Air Resources
What's In That Smoke?
Excerpt from New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services web site
For many the smell of wood smoke from a fireplace elicits fond memories of hearth and home. There is a lack of awareness, however, that wood smoke has become a major source of air pollution in the United States. Combustion of organic matter such as wood and yard debris releases a variety of harmful substances, including particulates, carcinogens, carbon monoxide, respiratory irritants and toxins. Many people--infants and children, pregnant women, senior citizens, and those suffering from allergies, asthma, bronchitis, emphysema, pneumonia, or other heart or lung diseases--are at risk from the pollution released by wood smoke.
Compounds released during the combustion process interfere with normal lung development and function. Indoor and outdoor air quality can be degraded significantly by the use of poorly designed, non-certified wood stoves. Poor burning processes, lack of maintenance, improper stove installation, and burning wet wood create excessive amounts of pollution. Fires left smoldering to keep a house warm during the night can also be particularly harmful. Smoldering wood burns slower and incompletely, thereby releasing more smoke and gas into the air.
Wood smoke contains tiny particles of creosote, soot, and ash that can remain airborne for up to three weeks. Small particles of solid and liquid matter suspended in the air are called particulate matter, or "PM." PM10 are those particles 10 microns or less in diameter. (In comparison, a human hair is approximately 70 microns in diameter.) PM2.5, or "fine" particulate matter, are those particles 2.5 microns or less in diameter. Inhaling fine PM causes coughing, irritation, and permanent scaring of the lungs. This type of damage decreases lung function, increases the potential for respiratory illness, and may contribute to cancer, heart disease, and changes in DNA, leading to auto-immune diseases. Because of the health threats associated with particulate air pollution, the federal government regulates all particulate matter as one of the six major air pollutants.
Particulate pollution from wood stoves is primarily produced in the winter when stagnant air and temperature inversions limit air movement. At this time smoke is unable to rise and disperse, and this pollution becomes trapped close to the ground in our breathing space. Areas with valleys and poor air circulation can be strongly affected. The small size of these particles allows them to seep into houses through closed doors and windows.
Many of the small particles from wood smoke are too small to be filtered by the nose or upper respiratory system. Therefore, they are able to penetrate deep within the lungs, and they collect in the most remote portions of the lungs called the alveoli, which are tiny air sacs where oxygen enters the blood stream. Due to their ability to evade the defenses of the body, these particles are efficient vehicles for transporting toxic gases, bacteria, and viruses into the lungs, and ultimately the blood stream. Some toxic compounds are cancer-causing and can attach to the smallest smoke particles and enter the lungs at the same time. Particulate matter can clump together, blocking tiny veins as well as invoking harmful structural and chemical changes in the lungs.
A report released by the Washington State Department of Ecology based on research conducted by the University of Washington in Seattle and the EPA in Boise, Idaho, found that indoor PM10 levels from wood smoke in homes without woodstoves can reach 50-70 percent of the outdoor PM levels. The PM released from wood heating can also cause biological mutations (chromosome defects and genetic damage) in cells of the lungs. Mutagens and carcinogens are not exactly the same and not all mutagenic substances cause cancer. Mutations brought about by wood smoke, however, potentially lead to cancer formation. In 1988 an EPA study found that biological mutations in bacteria exposed to winter air samples increased with higher concentrations of fine particulate matter and were most numerous at the times of coldest temperatures, weekends, and holidays when wood stoves were used the most.
The cancer threat from air pollution is another serious public heath concern. In 1985 the EPA started a research program to clarify the sources of air pollution and to estimate their future cancer risk (Washington State Department of Ecology 1997). Their research determined that motor vehicles and wood stoves were the major sources of particulate air pollution and associated cancer risk in the urban airsheds studied. According to the EPA, many of the substances identified in wood smoke are suspected human carcinogens or co-carcinogens. These compounds include many polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), such as benzo(a)pyrene, and various aldehydes, alkenes, and semi-volatile organic compounds.
[For information about the health risks from exposure to air toxics. See EPA's Health Risk Assessment brochure
(see http://www.epa.gov/ttnatw01/3_90_022.html)]
Carbon monoxide is a colorless, odorless gas that is also produced when wood is burned. Once in the blood stream, it reduces the ability of blood to carry oxygen to body tissues. Respiratory toxins and irritants, including nitrogen dioxide, are also released during wood combustion. These compounds impair the respiratory system and reduce its ability to fight infection.
