Yahoo News – by DAVID A. LIEBJEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A federal proposal to clean up the smoke wafting from wood-burning stoves has sparked a backlash from some rural residents, lawmakers and manufacturers who fear it could close the damper on one of the oldest ways of warming homes on cold winter days.
Proposed regulations from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency would significantly reduce the amount of particle pollution allowed from the smokestacks of new residential wood-powered heaters.
Wood-burning stoves are a staple in rural homes in many states, a cheap heating source for low-income residents and others wanting to lessen their reliance on gas or electric furnaces. Outdoor models often cost several thousand dollars, but indoor stoves can cost as little as a few hundred dollars and sometimes double as fashionable centerpieces in homes.
Some manufacturers contend the EPA’s proposed standards are so stringent that the higher production costs would either force them out of business or raise prices so high that many consumers could no longer afford their products.
“There’s not a stove in the United States that can pass the test right now — this is the death knoll of any wood burning,” Reg Kelly, the founder of Earth Outdoor Furnaces in Mountain Grove, told Missouri lawmakers during a recent hearing.
More than three dozen Missouri lawmakers have co-sponsored a bill that would symbolically fight back against the EPA by declaring that “All Missourians have a right to heat their homes and businesses using wood-burning furnaces, stoves, fireplaces and heaters.”
This past week, a Missouri House committee endorsed a revised measure that proposes to ban state environmental officials from regulating residential wood heaters unless authorized by the Legislature.
Missouri appears to be one the first states to introduce legislation in response to the proposed EPA regulations. But concerns over wood-stove pollution and regulations also have been simmering in other states, including Utah and Alaska.
States such as Washington and New York already have adopted stricter emission rules. And last fall, New York’s attorney general led a coalition of seven states in a federal lawsuit seeking to compel to the EPA to adopt new emission limits on wood-fired boilers, which heat water that is piped into a home’s radiator system.
The EPA’s existing regulations date to 1988 and don’t apply to all of the different kinds of wood-burning devices now in use. Under a proposed rule change released last month, the EPA would give manufacturers five years to meet standards that would reduce emissions by an estimated 80 percent.
The EPA has scheduled a public hearing next Wednesday in Boston, and the sponsor of the Missouri legislation plans to travel there to make his case.
“What they’re doing is unnecessary, and it comes against our American values and our traditions,” said Rep. Tim Remole, a Republican who has a wood stove at his rural Missouri home.
There are about 12 million wood stoves in U.S. homes, including about 9 million that are less than half as efficient as the newer stoves, according to the EPA. The agency’s proposed rules would not affect stoves already in homes.
Most people who own wood stoves have other means of heat, such as electric or gas furnaces. But about 2 percent U.S. homes rely on wood as their primary heating source — a figure that has been rising over the past decade.
Darwin Woods, who owns a farm near the small central Missouri town of Clark, said his 12-year-old outdoor wood stove heats both his home and water. Though he wouldn’t be forced to upgrade the stove, Woods views the proposed EPA rule as an intrusion.
“It’s just another way for them to control my life and lifestyle and basically force me to pay more for just survival,” Woods said.
Others point to the negative health effects from burning wood. The fine particles can worsen asthma and cardiovascular problems, ultimately leading to earlier deaths, according to the American Lung Association.
In Utah, Republican Gov. Gary Herbert has called for a winter ban on wood-burning in an attempt to improve air quality. The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation has also proposed its own emission requirements.
But some homeowners “want to keep their fireplaces to have a way to heat homes and cook food in the event an earthquake cuts gas lines and power,” said Erin Mendenhall, a Salt Lake City council member and executive director of Breathe Utah, which is offering to replace wood stoves with gas units.
The National Firewood Association, based in Duluth, Minn., says some of the pollution from wood-burning stoves could be reduced if people would burn only aged wood rather than wood with too much wet sap.
“A properly burning wood fire — there’s virtually no smoke or smell,” said Executive Director Scott Salveson.
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Associated Press writer Paul Foy in Salt Lake City contributed to this report.
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Follow David A. Lieb at: http://www.twitter.com/DavidALieb
http://news.yahoo.com/federal-wood-burning-rule-prompts-rural-backlash-161516423.html
They do very little to prevent or stop entire forests from burning, but they want to bust my chops about how I stay warm.
You know it has absolutely nothing to do with air quality, and they don’t give a sailing shite about air quality. It’s just another way to break people’s chops, and I’m tired of it.
I’d really like to see someone come here and tell me my wood stove is illegal.
They want to enforce this krap……… but turn off the radiation detectors and falsify data about the fallout from fukushima and dont warn the public of the dangers coming from japan. i say demand them to fix fukushima and then maybe we will listen to them aabout anything else.
there is one word for this behavior from the criminals in d.c.= insanity.
Well don’t complain. If you have natural gas or electric heat and it’s disrupted for any reason you can go always to a FEMA shelter.
Yea right Terry S. You forgot the FEMA camps AND the guillotein
They can have my firewood when they pry it from my cold, dead hand. 😉
So. How long before they ban wood stoves already in the home? These regulations only apply to new stoves–my foot! Since they know us rural remote folks won’t tolerate their Agenda 21 crap, they have to force it on us using the so-called tried-and-true-method…gradualism….
Watch out for the mountain lions coming up to my house, kiddos….
Beat me to it, Funny Farmer. First thing that came to mind.
When they show up to tell you that you can’t burn wood because it causes pollution, point to the chemtrails and ask “What about THOSE, then?”
Regardless of what they reply, say “WRONG ANSWER, @SSHOLE!” and drop ’em where they stand. Fresh fertilizer.
Problem solved.
Just more AG21. Get ready to move into the stacked mini-homes.
I see a lot of “stove inspectors”perhaps dying of carbine monoxide poisoning while they idle their cars in the cold weather as they fill out stove reports and inspections.The little tyrants in govt. just keep saying I am just doing my job.I reply with you did not have to take the job.
Nice wordplay, James.
I like.
Wouldn’t that be a difficult task? To funny? Yes….. funny like a clown.
I was checking out some stoves while in the appalachians during Thanksgiving, and a lot of them are plate steel welded and homemade and work real well, how do you regulate ingenuity? Are they gonna try to put a stop to outdoor fire pits next?