Council Wants To Study Wood Burning More, Will Revisit Recommendations in April

Dr. Tom Cahill has been working with the city since October on establishing guidelines for wood burning that will be based on solid scientific foundations that enable people's health issues to be addressed while at the same time respecting people's rights to the fullest extent possible.

The city council last night heard from a wide variety of experts, many of whom have been in countless hours on the issue of wood burning.

In the end, they adopted Dr. Cahill's measured approach. What Dr. Cahill recommends at this point in time is that given the fact it is already January, the city is not going to implement any new policies this burn year. So at this point, why rush the decision?

His view is that whatever occurs, needs to be done based on the best science possible and since the scientific studies have not been conclusive as of yet, he urged the council to allow for the collection of additional data. It appears that data will take two forms. First, he has and is donating the use of two of his monitoring devices to the city. This will enable the city to have a centrally located monitoring device and one that roams.

There is concern by the citizens, the experts, and the council to determine what exactly is going on in the city. Many suggested the city not be treated as a one-size-fits all solution, that there might be parts of the city that are heavily impacted by smoke while others are unaffected. There is also the need to do more than just have two monitoring devices.

The second portion of a study will look at the impact of Sacramento's burn and no burn days to see how they impact particulate matter in the air. One thing that was noted is that much of Sacramento's air particulate matter is pollutants moving up from the San Joaquin Valley northward. In other words, they are having no burn days based on things that occur down south.

Dr. Cahill argued effectively that by moving the decision back to April, they will have more data at their disposal and can make a better informed decision.

Many members of the public came to speak on both sides of the issue. Those with health problems, once against laid out their concerns with wood burning. However, there were a large number of people who came forward in support of various compromises and ways to continue to burn.

One big issue that came up had to do with the phase-in toward EPA approved appliances and how that should occur. There was a general concern with cost to the consumer. The feeling was that if it was cost prohibitive it would discourage residents of Davis from upgrading and encourage them to rely on PG&E for their full heating needs. Moreover, many expressed the concern that regulations may be a moving a target. In other words, no one would want to invest in EPA approved appliances if there was even a possibility that the regulations would change and they would not be able to use the appliance that they invested a sizable amount of money into to purchase.

There were additional concerns raised about the practicality of six hour burn limits. First, from the standpoint of heating, you could not simply heat a home for six hours. Moreover, the difficulty in stopping the burning of wood makes it less than practical.

Finally, concern was expressed by staff and the public about how this would be enforced particularly if there are limits on types of appliances, length of burn, wind velocity, and other factors.

It was a good discussion. Members of the community with expertise on wood burning, including some in the commercial field, came forward to offer information and advice. It was one of the better discussions that I have witnessed before the city council.

In the end, council is moving forward on this in a measured and responsible fashion. They emphasized the need to implement policy based on hard scientific data.

Toward the end of the discussion, Councilmember Stephen Souza made a key point, he demonstrated the changes that have occurred in our understanding of health risks and practices. He cited for example in the 1970s, when the council met in the old City Hall, that people would smoke in council chambers. We would never see smoking in council chambers these days in part because of our recognition of the health impacts of second hand smoke and laws that prohibit smoking in public buildings. Moreover, now we recognize that even smoking near buildings can be a health risk. As our understandings of health impacts evolve, so too must our laws.

Councilmember Heystek made the further point that Davis is often on the forefront of these type of policies and we do not need to rely on what other communities are doing. We need to look toward Davis-centered approaches that fit our environmentally conscious community. Thus taking into account things like wind speed, taking into account that federal standards and state standards are minimum standards is an appropriate thing to do.

In the end, the council made the correct decision to wait until they had more data in order to do this correctly. One thing that was put into the motion was a provision to educate the community on this issue. That clearly needs to occur. I have been uncomfortable pushing forward with this without greater amount of citizen buy-in. I still think that the council, the NRC, and the experts are ahead of public opinion on this issue.

