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Saturday, November 24, 2007

Environment - An update on outdoor wood-fired boilers

The ILB's first entry on wood-fired boilers was nearly two years ago. (Here is a list of all entries.) IDEM had posted a notice in the Indiana Register asking for written comments on whether a new rule should be developed concerning regulation of emissions from outdoor furnaces and outdoor boilers.

Soon all hell broke lose. For example, Bedford's WBIW reported on Dec. 29, 2005:

Cities like Los Angeles might require air-quality control, however for environmentalists to claim [outdoor] wood-burning furnaces are a health problem in Indiana is ridiculous. State regulators asked for comments from Hoosiers on the subject, and they are on the receiving end from citizens that don't want the IDEM meddling in what method they use to heat their homes. Until State Senator Brent Steele became aware of the public comment period that ends January 3rd, the IDEM had more or less kept their comment period a secret
On Jan. 4, 2006 the Bedford Times-Mail editorialized against the Indiana Register:
Such rules are proposed in a publication called the Indiana Register. It's thick. There's no way a newspaper, for example, could print it all. The rules are complicated. And there's no easy way for ordinary Hoosiers to learn about all of the proposed rules that might affect them.

Consider the way Sen. Brent Steele, who burns wood for heat himself, learned of the proposed rule. Steele is a lawmaker and a lawyer. His research, though, proved fruitless until a legislative assistant mentioned that it might be a proposed rule change.

In addition, the current system plays favorites. Companies with deep pockets can pay lobbyists and lawyers to keep an eye on the Indiana Register. Ordinary citizens cannot.

Against those odds, Hoosiers don't stand a chance. We need to find a better way to keep up with, and become involved in, our own government.

In the end, IDEM never moved forward with its rulemaking. However, as the long list of ILB entries illustrates, issues raised by unregulated outdoor wood-fired boilers manifested themselves in communities all over the state. Because there are no federal guidelines and because the state has failed to act, each affected community has had to confront the problem on its own.

Indiana is not unique in this regard. Here is an AP story by Stephanie Reitz, dateline Hampden, Mass. Some quotes:

Rob and Lynne Wallace jumped at the chance to install an outdoor wood boiler two years ago to heat their home and water supply.

For a year, they were immune to fluctuating fuel oil prices. Their family-owned tree service provided more than enough wood, stacked under a canopy near the furnace about 50 paces from their back patio.

But earlier this year, their small western Massachusetts town set limits on the outdoor boilers that forced the Wallaces to shut theirs down.

Concerned about air quality and neighborhood disputes, Hampden joined a growing number of communities nationwide setting their own rules on the increasingly popular wood boilers, which are not federally regulated. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recommends emissions and air quality standards, but does not regulate where and when the wood-fired burners can be installed or used.

Rules are patchy on the state level, too.

Some states, including Connecticut and Maine, have regulations and let their municipalities adopt even stricter limits or ban the boilers altogether. Massachusetts has considered statewide rules but has not enacted them, while Michigan offers a model ordinance that local governments can adopt in the absence of statewide standards.

The Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management, a government coalition, estimates more than 155,000 wood boilers have been sold since 1990 in the Northeast, upper Midwest states and other areas prone to cold winters.

For those with easy access to wood, the boilers could make their homes among the few that are not vulnerable to swings in fuel oil and natural gas prices. * * *

The boilers resemble small sheds and burn wood to heat water, which is piped underground to the nearby home or other structure to provide heat and hot water. Some owners also use them for hot tubs, greenhouses and businesses such as dairy barns.

Depending on their size, their purchase price can range from about $5,000 to $15,000. That does not include pouring the foundation on which they sit, installing underground piping, extending the unit’s smoke stack to exceed the height of any nearby roof, and other costs.

Their proliferation has prompted disputes over where they can be operated, the amount and smell of smoke emitted and other neighborhood issues. Many of those conflicts are being played out in town meetings and the offices of selectmen, mayors and health boards.

“You don’t realize what you’re dealing with until you get this haze all around your house and your back yard,” said Chris Anderson, who bought his home in East Longmeadow, Mass., last year before learning that his neighbor had one of the boilers. * * *

“We beg our customers to extend their chimneys higher up so the smoke disperses where their neighbors aren’t affected, and we beg our customers to burn only the right wood,” said Scott Bradley, owner of Mainline Heating & Supply of Ashford, Conn.

“We tell them you have the right to use a wood burner and stop using foreign oil, but you never have the right to smoke out your neighbor,” he said.

In an attempt to avert such problems, Connecticut requires the boilers to be at least 200 feet from the nearest home not served by the unit, and also mandates chimney heights and the quality of the wood to be burned.

But those rules apply only to burners installed after July 2005, and towns can set stricter regulations or refuse to “grandfather in” older units if they wish. Some communities have banned the outdoor boilers altogether, including several in western Massachusetts and the eastern Connecticut towns of Hebron and Tolland.

Robert Girard, assistant director of the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection’s air enforcement division, said the department urges potential buyers to research whether their site is suitable before they make the purchase.

“Sometimes they’re just not put in the right place because of the topography, the closeness of neighbors, things like that,” he said. “There have been a number of cases where people have had to remove the units after they’ve spent a lot of money to put them in.”

Posted by Marcia Oddi on November 24, 2007 05:17 PM
Posted to Environment | General Law Related