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Looked up again today on the EPA Gov't website, here's the specific language heading the "Compliance" section for Wood Heating Stoves:
"Why purchase an EPA-certified wood stove?
EPA-certified wood stoves are cleaner burning and more efficient than a typical uncertified wood stove. In some states and jurisdictions, it is illegal to offer for sale, purchase, operate or sell a house containing a wood stove not certified by the EPA Wood Heater Program."
What part of this absolutely specific language do you not understand?
The EPA is clearly stating that you cannot OPERATE ... a house containing a wood stove not certified by the EPA Wood Heater Program!
The site, unfortunately, is not very forthcoming about the areas (states and jurisdictions) that require the compliance with the program. I think this is a deliberate effort on their part to create confusion about where a non-compliant wood heater can be operated. I believe this gap gives them a wide open opportunity to declare most of the USA as a restricted area due to the air quality requirements of the EPA. You need to put this in light of the aggressive air quality requirements being proposed or imposed upon other pollution sources (as defined by the EPA), such as the particulates from farming operations. Absent specific exemptions (and most likely, a permitting process), the banning will be the more widespread position of the EPA.
I know from first-hand experience that local zoning is the means of enforcement in some areas. For example, I bought my Waterford Stanley Wood Cookstove from a fellow who'd bought it to install in a new house in the mountains in Colorado and was prohibited from installing it. His GC told him that it wasn't compliant with the codes there, refusing to install the stove, and that was confirmed by the Z&P department. The fellow tried to sell the stove for some months and couldn't locate a buyer because nobody in the area could legally install it in their home. I bought it in his distress sale for 1/3 the new price from Lehman's, not including the freight charges from Ohio ... and he was happy to see it go to a house where it could be used. As well, I have residential property in the Colorado mountains in places where it was common to have a wood burning fireplace; with the EPA regulations of decades ago, the clean air act for particulates mandated that the local zoning restrict the use of wood burning for decorative or heating purposes. For the most part, all of the houses, condo's, and apartments near me are now retrofitted with gas log units or have had the wood burning units removed. My houses are among the few that have been grandfathered in and still have a wood burning capability with air-tight fireboxes. Even at that, if the town posts a "red alert" regarding wood burning pollution, you have a limited time frame in which to bank the fires and extinguish them from EPA non-compliant wood burning sources. The local mandate to do so comes from the fed and the EPA, and the county DEQ has code compliance officers equipped with infra-red sensors to spot who has an active wood fire, so they can check this even at night. The county assessor's office and the fire department both have records of the addresses where the non-compliant wood burning units are located, so the job of the code compliance officers is pretty easy ... in a red alert, they know which houses to drive to and check the chimney stacks as they drive by in the comfort of their patrol vehicle. The burden to know that the alert is in force is upon the wood burner, which means you've got to monitor the local radio station 24/7 when you're burning wood. They take a temp reading of the stack and follow up with another drive-by a couple hours later; if the temp hasn't gone down, indicating that the fire is being shut down, you've got a ticket.
I also bought a used Jotul and a second Waterford Leprechaun wood heating stove ... both, as it turns out, compliant with the new listings ... at very distress prices because folk had been told that the use of wood heating appliances would be banned in their area. They changed over to gas burning appliances and the wood stoves were going to be junked if they couldn't sell them; I bought them for pennies on the dollar and they were happy to have them hauled away. The Jotul heats my shop and the Leprechaun is headed into a new addition to our house.
I still don't see how that is an EPA requirement? "In some states and jurisdictions," Sounds like local state and regional laws to me.
That is not an EPA requirement or law, the local jurisdictions have decided that the air quality problems specific to their area make it detrimental to use some kinds of stoves that cause excessive smoke pollution and hazards.
Seems perfectly reasonable to me.
Quote:
"Why purchase an EPA-certified wood stove?
EPA-certified wood stoves are cleaner burning and more efficient than a typical uncertified wood stove. In some states and jurisdictions, it is illegal to offer for sale, purchase, operate or sell a house containing a wood stove not certified by the EPA Wood Heater Program."
Clarification: I was responding to your comment below which was blaming all of this on the EPA. Which still does not appear to be correct.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sunsprit While the stove regs appear to be directed to new installations ...
the enforcement side of the EPA appears to be regulating emissions which includes existing units.
So where they are going with this is to mandate the older units out of service.
This is the same enforcement direction they've taken with other point sources, such as industrial plants, power plants, etc. Set a performance standard which can only be met with the latest technology and reguire folk to comply with it.
If they had wanted to grandfather in existing units, they would have done so. They didn't.
I still don't see how that is an EPA requirement? "In some states and jurisdictions," Sounds like local state and regional laws to me.
