93 lines
5.4 KiB
Plaintext
93 lines
5.4 KiB
Plaintext
"Reno, Nevada. Hazardous smog levels yesterday forced county
|
|
health officials to order a first-ever ban on wood-burning stoves
|
|
and fireplaces that are part of winter home life here. /.../
|
|
The pollution standard index went over 200 at 10 a.m. yesterday
|
|
for the first time since 1983, when the county adopted its
|
|
ordinance authorizing a ban on wood stoves in smog emergencies.
|
|
// Residents had three hours to douse their fires or risk a $300
|
|
fine imposed by health officers who were patrolling for chimney
|
|
smoke. Homes without electric or gas heat are exempt from the
|
|
law." --- Gary E. Swan, San Francisco Chronicle, 20 December
|
|
1985
|
|
|
|
"The wood-burning stove may be a romantic return to the past and
|
|
a cheap way to heat a home, but it is also causing alarming air
|
|
pollution problems. // Although the smoke from one wood stove
|
|
may seem minor, added together millions of stoves each year
|
|
discharge tens of thousands of tons of dangerous particulate
|
|
matter, carbon monoxide and a family of cancer-causing chemicals
|
|
known as polycyclic organic matter. // The concentrated use of
|
|
wood-burning stoves in valleys prone to winter temperature
|
|
inversions has become a major air pollution source in such areas
|
|
as Squaw Valley, Mammoth Lakes and Reno. /.../ Oregon and
|
|
Colorado require new stoves to cut emissions by 75 percent, which
|
|
will also increase their energy efficiency by 50 percent to 70
|
|
percent. /.../ The EPA estimates there are 10 million to 15
|
|
million wood-burning stoves in the United States, most of them
|
|
bought in the frantic oil-crisis years of the 1970s, and 800,000
|
|
to a million new stoves are bought and installed each year.
|
|
/.../ The EPA standards for wood stoves are expected to raise
|
|
the costs of stoves 15 percent to 33 percent. // Most stoves
|
|
will be required to have the same catalytic converters used on
|
|
cars to control engine exhaust." --- Bill Soiffer, San Francisco
|
|
Chronicle, 17 September 1986
|
|
|
|
"Reno. Health officials called a Stage One smog alert yesterday
|
|
as the pollution standard index hit a dangerously high 208. //
|
|
A Stage One alert means a ban on all wood-burning stoves. Owners
|
|
of the stoves were given until 10 a.m. to extinguish their fires.
|
|
Failure to do so is punishable by a fine." --- San Francisco
|
|
Chronicle, 17 December 1986 (AP)
|
|
|
|
"In Vail, the air sometimes takes on a foggy quality that can
|
|
burn the eyes, stab the throat and make a walk up the steps an
|
|
ordeal. In Aspen, the haze from 6,000 wood stoves and fireplaces
|
|
can get so bad that skiers perched on mountainside ski lifts
|
|
can't see the town below. /.../ A major culprit is wood smoke,
|
|
a pollutant not much different from automobile or industrial
|
|
emissions that also plagues quite a few towns in New England and
|
|
the Pacific Northwest. // According to Colorado State
|
|
University researchers, the problem is worsening statewide, even
|
|
though many towns and cities now ban wood burning on high-
|
|
pollution days. It's estimated that 60 percent of all Coloradans
|
|
burn wood in fireplaces or stoves for fun, not for heat -- a fact
|
|
that rankles officials trying to tackle the problem. /.../
|
|
'People will call us to complain that they're running into the
|
|
same kind of haze that they left behind them when they went on
|
|
vacation,' said Lee Cassin, the environmental health officer in
|
|
Aspen. /.../ Telluride, a town of 1,000 residents 8,700 feet
|
|
above sea level, last counted 550 wood stoves and fireplaces.
|
|
Since a strict ban on fireplaces in new condominiums went into
|
|
effect, old permits are reportedly changing hands for as much as
|
|
$1,000 a pop. /.../ In Aspen, which passed its first wood-
|
|
burning regulations in 1977, only one fireplace or wood stove can
|
|
be installed in newly constructed buildings. /.../ 'The
|
|
managers of most short-term rental units are reluctant to tell
|
|
their guests not to start a fire when they're paying $500 a night
|
|
to stay there,' Cassin said. /.../ At the federal government's
|
|
urging, Denver -- which usually sees 10 to 15 high-pollution days
|
|
each winter -- may make cleaner-burning gasolines mandatory next
|
|
winter. And by the end of this month, more than 1 million of the
|
|
1.5 million metro-area residents will be living in communities
|
|
that ban wood burning on high-pollution days -- thought to be the
|
|
largest such regional effort in the United States." --- Bob
|
|
Diddlebock, San Francisco Examiner, 21 December 1986
|
|
|
|
"Where there's smoke, there's hydrocarbon. Scientists who took
|
|
wintertime air samples in Albuquerque, N.M., say most airborne
|
|
pollutants floated from burning wood, but emissions from motor
|
|
vehicles were the more potent health hazard. // The study
|
|
showed that 78 percent of the extractable organic matter, or
|
|
hydrocarbon, was generated from wood stoves and fireplaces.
|
|
However, the smoke accounted for only 58 percent of the air's
|
|
mutagenicity. Pollution from motor vehicle exhaust was three
|
|
times as mutagenic as wood smoke, the researchers report in the
|
|
August [issue of] Environmental Science and Technology." ---
|
|
Laura Beil, Science News 134(7):102, 13 August 1988
|
|
|
|
So go out and shoot three cars, then come home and light a log.
|
|
|
|
- Larry
|
|
|
|
|