Outdoor wood-burning furnaces create problems in Texas Township

Outdoor wood-burning furnaces create problems in Texas Township
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Kalamazoo Gazette

BY WAYNE CAVANAUGH

Increased energy costs have driven many to look for alternative energy sources. There are many proven options from energy audits and insulation, to solar and geothermal. There is, however, one approach that is causing a surge of citizen complaints and lawsuits in every cold-weather state in the country. It is a currently unregulated device called an outdoor wood boiler or outdoor wood-burning furnace.

OWBs resemble a tool shed or outhouse with a short chimney pipe and are fueled by anything from firewood to trash. They heat water that is fed back through an underground pipe into existing home mechanical systems. OWBs are sold in vacant parking lots and roadside stands to users who connect them to their existing indoor systems without inspection or permits. Living next to one means a 24-hour-a-day sentence of not being able open your windows or spend time outdoors because of the constant smoke. There are also issues of health and lowered property values.
Advertisement

Unfortunately, some people in Texas Township rigged up their OWBs and let them burn. With home sales hovering at all time lows, Realtors report a neighbor's OWB is a real deal killer. So far, with more than a year's worth of complaints and meetings, the Texas Township Board has failed to pass an ordinance to stop them.

State and federal government research links the fine particles in OWB smoke to asthma, reduced lung function, chronic bronchitis, irregular heartbeat, cancer and premature death in people with heart and lung disease.

The Environmental Protection Agency and state departments of health and air quality from Washington, Oregon, Vermont, Wisconsin, Indiana, New York and Michigan all agree on the science and the serious health risks caused by OWBs. Because the human body cannot process the OWB fine particulate, it lodges permanently in lung tissue. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the International Agency for Research on Cancer have categorized OWB emissions as a human carcinogen.

Currently, OWBs are unregulated by the EPA because technically they are not inside the home. Public outcry, however, caused the cold-weather states, including Michigan, to petition the EPA to close the loophole and intervene. The EPA recently announced new voluntary manufacturing standards and a model ordinance for local governments to use while federal legislation is created. According to the EPA, these model laws can be implemented faster than federal legislation. Thousands of local governments took immediate action. Washington passed a total statewide ban. Local governments across America have followed suit by adopting local bans or by enforcing setback distances, smoke stack heights, and seasonal burn limitations. The citizens of Texas Township are still waiting.

Texas Township is a grand example of the political issues of OWB use. The township board was presented with numerous complaints and science well over a year ago. Board presentations and public comments ensued. The board presented several versions of several draft ordinances over a period of seven months, unanimously endorsed publishing one ordinance, limited public comments on another to one minute, then failed to vote any into law.

The latest proposed ordinance is clearly aligned to protect the OWB users with little regard for their neighbors, the local environment or the quality of life in Texas Township. It grandfathers current OWBs to burn 24 hours a day, 300 feet outside anyone's bedroom window. More amazing, it allows an unbridled number of new OWBs to be erected on three-acre lots. While the EPA model ordinance recommends that an OWB be set back 500 feet from the user's property line, Texas Township has decided that 50 feet will do. While the EPA and Michigan models recommend smokestack heights higher than the peak of any domicile within 500 feet, the Texas Township ordinance calls for a 300-foot setback with a smoke stack just 20 feet above the grade plane.

The only possible explanation is that the board is trying to appease the nine users because they sympathize with those who paid upwards of $8,000 for these unregulated devices. The meeting's public comments often echo ``buyer beware'' as even a quick search will lead the buyer to state reports and an attorney general report that refer to OWBs as the least efficient and dirtiest of all heat sources.

Public officials are not elected to tend to the needs and wants of a small special interest group who chose to smoke out their neighbors under the guise of saving money on energy bills. They are elected to make difficult but important decisions regarding the entire township's health and quality of life. There are far better energy options that preserve the country culture of the area without creating a public nuisance and lowered property values.

It's time for Texas Township and all of Michigan's local governments to step up and do the right thing. It's time to ban the burners.

Wayne Cavanaugh is a commentator for the BBC, London; host and former executive producer for Animal Planet and Discovery Television, and a resident of Texas Township.