That is not an EPA requirement or law, the local jurisdictions have decided that the air quality problems specific to their area make it detrimental to use some kinds of stoves that cause excessive smoke pollution and hazards.
Seems perfectly reasonable to me.
Yup, you're right ... the states are burdened with the enforcement of the EPA Air Quality statutes, not the feds. It's another unfunded mandate by the fed where the states are under threat for Fed fines if the air quality within their borders is found to be in violation of the EPA mandated standards.
Again, from the EPA websites:
"State Implementation Plans
Section 110 of the Clean Air Act requires states to submit to EPA State Implementation Plans (SIPs) (PDF) (2 pp, 151K, About PDF) which provide for the implementation, attainment, maintenance and enforcement of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards.
States have the primary role for enforcing SIPs. However, upon approval by EPA, SIPs become enforceable as federal law. Federal requirements for SIPs can be found in 40 CFR Part 51.
EPA has information on Clean Air Act key SIP provisions (PDF). (18 pp, 455K, About PDF)"
Typical fed programs, you have to search out multiple sites to get all of the relevant information to see the extent of the fed bureaucracy and entanglements at work. Catch-22's at their finest, everybody at the fed level is more interested in protecting their own turf in the name of regulatory enforcement than they are in the stated common good goal of the agency mandate. Between all of the regs and policies, the original intent is generally lost by the time it filters down to the folk are being regulated. Essentially, you'd have to search each state's and local jurisdiction policies and statutes to find out how the Fed EPA/DEQ regs are being interpreted on a local level and implemented ... because the Fed has left that aspect of the air quality enforcement in accordance with their guidelines to the individual states.
Yup, you're right ... the states are burdened with the enforcement of the EPA Air Quality statutes, not the feds. It's another unfunded mandate by the fed where the states are under threat for Fed fines if the air quality within their borders is found to be in violation of the EPA mandated standards.
Again, from the EPA websites:
"State Implementation Plans
Section 110 of the Clean Air Act requires states to submit to EPA State Implementation Plans (SIPs) (PDF) (2 pp, 151K, About PDF) which provide for the implementation, attainment, maintenance and enforcement of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards.
States have the primary role for enforcing SIPs. However, upon approval by EPA, SIPs become enforceable as federal law. Federal requirements for SIPs can be found in 40 CFR Part 51.
EPA has information on Clean Air Act key SIP provisions (PDF). (18 pp, 455K, About PDF)"
So is Wyoming one of those states where air quality standards are so bad they are under EPA mandated standards? I honestly would be surprised if it is, given the lack of industrialization in the state. But if the air pollution is that bad, why would anyone object to trying to address the problem?
So is Wyoming one of those states where air quality standards are so bad they are under EPA mandated standards? I honestly would be surprised if it is, given the lack of industrialization in the state. But if the air pollution is that bad, why would anyone object to trying to address the problem?
A couple of observations:
1) if you are basing your objections to my comments on the fact that there isn't one neat, clean, sanitary, and comprehensive listing of every aspect of this EPA Air Quality legislation, then you will not be satisfied ... because no such single site exits. There are so many multiple layers of bureaucracy involved, even from the same agencies at the fed and state level, that it's way past bewildering, confusing, and conflicting at many levels. I didn't create this situation, I'm simply observing and reporting what I'm seeing.
2) Because of those multiple interpretations of what the EPA has decided to regulate, Wyoming air quality comes under many potential jurisdictions and conflicting regulations.
It's not an issue of "the air quality is so bad, that ..."
But a federally mandated requirement that air quality must be met on so many different levels.
How does a state DEQ agency meet all of the conflicting requirements? I submit to you that it is not possible to comply with the fed requirements, but the state level folk will attempt to do so because that's what they've been hired to do.
There's particulate requirements which are based in so many different potential sources:
1) farming operations
2) livestock operations
3) transportation operations
4) residential comfort operations (ie, heating with petroleum fuels, coal, or wood)
5) mining operations
6) manufacturing operations
7) protective coating operations
8) power plant operations
9) water treatment, waste disposal, household trash
10) refining or chemical operations
and so forth.
How do you determine what is a contribution factor to an excess level per fed EPA standards as a professional charged with maintaining state level compliance?
IMO, this is hardly an area of exact science. The folks I know ... some of them well educated and sincere professionals, some with PE certification and long experience in their fields ... acknowledge that it's an art given the widely changing variables present at any given climate moment.
Yet the feds dictate absolute, finite, results in an environment which defies absolute meaningful quantifiable measurement.
For example, when somebody is plowing a dryland field here, you can take an air sample measurement. But are you strictly capturing the debris thrown airborne by the equipment at that moment? How about the little dust devil that's a mile away over a plowed field or even a fallow field with enough energy to kick up dust? How about the particulates generated miles away at another source, maybe a quarry or a coal mine or a solid waste disposal facility?