Wood Smoke vs. Cigarette Smoke
Although many people associate tobacco smoke with certain health risks, research indicates that second hand wood smoke has potentially even greater ability to damage health. A comparison between tobacco smoke and wood smoke using electron spin resonance revealed quite startling results (Rozenberg 2001, Wood Smoke is More Damaging than Tobacco Smoke). Tobacco smoke causes damage in the body for approximately 30 seconds after it is inhaled. Wood smoke, however, continues to be chemically active and cause damage to cells in the body for up to 20 minutes, or 40 times longer.
Some of the components in wood smoke are free radicals, which steal electrons from the body, leaving cells unstable or injured. Some of these cells may die, while others may be altered and take on different functions. These changes lead to inflammation, which causes stress on the body. EPA researchers suggest that the lifetime cancer risk from wood stove emissions may be 12 times greater than the lifetime cancer risk from exposure to an equal amount of cigarette smoke. (Rozenberg 2001, What's in Wood Smoke and Other Emissions).
Excerpt from New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services web site
http://www.des.state.nh.us/ard/smoke.htm
Outdoor wood-burning furnaces create problems in Texas Township
Thursday, May 22, 2008
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.
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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.
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.
Wood smoke robs you of your home
Letter to the Editor-Fence Post
Daily Herald Newspaper
Paddock Publications
Arlington Hts, Illinois
Published May 22, 2008
Wood smoke robs you of your home
Like many people, I grew up enjoying campfires, not thinking about smoke.
That changed Jan. 2, 2006, when our neighbor in Newaygo, Michigan, installed an outdoor wood boiler downhill and 90 feet from our house.
We didn't know what the unit was, but the first day of operation, we experienced sore throats and headaches from smoke that drifted constantly, often in sheets, across our yard.
We could smell it in our house and couldn't get away from it. Being outside for minutes resulted in a smoke smell in our hair and on our clothes.
Research showed us the negative health impact we experienced from smoke is well documented and dangerous.
Our neighbor raised his stack, but he refused to talk when we showed smoke still going down into our yard.
For a year, we worked with the city government, attended meetings, educated, received neighborhood support to ban these units.
Now an ordinance protects people from OWB's. Our healthy air will be back! We thought.
City officials assured us the ordinance applied to all, but in September, they said our neighbor's unit was "grandfathered." No rules for him.
We offered to pay our neighbor's heat bill, buy a different furnace. Anything to enjoy our yard again, not to feel sick while home.
No reply.
Our four little Michigan grandchildren can't visit us there October-April. The smokestack is 14 feet from where we used to sled in the backyard.
Can't rake leaves, can't shovel snow. In smoke, your heart pounds too hard. You feel dizzy. No one seems to care.
We're selling this future retirement house to avoid smoke.
Now we live in Illinois and visit Michigan in the summer.
People need to understand the harm of what breathing wood smoke does to them, to children and to neighbors.
Jeanne Leaver
Lynn Center, Ill.
Daily Herald Newspaper
Paddock Publications
Arlington Hts, Illinois
Published May 22, 2008
Wood smoke robs you of your home
Like many people, I grew up enjoying campfires, not thinking about smoke.
That changed Jan. 2, 2006, when our neighbor in Newaygo, Michigan, installed an outdoor wood boiler downhill and 90 feet from our house.
We didn't know what the unit was, but the first day of operation, we experienced sore throats and headaches from smoke that drifted constantly, often in sheets, across our yard.
We could smell it in our house and couldn't get away from it. Being outside for minutes resulted in a smoke smell in our hair and on our clothes.
Research showed us the negative health impact we experienced from smoke is well documented and dangerous.
Our neighbor raised his stack, but he refused to talk when we showed smoke still going down into our yard.
For a year, we worked with the city government, attended meetings, educated, received neighborhood support to ban these units.
Now an ordinance protects people from OWB's. Our healthy air will be back! We thought.
City officials assured us the ordinance applied to all, but in September, they said our neighbor's unit was "grandfathered." No rules for him.
We offered to pay our neighbor's heat bill, buy a different furnace. Anything to enjoy our yard again, not to feel sick while home.
No reply.