This is an issue that effects people in their home. One member of the community came up and talked about what an open hearth fireplace means to her. She described it as primal, the need for fire, likening it to the need to reproduce. She has regular picnics with her kids in front of the fire. She argued that the fireplace in her home was one of the reasons that she bought her home and she didn't want the fireplace taken from her. As she said this on the one hand, you could feel for her. On the other, you wonder what if this practice was actually putting her health and her children's health at risk without her knowledge. I would certainly like to do more research on these questions, but Davis is not the only community facing this issue. To some extent if Davis does not get out in front on this issue, the air management district will.

So last night, the council did the right thing given the timing of events , in holding off on a decision about wood burning. Clearly this issue is still a controversial issue in which the city needs to engage the community. The council now has a few more months to engage the community and hopefully they will use this time wisely.

---David M. Greenwald reporting

Scaled Down Wood Burning Ban and Restrictions Before Council Next Week

Back in July, the Davis City Council voted unanimously to support a wood burning ban and send the matter to the Natural Resources Commission to write an ordinance. Even at that point of time, while supportive of the concept of banning wood burning stoves, it was clear that council was well ahead of the public on this issue.

Specifically I worried that the public did not even know this was coming down for the most part until the council had already discussed the issue. In the subsequent weeks and months, as the public has become aware of the issue, the public has turned against the idea of banning wood burning stoves.

Back on August 27, nearly a month after the council voted unanimously to move forward with a resolution, I wrote in the Vanguard:

On July 29, 2008, the Davis City Council unanimously voted to recommend to the Natural Resources Commission to draft a resolution that would implement a full ban on wood burning in Davis with an exemption for hardship.

I will say at the onset here, that I am fully in support of that decision, particularly with such an exemption for people of lower income backgrounds who rely on wood burning as a cheaper means by which to heat their homes in the winter.

However, at the time I was concerned about the way in which this issue had been dealt with by the city, the city council, and the local paper--or that is, not dealt. I got up to speak before city council on the night of July 29, 2008, to recommend two things. First, that we need exemptions for people with hardships. And second, that we needed better outreach before this meeting.

On the morning of July 29, I wrote this article in the Vanguard. It essentially lays out my position on the technical aspects of this issue. But I believe that for many in this community, they did not know this issue was even under consideration until that article appeared the Vanguard and subsequently an article in the Davis Enterprise on July 31, 2008.

As a result, the Natural Resources Commission has made an alternative set of recommendations from staff recommendations. Both sets of recommendations significantly scale back the original council action approved on July 29, 2008.

The staff report is roughly 25 pages, thus this summary will not do it justice.

However, staff does make five recommendations that if the council approves them, an ordinance would be brought back well before November 2009 which would constitute the beginning of the next burn season.

Staff recommendations:

a) Work with Dr. Cahill and the YSAQMD to establish monitoring to gather specific air quality information, to be used in assessing what further restrictions may be in order;

b) Adopt the following wood burning restrictions: Establish burn/no burn days based on Federal air quality standard of PM2.5 of 35 ug/m3 and apply the same criteria to open hearth and non-certified appliances. Restrictions do not include the eventual ban on open hearth an non-certified appliances. Further restrictions will be revisited once air quality data is collected and analyzed.

c) Work more closely with the YSAQMD to disseminate all manner of information on the wood burning, i.e., health effects, proper burning techniques, etc;

d) Pursue programs that would encourage the change out of old appliances and the conversion of open hearth. This can be done through promotion of YSAQMD’s Woodstove Change Out Program and pursuing funds to increase the grant amount to further encourage change outs;

e) Pursue viability of using resale requirements that may reduce the number of open hearths and non-certified appliances.

Natural Resources Commission Recommendations:

a) Wood burning will only be allowed on “Allowable Burn Days” defined as a forecasted average regional PM 2.5 of 25 ug/m3 (particulate matter) or lower and a forecasted average wind speed from 6 PM to midnight of 5 mph or greater.

b) Wood burning will be allowed a maximum of 6 hours per day per residence and only burning of seasoned dry wood is allowed.

c) Beginning March 1, 2010, wood burning is only allowed in EPA Phase II-Certified wood and pellet stoves and prohibited in fire places or non-EPA certified appliances.

d) A one time permit is required (for law enforcement and educational purposes). Permit issuance would start March 1, 2010.

e) This proposed ordinance does not pertain to any appliances fueled by natural gas or propane and/or designed and exclusively used for cooking purposes.

f) Exemptions are allowed for temporary breakdowns of other heat sources and power outages.

