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Monday, September 11, 2006
Environment - Revised ordinance for outdoor wood boilers set for review
The ILB has had many entries on the state environmental agency's efforts to regulate outdoor wood-fired boilers. The effort stalled in early 2006.
Local governmental units have now begun their own efforts to address the issue. Here is an ILB entry from August 7 about efforts in Evansville.
Today Bryon Rohrig of the Evansville Courier& Press has a story headed "Revised ordinance for wood boilers set for review." Some quotes:
Enough questions were raised Aug. 28 over a proposed preemptive ordinance to ban outdoor wood boilers that the Evansville City Council tabled it.On Monday, the council's Administration, Safety and Development Committee is set to review a new version of the bill whose only significant changes alter standards for boilers already in operation within the city limits. There are believed to be no more than a few.
Deon Sheckells, a city resident who said he's used an outdoor wood boiler to heat his home for more than a decade, was among a handful of people who two weeks ago registered objections with the council on the measure, ultimately persuading members to hold off on a vote.
Outdoor wood-fueled boilers - not to be confused with outdoor smokers for cooking meat - usually are contained in insulated sheds.
Water is heated, then piped to a nearby house or other building for heat.
The devices have come under fire, especially when used in urban settings, for inefficient combustion, which produces excessive smoke.
Sheckells told the council his boiler is equipped with a secondary flue gas-combustion chamber that burns up much of the smoke generated in primary burning.
Dona Bergman, director of the Evansville Environmental Protection Agency, placed typical combustion efficiency of the boilers at 30 to 40 percent. One of them, she added, can throw out as much particulate pollution as 1,800 gas furnaces.
She pushed the proposed law as one that would save residents from investing up to $20,000 each for devices that could set them up for expensive fines for violating federal EPA regulations.
The revised ordinance would reduce the buffer required between an existing boiler and adjacent buildings "intended for human occupancy" and change standards for flue heights of existing boilers. But prohibition of new boilers within the city limits would stand.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on September 11, 2006 06:25 AM
Posted to Environment | Indiana Government