Our four little Michigan grandchildren can't visit us there October-April. The smokestack is 14 feet from where we used to sled in the backyard.
Can't rake leaves, can't shovel snow. In smoke, your heart pounds too hard. You feel dizzy. No one seems to care.
We're selling this future retirement house to avoid smoke.
Now we live in Illinois and visit Michigan in the summer.
People need to understand the harm of what breathing wood smoke does to them, to children and to neighbors.
Jeanne Leaver
Lynn Center, Ill.
Saranac Lake board adopts six-month outdoor wood boiler moratorium
Friday, May 16, 2008
Saranac Lake board adopts six-month outdoor wood boiler moratorium
By EMILY HUNKLER, Enterprise Staff Writer
POSTED: May 13, 2008
SARANAC LAKE — The village board adopted a six-month moratorium on outdoor wood boilers on Monday night.
“Perhaps we should take the less restrictive avenue and see what has been done out there in terms of regulation,” Mayor Thomas Michael said regarding whether it was in the agenda to ban or regulate the boilers.
The moratorium puts a stop on granting any future permit for an outdoor wood boiler starting Monday evening and lasting 180 days, during which time the board will discuss plans to regulate or ban the use of them.
Trustee John McEneany was concerned with making sure the language of any future law or regulation is precise and does not leave room for misinterpretation.
“I don’t want to get into, ‘His smoke is different from my smoke because his smoke is outside and my smoke is inside’,” McEneany said.
The board assured him any future laws would be directed specifically towards the use of outdoor wood boilers.
Outdoor wood boilers came under fire recently when a Saranac Lake resident petitioned the board to do something to regulate their use for the health and safety of neighbors living nearby.
According to studies done by the New York Attorney General’s Office, outdoor wood boiler smoke contains fine particulate matter which, for those exposed to it on a regular basis, can lead to chronic lung and respiratory conditions.
“We need to be sure that, as a board, we are going in the right direction of regulating instead of banning,” Trustee Jeff Branch said.
Some have turned to outdoor wood boilers as a method of heating their homes due to the rising costs of oil. Outdoor wood boilers are fueled by wood, which for some homeowners is an appealing source of energy as it is less expensive than oil and renewable.
The board members said they hope to be diligent in deciding what action to take and hope to be finished well before the six-month moratorium is expired.
The Adirondack Daily Enterprise
54 Broadway
PO Box 318
Saranac Lake, NY 12983
Web master comment....Yes, please BAN all outdoor wood boilers.
By EMILY HUNKLER, Enterprise Staff Writer
POSTED: May 13, 2008
SARANAC LAKE — The village board adopted a six-month moratorium on outdoor wood boilers on Monday night.
“Perhaps we should take the less restrictive avenue and see what has been done out there in terms of regulation,” Mayor Thomas Michael said regarding whether it was in the agenda to ban or regulate the boilers.
The moratorium puts a stop on granting any future permit for an outdoor wood boiler starting Monday evening and lasting 180 days, during which time the board will discuss plans to regulate or ban the use of them.
Trustee John McEneany was concerned with making sure the language of any future law or regulation is precise and does not leave room for misinterpretation.
“I don’t want to get into, ‘His smoke is different from my smoke because his smoke is outside and my smoke is inside’,” McEneany said.
The board assured him any future laws would be directed specifically towards the use of outdoor wood boilers.
Outdoor wood boilers came under fire recently when a Saranac Lake resident petitioned the board to do something to regulate their use for the health and safety of neighbors living nearby.
According to studies done by the New York Attorney General’s Office, outdoor wood boiler smoke contains fine particulate matter which, for those exposed to it on a regular basis, can lead to chronic lung and respiratory conditions.
“We need to be sure that, as a board, we are going in the right direction of regulating instead of banning,” Trustee Jeff Branch said.
Some have turned to outdoor wood boilers as a method of heating their homes due to the rising costs of oil. Outdoor wood boilers are fueled by wood, which for some homeowners is an appealing source of energy as it is less expensive than oil and renewable.
The board members said they hope to be diligent in deciding what action to take and hope to be finished well before the six-month moratorium is expired.
The Adirondack Daily Enterprise
54 Broadway
PO Box 318
Saranac Lake, NY 12983
Web master comment....Yes, please BAN all outdoor wood boilers.
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