The major difference between two the recommendations is that Staff's recommendation focus on burn restrictions and contains no bans at this time. The NRC bans open hearth and other non-certified appliances but allows EPA Phase 2 certified appliances.

Staff report explains that they have followed Dr. Cahill's approach:

"At the October NRC meeting, Dr. Cahill, a former professor in the UC system and local expert on global climate change, offered to work with the city to gather air quality information. Staff supports Dr. Cahill’s measured approach of gathering specific information that will aide in assessing the air quality and the nature of future action. This would be accomplished through a donation of monitoring equipment and Dr. Cahill’s expertise and time to evaluate data. Staff has met with Dr. Cahill and a monitoring station has been set up."

The staff report does not know what the fiscal impact of this approach will be.

The enforcement issue has been a concern. The idea that the police would have to become the enforcers seems a waste of police resources among other related problems. The NRC draft ordinance includes enforcement as a response to those who burn illegally, staff seems uncomfortable with the notion however.

"While it is simple to suggest that the Police Department enforce the ordinance, the nuances of actually doing so are quite complex. There are several elements that make the draft ordinance difficult to enforce."

The staff report continues:

1. Because of the inherent difficulties of monitoring actual burning time, the 6 hour
maximum burn time is not enforceable.

2. Enforcement is complicated when various appliances are treated differently. Police officers would be required to distinguish between open hearth, non-EPA certified wood burning stoves and inserts and EPA Phase II certified stoves and inserts. Some of this concern is relieved if permits are issued.

3. Police officers would be required to distinguish between seasoned dry wood and unseasoned or wet wood.

4. And lastly, this type of call could be triaged and be a very low priority. It is difficult to estimate what percentage of calls the Police Department would be able to respond to.

This actually only gets to the tip of the iceberg. Quite simply enforcement would have to be treated specially. Because different devices, different woods, and burning time periods are involved, it would make the police's job very difficult. This is not a like a noise ordinance or a smoking ordinance that would be fairly straight forward to enforce. The city probably does not have the resources to deal with the enforcement and frankly this is not what the police should be doing either. This section needs considerable thought and attention--while I might in general favor the NRC approach, it would be very difficult to enforce which might make the staff approach more feasible.

Finally the issue of burn/ no burn criteria is discussed.

Staff's assessment of the NRC recommendation:

"The criteria the NRC recommends uses an air quality threshold that is lower than the Federal standard. To our knowledge, this lower threshold has not been used in any other burn restricting ordinances. The NRC recommendation further adds an additional factor of wind speed which is also unprecedented."

Staff on the other hand:

"Staff believes a more measured approach and collection of air quality data will assist with the establishment of burn/no burn criteria based on the City’s air quality. The data collected will help define the air quality challenges in the City and thus allow for the development of burn/no burn thresholds that target the city’s needs. Staff recommends starting with moderate restrictions, the Federal standard, and then stepping towards a more restrictive ordinance as may be deemed necessary by the results of the data collection."

It is helpful that the staff report includes a chart to show the impact of each regulation:



The bottom line here is that staff's approach is probably the least preferred alternative at this point. The impact to people who have allergies and asthma of wood burning is immeasurable. It is probably a larger percentage of the population than the percentage that makes frequent use of wood burning.

However, what happened was the initial wood burning ban got too far ahead of the public on this issue and there has been considerable blowback over the last four or five months. The result was the need for a more scaled-back approach. Wood burning bans in short need to be slowly phased in and the public needs to be educated on the health hazards involved. That certainly had not occurred in July, which is why we expressed concern at that point in time that the issue had not been properly vetted.

From our perspective, the NRC approach is the better approach than the staff report. It contains the goal of phasing out and banning non-EPA approved devices and has a more stringent measure for no burn days.

However, even with this more scaled back approach, there remains the concern that because it is multifaceted, it will be difficult to enforce. That is not a reason not to pass it, but it does need to be thoroughly examined.

The Vanguard understands the rationale behind the more measured approach, but fears it does not go far enough and is not aggressive enough in terms of dealing with the very real health hazards involved in wood burning.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting