Clara decided to remodel their house and wanted to maintain their wood burning fireplace. They could not move their existing fireplace and had to place all the demolition and construction around the pre-existing fire place. I dread the day when we can no longer do any range improvement burns on our property. Already regardless if it is a permissible day to burn or not the town next to us cannot burn during the second half of the month.

I have this strange hunch that the bad air in the Bay Area is not caused by fireplaces burning wood.

Now, think of California in 10 years with all that brush and down wood built up and then catching fire, all because they didn't want controlled burns or wood smoke.

I suggest you send a letter to every politician who voted for the ban and promise that you'll kidnap them and throw them in the wildfires to roast and die when they happen. Justice requires appropriate consequences.

 

[ultrarunner]

Some know I have spent a lot of time in Europe with most in Austria with time working in construction.

Always found it interesting that by law... every new home, town home, etc is required to have a chimney for wood heat...

This is a code requirement because Austria found itself too dependent on outside natural gas and oil to keep the population warm in winter.

Austria also has some very strict environmental laws and clean wood burning does not run afoul of any of them in this densely populated region.

Interesting how a small, environmentally conscious country legislates alternatives safeguards for it's population... like the ability to heat and cook using it's own natural resources should importation of energy cease.

Many of my visitors have commented on how in America forests are left to rot and decay pending wildfires that burn for weeks of months...

In contrasts... forest floors there are kept clean and tidy and even small kindling such as branches and twigs are marketable.