Is Wyoming air quality that bad? Depends upon who you are asking and what is present at the minute of measurement.
From my perspective, the air quality here is pretty good compared to many places I've been around the USA. But ask others, and you may get an entirely different answer at any given moment.
I could respond to your question about why someone would object to address the problem ... by saying it's a matter of degree of exposure and that's again a relative quotient. Do we spend multi-billions to eliminate every source of airborne particulates to a point where we're in a clean room environment 24/7/365? What's a satisfactory level at any given moment? What's tolerable for short durations? What's absolutely unacceptable at any given time?
Factor in the lower air density at altitude, and there's more factors to consider for those with respiratory impairment of limited oxygen uptake. Do we expend billions so that the least able to deal with the possible problems/contaminants have no difficulties?
Lastly, much of the air quality issues center around visible pollutants. People get upset when they can't have the clear air view of crystal clear skies and mountain vistas 24/7/365. What's your acceptable guideline here? Can you quantify from how far away every mountain view should be visible? Can you certify that the obscuration is from a definitive local particulate source and not humidity? Can you certify that the particulates didn't come in from thousands of miles away, perhaps even from another continent (think volcanic activity, etc)?
IMO, there's got to be a realistic cost/benefit ratio when it comes to these issues. Life is not and will most likely never be a perfect experience ... especially when we can't even define what is perfect for everybody 100% of the time. False premises do not yield good results in any field of study, in my experience.
PS: I think it comical on this thread that some will wave their education/professional credentials in front of us and then go on to display massively poor reading/research skills. I don't have their cred's ... but I sure can do the basic elementary searches which show up the conflicts to which we as a population are being subjected to via much (over) regulation. It does come at a cost.
Hey, now.... CptnRn used to live in Wyoming...as did I... and as far as I can tell this is still a free country to express views.. Just saying. Debate is a good thing, and it helps everyone learn. I'm curious too, to know whether WY has more air pollution than other states. As for wood stoves and pollution, I had an aunt who died from lung cancer..never smoked a day in her life, but she grew up in a home with a wood burning stove, which they said was a contributing factor. Guess health and safety aren't always a bad thing.
(snip). As for wood stoves and pollution, I had an aunt who died from lung cancer..never smoked a day in her life, but she grew up in a home with a wood burning stove, which they said was a contributing factor. Guess health and safety aren't always a bad thing.
How did that "home with a wood burning stove" indoor atmosphere compare to WY outdoor pollution levels from that source?
I, too, know folk who died from lung cancer who never smoked a day in their lives, but had multiple other family members and a parent with the same illness that all passed away from it at early ages (50's). And they didn't grow up in a home with a wood burning stove, either.
I know folk who were born/raised in homes with wood (and coal, too) burning stoves that haven't developed lung cancer and are in their 90's. One lady near me is 97, still lives independently in the house she was born in on the family ranch, and the wood stoves in her house pre-date WW2 when her folks remodeled the house (one is a Sears brand parlor stove, the other a Royal Oak cookstove). I doubt either stove is EPA compliant and she's stubbornly going to use those stoves as long as her children keep her in handy sized chunks of firewood in the bins nearby. Another lady I knew lived to 101, passed away in 1975 ... and had lived in an apartment in Denver for over 75 years built over her husband's taxidermy studio that had nothing but a wood & coal fired kitchen cookstove for cooking and heating purposes. IF anything, Denver has certainly had it's share of poor air quality days through her last decades ....
So how do you relate "health and safety" of Wyoming air quality to your aunt's illness? or was this possibly a localized event in the house she was living with the wood stove? or did this maybe have little causation with her illness, but was a factor after having become ill?
Well, I would think that air quality is air quality, be it inside or out. Froggie said that the doctors said that the stove was partially to blame or attributed to it.
A friend is getting ready to put in a stove, in his house and him and I have been discussing this thread. As soon as I get the data from him, I will share it here. It's some super duper Rocket Stove for cooking.
EDIT - No sooner had I posted when I got his email. It's a biomass cook stove, heater, hot water heater, camp stove, fireplace, etc.... They make several different kinds, shapes and sizes.
PS: I think it comical on this thread that some will wave their education/professional credentials in front of us and then go on to display massively poor reading/research skills. I don't have their cred's ... but I sure can do the basic elementary searches which show up the conflicts to which we as a population are being subjected to via much (over) regulation. It does come at a cost.
I'm not sure what I said that made you feel it necessary to launch such a personally attack. I think you are being overly paranoid, but that is fine, feel free to continue.
Fact is there are numerous places, even some rural, where temperature inversions trap smoke filled air down in the valleys which results in deplorable air quality for the people living there. Yes I favor government regulation in those instances.
