This 1998 Industry/Government report paints wood burning and natural gas with the same brush! Here is Larry Brockman of the EPA in an email from January, 2005. " In addition, we plan to build in site specific air monitoring and conduct a thorough benefits analysis into one or more of our FY 05 effort to document the effectiveness of wood stove change out campaigns. With that said, the key to the success of such a campaign will be, strong partnerships (e.g.,Hearth Association, state/locals) and the funds available to replace the old, dirty stoves with the less polluting EPA-certified stoves.
We believe that there is a great opportunity to significantly reduce air emission through this effort in a very cost effective manner, gain real health benefits, and help low income people stay warmer and safer with less effort than what they have now.
Feel free to contact me if you have any questions."
The office of Air Quality Planning and Standards lead by Larry Brockman is planning a wood burning campaign. They intend to label wood stoves "green" and sell new ones to all. They propose to reduce wood smoke by selling more fireplace inserts, outdoor woodburners, and wood stoves.
The facts are that this office unleashed the same program twenty years ago and it has been a failure of tragic consequences. EPA documents show that certified wood stoves do not perform as advertised over a long period of time.
To quote from current documents: " We are planning to sponsor a Woodstove Changeout Lessons Learned Forum/Training in Atlanta at the Hearth, Patio and Barbecue Association's annual Trade Show on February 23-24, 2005. We hope to bring states representative from the West to share lessons learned with the Eastern States. Also, we plan to evaluate and document program success and lessons learned in this first phase of the EPA Changeout Campaign."
"Larry_Brockman"<brockman.larry@epa.gov> 919-541-5398
Copy and send this letter to Larry Brockman to show your support. We offer this letter from the Board of Health, Buckland Massachusetts
to help us send our message to the EPA. You may adapt this letter to your state. Please sign with your personal contact information.
[Dear Larry Brockman,
January 2005
We have been working for many years to encourage reduction of air pollution from wood burning. We have some concerns with some of EPA's proposal to replace old wood stoves with EPA approved ones.
We think that we can do much better by encouraging people to switch to cleaner fuels such as gas or oil rather than EPA wood stoves. The improvement from 10 grams per hour of particulates per hour (conventional stove) to 5 grams (EPA wood stove before it fails) doesn't seem like much improvement when at our disposal is oil (.02 grams per hour) or gas (.01 grams per hour). The total amount of pollution reduction is even greater with oil or gas furnaces because they are not constantly burning while wood stoves are. People using EPA stoves experience pretty much the same bad health effects, and produce the same degraded air for themselves and their neighbors as those using with conventional stoves wood stoves.
What is most interesting about you proposal is the assumption that you are helping poor people. In Massachusetts oil is still cheaper than wood, and has been for quite some time. In addition many people are lulled into the notion that their wood stoves do not pollute at all because they have an EPA seal of approval on them. We fear that this is very misleading and we would hope that EPA would not want to encourage anyone, and perhaps especially poor people to burn the most polluting fuel available to them. The suggestion on your part that you will be saving people money on their fuel bill by heating with wood is simply not accurate unless someone is collecting the wood themselves. And there are costs associated with the bad health affects that are not accounted for.
We would like to work with you, and we request that you research further the option of helping low income people acquire safe burning oil or gas space heaters to take the place of their stoves which we believe will cost virtually the same amount of money, but with vastly improved health and environmental outcomes.
We are hoping that you would use your considerable influence to educate the public about the dangerous health effects of wood burning and to join us in our work to have cleaner air. Please visit our website at burning issues.org where we have compiled an extensive collection of articles and studies.
Please contact us by e-mail or phone.]
Janet Sinclair, Board of Health
Buckland Massachusetts
413-625-2886
masscleanair.org
Air Emmissions from Residential Heating: The Wood Heating Option Put into Environmental Perspective This Industry/government report paints wood burning and natural gas with the same brush!
EPA Slide Show to sell more woodburnng devices (PDF 3.7 MB)
e-mail memo from Larry Brockman
Subject: Fw: background Info on Residential Wood Smoke Reduction Initiative
Voluntary Residential Wood Smoke Reduction Initiative - This initiative is geared toward developing voluntary programs to reduce emissions from residential wood combustion (e.g.,fireplaces, outdoor wood furnaces and wood stoves). The EPA's Office of Air Quality Planning and Standard's (OAQPS) primary effort, particularly in our first phase is to focus on facilitating the change out of old, dirty, "conventional" or pre-NSPS wood stoves to new EPA certified stoves. The EPA-certified wood stoves emit 50-70% less air pollution than old conventional wood stoves. We estimate that for every 20 old wood stoves replaced with more energy efficient, less polluting EPA-certified stoves, we get a benefit of 1 ton of PM2.5 reduction, and some air toxics (PAHs) benefits too.
Additional benefits include reduction in greenhouse gases, a reduction in indoor exposures, and possibly greater safety from reduced fire hazards. Although change out programs in the past have depended heavily on manufacturer rebates and tax incentives, many of the people who depend on wood as a primary heating source are low income and are not in a situation such that they can take advantage of these incentives. We are hopeful the Hearth Association working through the retailers and manufactures can provide a 10-15% rebate. However,we are searching for ways (e.g., SEPs) to actually fund the purchase of highly efficient and clean burning stoves for low income people.
We believe there are approximately 10 million wood stoves in use at this time, and 80 - 90 percent of those are pre-NSPS stoves. The cost of one new stove, including installation can range a great deal. However,a basic model can be purchased and installed for approximately $1000 - $2000.
With respect to OAQPS plans for the change out campaign, we will likely target efforts in PM2.5 nonattainment areas, locations wherethere are short terms PM2.5 spikes due to wood burning, and where there are community-based air toxics program. We plan to conduct model wood stove changeout campaign in the greater Dayton and Pittsburgh areas in FY 05 and then grow the campaign in FY 06 and beyond, similar to the diesel retrofit program. We are also currently supporting a changeout effort in Libby, MT where EPA Region 8 is the lead. The OAQPS plans to develop education, outreach and marketing materials including a new woodstove and fireplace websites for consumers and regulators. We are planning to sponsor a Woodstove Changeout Lessons Learned Forum/Training in Atlanta at the Hearth, Patio and Barbecue Association's annual Trade Show on February 23-24, 2005. We hope to bring states representative from the West to share lessons learned with the Eastern States. Also, we plan to evaluate and document program success and lessons learned in this first phase of the EPA Changeout Campaign.
In addition, we plan to build in site specific air monitoring and conduct a thorough benefits analysis into one or more of our FY 05 effort to document the effectiveness of wood stove change out campaigns. With that said, the key to the success of such a campaign will be, strong partnerships (e.g.,Hearth Association, state/locals) and the funds available to replace the old, dirty stoves with the less polluting EPA-certified stoves.
We believe that there is a great opportunity to significantly reduce air emission through this effort in a very cost effective manner, gain real health benefits, and help low income people stay warmer and safer with less effort than what they have now.
Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
Larry
(See attached file: VoluntarywkgpNov04.ppt)(See attached file:factsheetNov04.doc)Phone: 919-541-5398 Fax: 919-541-2664 brockman.larry@epa.gov