CHENANGO COUNTY – A voluntary agreement between manufacturers and the federal government could make outdoor wood-burning furnaces up to 70 percent cleaner, officials with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said.
The EPA released details of the first step in the finalized partnership Monday, and they say that by the spring cleaner and more efficient outdoor units should be available to consumers.
“This partnership, along with efforts from Northeast states, will provide consumers with a choice to purchase cleaner outdoor wood heaters and communities with tools to take action now,” said Bill Wehrum, acting assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation. “Beginning this spring, consumers can look for the orange hang tag to identify new wood heaters that are both more efficient and less polluting.”
In response to high energy costs, the use of outdoor wood heaters has become more prevalent in Chenango County and other rural areas across New York state in recent years.
Chenango County Farm Bureau President Bradd Vickers contends wood burning is beneficial to a rural community’s economy because the source is local and renewable.
“As long as we take proper care of the forests, we can continue heating with wood forever without depleting the earth’s natural resources,” Vickers said.
Also, the release of carbon dioxide from wood boilers does not add to greenhouse effect issues because it is already a natural process, argued Vickers.
“When the tree dies and falls to rot on the forest floor, it slowly releases carbon dioxide back to the atmosphere as it decomposes,” he said. “If instead, the tree were consumed by a forest fire, or burned on your hearth, exactly the same amount of carbon dioxide would be released.”
However, excessive smoke and bad burning practices have fostered complaints from residents and officials who live near the wood units, prompting the state attorney general’s office and the EPA to investigate the effects of the devices.
In August 2005, New York state governor Eliot Spitzer, then attorney general, released a report stating that, “under certain conditions outdoor wood boilers may be among the dirtiest and least economical methods of heating.” Since Spitzer’s report, New York state, along with New Jersey and the New England states, has led initiatives to make emissions standards and practices more stringent for the unit’s producers.
The attorney general’s office did not return voice messages Monday.
According to the EPA, furnaces now marked by the orange tag will reportedly emit no more than 0.6 pounds of particle pollution per million BTUs (British Thermo Units) of wood burned, and have been tested by an accredited third-party laboratory.
“The new heaters will be about 70 percent cleaner than models currently on the market,” a Jan. 29 EPA press release states.
Currently, there are no official state or federal regulations or emissions standards protecting consumers against the amount of dangerous particulate matter the wood produces – at high levels if misused – when burned in these particular devices. In some cases, the units have been banned the municipal level, including locally in the Village of Oxford.
The EPA said a voluntary partnership, although unofficial, would enact changes much faster than developing official regulations at the federal level.
However, with funding and support from the EPA, officials with the Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management say the organization has developed a set of model regulations that can be adopted on a state-by-state basis.
“The EPA agreement is a good first step to engage manufacturers,” said NESCAUM representative Paul Miller. “The model rule would require even more pollution reduction than what the EPA partnership will result.”
According to Central Boiler, a leading outdoor furnace manufacturer located in Greenbush, Minnesota, the agreement is a stricter policy than the regulation already in place for indoor wood stoves.
“This test is more stringent than the EPA’s Phase II New Source Performance Standards certification for indoor wood stoves,” a release from Central Boiler states. “In order to pass under the new EPA guidelines, an outdoor wood furnace must burn wood about 20 percent cleaner than a non-catalytic indoor wood stove does to meet its certification program.”
Partnering wood furnace industries include Central Boiler, Aqua-Therm, Black Bear/Clean Wood Heat, Burns Best, Hardy Manufacturing Co., Heatmor, Mahoning Outdoor Furnace, Pro-Fab Industries, Woodmaster /Northwest Manufacturing, and Sequoyah Paradise.
According to the state Attorney General’s Office, 7,500 of outdoor wood burning boilers have been sold in New York since 1999.