Well, I would think that air quality is air quality, be it inside or out. Froggie said that the doctors said that the stove was partially to blame or attributed to it.
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maybe I should have phrased that observation differently, EH ....
where I was going with that was to question if the "doctors" had actually performed air quality tests inside the house and outside the house to obtain a baseline of the alleged pollution from the wood stove being a contributing factor to the lung cancer.
I've seen this all too often where a doctor asserts a causation without verifying that it even existed ... and conversely, totally missed that a causation was even present.
Just for a personal experience ... I had an employee who was certified by National Jewish Hospital in Denver as having chemically induced asthma due to alleged exposure in my automotive repair shop. But she rarely set foot into the shop area, and the front office/reception area where she worked was separated from the shop with it's own air make-up system/heat & AC. I rarely used solvents in my shop because I had a water-based parts washer, and I had excellent exhaust gas extraction systems in the shop ... and with my sensitivity to CO, I insisted upon the ventilation in my shop. Long story short of an upheld Workman's Comp claim against my shop, after two years the state insisted upon an acetylcholine test for my former employee. She FAILED the test, had no clinical signs whatsoever of any asthma. But the docs she used certified her case without using this basic test ... she was reporting symptoms to them which did not exist, they did not observe, and did not clinically verify. Nor did they prescribe any treatment or medications, they just told her to avoid volatile solvents ... which included her nail polish/remover, perfumes, cosmetics, and household volatile solvents. At no point in time did the doc's ever try to measure the alleged pollution inside my shop, but I did obtain air quality monitors ... which consistently yielded nothing in the office area but the same ambient readings as the outside air sampled in the vicinity of the shop. Oh, and she only worked for me for one month longer than needed to establish my shop as the business for a claim for U/I; ie, she got "sick" within 5 months, which is a very short time for such a virulent clinical response as she asserted. The whole affair cost me out of pocket in excess of $25,000.00 because the WC carrier decided not to pursue collecting the back months which were paid under the proven false pretenses. The Nat'l Jewish doctors denied any responsibility, too, for their incorrect diagnosis.
another situation ... again, personal experience ...
I had a smart-a** tenant in one of my houses get his real estate license and suddenly he was an expert in mold contamination issues. Claimed he and his SO were getting sick in my house due to mold, the symptoms were consistent with what he learned to look for. So he broke the lease, moved out, and left me with over $20,000 of damages to the unit (he'd lived there for 12 years) which all took place in the last few months of his tenancy. He tried to file claims against me for the personal injury to his health via his B-I-L, an attorney in the area, but without taking any air quality samples to verify mold spores in the house. I bought the test kits and sampled inside and outside the house, which showed similar levels. But since I'd done the tests, they weren't acceptable to the court, I had to bring in a professional remediation outfit ... at substantial cost. Their tests showed the same results, the ambient air had lots of spores due to a wetland area adjacent to the house. Mold spore case against me closed. But the ability to claim an air quality issue inside the house was very easy to do, and he made the claim without even having the benefit of a doctor assert that the causation was mold spores, let alone verify the claims of illness. IMO, he was simply trying to cash in on my insurance policy and not be held liable for the wild party damage that he'd caused to the house with his friends in the last months of his tenancy.
I'm not sure what I said that made you feel it necessary to launch such a personally attack. I think you are being overly paranoid, but that is fine, feel free to continue.
Fact is there are numerous places, even some rural, where temperature inversions trap smoke filled air down in the valleys which results in deplorable air quality for the people living there. Yes I favor government regulation in those instances.
Yup, there are places where inversions trap smoke. I own houses in such a location, in Vail CO, and agree with many of the local efforts to address the issue. But I don't see it as necessary for the heavy hand of the Fed EPA to step into such locations.
More to the point for Wyoming, however ...
Do you know of any such places where the pollution from woodsmoke is a concern? For the most part, all of the valleys I've been in Wyoming where that inversion might form typically have winds which preclude the stagnation. Along with that, the population density is so limited that even if everybody was burning a woodstove at the time, you'd hardly notice the effect.
I get a good chance to spot obscuration in the Wyoming area when I'm flying out here ... and other than the days of high humidity or strong winds picking up particulates (dust and soil), I've yet to see an inversion layer with smoke anywhere except on those days when a forest fire was burning in the region.
Last edited by sunsprit; 10-13-2013 at 03:41 PM..
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Just saying. Debate is a good thing, and it helps everyone learn. I'm curious too, to know whether WY has more air pollution than other states. As for wood stoves and pollution, I had an aunt who died from lung cancer..never smoked a day in her life, but she grew up in a home with a wood burning stove, which they said was a contributing factor. Guess health and safety aren't always a bad thing.
