SALT LAKE CITY — Utah's wood smoke controversy continues to cling to the state's political landscape, taking shape with a legislative measure that threatens to undermine a regulatory agency's ability to pass any prolonged ban on residential burning.
More than a 1,000 people packed seven public hearings in northern Utah during the past few months opposing possible seasonal prohibitions, which would have been the nation's toughest laws on residential burning of wood or other solid fuels.
Off the table for now in Utah, wood smoke regulations have fueled fights elsewhere in the country, with multiple states firing back at new federal rules aimed at decreasing emissions.
A national review by the Associated Press shows that Michigan and Missouri have already passed laws preventing adoption of new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standards for wood burning stoves, and a similar measure has passed in Virginia and awaits passage in three other states.
In Utah, HB 396 by Rep. Brad Dee, R-Washington Terrace, would put in law a near-identical version of Utah's current system of wood-burning restrictions: prohibited on days when federal Clean Air standards are broached, voluntary when conditions are approaching that threshold and allowed when fine particulate pollution are standards described as "good."
Dee, in committee testimony on his bill, said he sees the measure as a middle of the road compromise, not going to the extremes on one side, which would ban the practice altogether nor adhering to the any time, any where mantra of "burn baby burn."
Clean air advocates are sorely disappointed in the measure, likening wood smoke to a health hazard as dangerous as cigarettes.
"Clearly the medical evidence is showing us that this is a very dangerous form of air pollution just like cigarette smoke," said Tim Wagner, executive director of the Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment. "We are really opposed to the bill because it hamstrings the (Division of Air Quality) to not only address this issue, but it sets a dangerous precedent for them to address other issues."
Yet, the Associated Press ranking and analysis shows that for all the regulatory furor over wood smoke, Utah is about the middle of the pack for emissions. Using 2011 data it obtained from the EPA, the news outlet put Utah at 31st in the country, with 2,595 tons of fine particle emissions from residential wood burning. That stacks up by small margin to Michigan's nearly 39,000 tons. When that volume was put in context of the state's population, Utah inched up to 29th in the nation for per capita emissions from wood smoke, with 1.84 pounds of smoke per person, compared to No. 1-ranked Vermont at 22 pounds per person.
John Mortensen, a wholesale supplier of wood stoves and other heating devices in several Western states, said he believes the rankings show wood smoke is not the pollution boogeyman that clean air advocates, regulators or even the governor would have people believe.
"Wood stoves have been singled out as being evil, but there is nothing special about a particle coming out of a wood stove more than any other source," he said. "We want to be able to reduce everything. We feel like there is a viable place for wood stoves in our communities."
Mortensen is chair of Utahns for Responsible Burning, a coalition that grew out of the threat to impose a seasonal wood burning ban.
He has been working with Dee on HB 396, which critics say is an "industry written" proposal.
"We feel it is a good middle of the road compromise. It will also reduce our contribution to our small slice of the pie," Mortensen insisted.
Groups like the physicians association say wood smoke dangers and its pervasiveness are being greatly downplayed by burners, regulators and the industry. And despite the rankings, Utah should not be considered in the clear.
"Those other states (high in the rankings) don't have the kind of bad air quality like we have and the wood smoke compounds the problems that we already have," Wagner stressed. "This is just one component of a very serious problem."
Utah's wood burning ban would have impacted seven counties, or portions of them, where meeting federal Clean Air standards on fine particulate pollution, or PM2.5, has not yet been achieved.
State regulators have spent years and millions of dollars to come up with a plan to meet the EPA's requirements, and as part of that effort, residential wood burning was put on the possible chopping block.
Nationally, wood smoke emissions have also come under fire. Under the new EPA rules aimed at wood stoves, fine particle emissions from wood heaters would be reduced by nearly 70 percent. The agency says the new regulations — which apply to only new stoves to be manufactured — will result in an average of one fewer premature death per day and yield about $100 of public health benefits for every $1 of additional cost to manufacturers.
The new rules mark the first update since 1988 for indoor wood stoves, which include both free-standing models and ones that fit inside traditional fireplaces. The EPA also is imposing its first-ever emission mandates on wood-fired furnaces and outdoor boilers, which use fire to heat water that is circulated through pipes to warm homes.
Under Utah's current restrictions, anyone with a wood burning device — even a traditional fireplace — can burn on a voluntary action day, when fine particulate emissions are reaching levels which regulators say are close to unhealthy. When those conditions exist, the Utah Division of Air Quality issues the voluntary alert, urging people to refrain from burning and to limit driving.
Dee's bill would allow only EPA-certified wood burning devices to be used, so in one sense it is more restrictive on wood smoke.
Mortensen said communities that have been able to successfully reduce wood smoke emissions institute "change out" programs that help households upgrade to the cleaner burning stoves, whether than be an EPA-certified wood pellet stove or a natural gas stove.
Wood smoke critics say no solid fuel burning device is "clean" compared to a natural gas furnace, and its pollutants are more insidious than other sources because people in their homes can't escape their neighbors' smoke.
"You're right to burn wood shouldn't interfere with my right to healthy lungs," Wagner has repeatedly said.
But John Crouch, spokesman for the Hearth, Patio and Barbecue Association, the North American trade association for wood stoves, pellet stoves and gas fireplaces, said the problem with wood smoke discussions is that people aren't wholly educated about the differences among stoves of 20 years ago and the stoves manufactured today.
"Different people are speaking about different things," he said. "A person who has a neighbor with an old wood stove that is more than 20 years old doesn't understand why someone with a (certified stove) ought to be exempt during a two-stage burn restriction."
Such a program, like one that has been operating in Washington state for two decades, is what Dee's bill proposes.
The association estimates that two thirds of the free standing operational wood stoves in the country are 20 years or older. In Utah, the Division of Air Quality has put that number even higher — at 87 percent.
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