Community Perspective
Air quality must be improved
Published Sunday, October 4, 2009
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Stumble It!A hot issue on the upcoming ballot concerns the looming fine particulate air quality problem. The draft ordinance — introduced by the mayor’s office last month but shelved by the Borough Assembly in response to public outcry over strict wood smoke regulations — is not on the ballot. Neither is any option of complying with the Environmental Protection Agency’s standards for particulate matter smaller than 2.5 microns. This is federal law and non-negotiable. The question then, is not if we will have PM2.5 regulations, or how they will be determined, but who will take the lead role in developing those regulations; the borough or the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
So, let’s put aside the issues of whether our wood stoves will be taken away, and focus on who we want to making the decisions about them. A recent ad hoc committee comprised of various members of the community, including Interior Wood Burners Association, the Northern Alaska Environmental Center, Cold Climate Housing Research Center, energy experts, wood stove and pellet vendors and the borough air quality department, convened to discuss the merits of state versus local control. Interestingly, of the 13 people in the group, 12 heated their homes entirely or in part with wood. The committee’s report, which compares arguments for state versus local control, is available on the Web sites of the above named organizations, and as a handout at CCHRC and the Northern Center.
Having been part of that committee, I would like to make a case for local control of this process.
First, the borough is under a time constraint; we must have an EPA-approved plan in place by 2012, and be in compliance with its regulations by 2014. Currently, the borough has staff already dedicated to the PM2.5 problem, it has the equipment and manpower to measure and monitor PM2.5 and it has funds available for monitoring, voluntary change-out programs and tax credits. Because all this is in place, the borough could begin work immediately to develop measures to come into compliance. On the other hand, DEC has no funds appropriated and no staff for any such programs. It would most likely require a year in which to get ramped up to tackle the job.
Second, DEC has been very pleased with the borough’s vehicle inspection and maintenance program addressing carbon monoxide, a locally run program so successful over the years that it has eliminated the need for itself. In a letter to the mayor, the DEC air quality director indicated she expected the borough would prefer to take the lead role on this matter.
Third, DEC can set regulations without going through review by the Legislature, leaving few options for public input. With a limited staff competing against all other areas of the state for funds, DEC will very likely make regulations that are mandatory and easy to enforce (such as prohibiting all wood burning during the coldest months), with very little regard to our local situation. If the borough maintains control over the process, residents will have much greater access to assembly members and other policy makers to influence the outcome in a manner more suited to our local needs and desires.
Fourth, DEC is concerned with statewide policies, whereas the borough has a much narrower focus, receptive and responsible to its residents. Our assembly members all live here, many are wood-burners themselves. They understand our local problems and concerns, they are always accessible and three are elected each year. For example, after several years of joint discussions about a wood stove change-out rebate program, DEC had come up with $100,000 (which has since been withdrawn from the table) for the program, whereas the borough has procured twelve times that amount, and secured permission from the state the ability to provide municipal tax credits of $2 million per year for participants.
Fifth, by having a local program we leverage other local involvement by the University of Alaska Fairbanks and CCHRC, for example, that would not likely happen were it not for grants brought in by the borough. CCHRC gets grants to study these issues. If the borough is out of the loop, CCHRC has no incentive to get grant money, and the local research does not get done.
Finally, it is our health problem and we ought to take the lead in solving it. Local control is most likely to result in a program that fits this community, that works effectively at the least cost and inconvenience to our borough residents.
I urge you to vote “yes” on the borough’s ballot Proposition B.
Karl Monetti, a Fairbanks area resident for 38 years, is a retired veterinarian from North Pole who burns wood for heat.
Community Discussion
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I repeat, DEC already has dead weight on the payroll that can take this over. Borough employees should do what they are authorized to do in the charter, not think up new ways to spend our money.
Bottom line the borough does not have knowledgable and trust worthy people to implement a plan that would be in the best interests of residents. With the IM program going away their is an obvious conflict of interest of borough air quality staff.
We don't need "bus drivers & mechanics" telling us they know how to run a "clean air" program better that the experts on the State payroll. Our local employees have already showed us they know nothing of the real problem by demanding we control or do away the woods stoves in this Borough first before actually studying the problems. VOTE FOR STATE CONTROL NEXT TUESDAY!
If all that are anal about air quality would stop using all fossil fuels, we wouldn't have an issue. Come on liberals,..help us out will ya,..quit driving and walk,..you may even save a polar bear or two.
sisu
"We don't need "bus drivers & mechanics" telling us they know how to run a "clean air" program better that the experts on the State payroll."
It's not about that. It's about those bus drivers and mechanics having a voice. As is always the case, the one-size-fits-all policies dictated by bureaucracies half a world away from us by people who have never been here, will never be here, and are incapable of conceiving the realities of life here...as different from their own as is life in Kazakhstan...make no sense for us. We need not roll over for every royal decree handed down from Mount D.C.. What we need are politicians and policies that put Washington on notice, and back in its place...collecting taxes, and operating a national military.
allhaileris: No one in the State Government has the "will" to stand up to the Fed's. The Fed's have never taker Highway Funds from any state,
even when certain states refused to impose the 55mph speed limit as
the Fed's required. We need folks in the Capital to stand up for State's Rights. But none will or ever will, no guts, plain & simple!
No, I will not put aside the wood stove issue to decide who'll manage this farce.
It's transparently poor "science", biased, and uncorroborated by independent study. Therefore, this shouldn't even be on the ballot.
As it stands, it shouldn't be there anyway. A choice between "A" and "A" isn't a choice. And, as others have mentioned, it seems pretty stupid to insist on this...meanwhile, we're going to do away with the I/M program.
Sorry, way too much of this issue doesn't stand up to close scrutiny. Therefore, I choose "C": Take your "air quality" issue back to the drawing board and come up with justifiable grounds for the voters to even entertain this stupid notion.
Blah Blah Blah....
NO ONE cares about air quality in this town. Period. If you did, there'd be NO SMOKING INDOORS! Wake up people and think about where the real damage is being done to your lungs.
D.E.C sure didn't give a crap about our health when we were working out in the ash and smoke this summer....
and how is the state or the borough gonna regulate and tax wildfires that really mess people up !?!?!?!
or hey send god a bill because we have wayyyy too much ice fog!
the things that most people can fix with a law won't work in fairbanks...because we are surrounded by hills we live in a bowl and all the crap settles in the bottom of it
mass civil disobedience. what are the feds going to do? invade? have ft. wainwright send out soldiers to stand guard in your living room so that you don't pollute the air too much? so they take away some highway money. i have been hearing a lot of how people think alaska is too dependant on the federal money teat. maybe it's time to wean ourselves off of that. i'm willing to start suffering some consequences in trade for freedom. let the highways and roads all revert to gravel if we have to. if you don't like the temperature inversion layers in the dark of winter and the effects it has on air conditions you are free to move to nenana or delta junction. i'm thinking about it. not because of the air quality problem (which doesn't bother me in the least) but because of these environwackos trying to run every one elses life for them.
Basically the ballot was written like this, "Who do you want when it comes to kicking you in the face, the State, or the Borough?" As opposed to "do you want to get kicked in the face?" Most of the problem is our government, City, Borough, State and Federal.
If the Bourough can fine us for our wood burning stoves let's have the Borough fine the state for letting the wildfires burn out of control. Smoke so thick you can't see through it is a health hazzard I'm sure.
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