News-Miner Editorial
Hazy information
Borough air-quality study is important step
Published Tuesday, February 26, 2008
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Stumble It!With the possibility of new air-quality rules on the horizon, it’s wise of Fairbanks North Star Borough officials to take a closer look at our local air pollution so they can detail its sources and its makeup.
Due to air-quality readings on certain days and at certain times of the year, Fairbanks could be on a soon-to-be-released list of places that chronically violate health standards developed by the Environmental Protection Agency.
No other city in the country has the same issues with emissions, extreme weather patterns and available fuel sources in such an isolated area, however.
Fairbanks might make the list. But it will hold a unique spot on that list — at least as far as we are concerned. That’s not enough, though. We need to be able to define in specific terms exactly what makes our air quality problems unique.
It’s great that the borough can take advantage of federal grants to study the local air pollution issue, but even if the grants were not available, this would be something worth studying.
We all know the air quality is poor at specific times. Figuring out exactly where the majority of our particulate pollution comes from is a great first step toward figuring out what to do next. Without solid, scientifically documented information, we will find ourselves on loose footing when debating future air-quality measures that seem bound to come.
In addition to providing ammunition to debate regulations, the research also should help us determine the true public benefits to be gained. If we do have a local environmental health issue, then by all means let’s understand what it is — exactly what it is.
Because we know we are unique and because that makes Fairbanksans in general suspicious of broad federal regulations, our own research should tell us the value of meeting federal requirements, or justify some reason that we should be exempt from them.
For example, if oil-burning furnaces and wood-burning stoves are to be regulated, that likely will mean added costs for individual homeowners. Homeowners will not and should not take the prospect of added costs lightly.
In order to debate the issue moving forward, we need something other than poor air quality readings on a few random days of each year. With a little luck, the borough’s research will help guide the discussion to come.
Community Discussion
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'In addition to providing ammunition to debate regulations, the research also should help us determine the true public benefits to be gained. If we do have a local environmental health issue, then by all means let’s understand what it is — exactly what it is.'
This opinion article is ridiculous! What are you trying to say??? 'Ammunition' to debate regulations? Poor air quality is a public health threat, not a boon to the community.
'In order to debate the issue moving forward, we need something other than poor air quality readings on a few random days of each year. With a little luck, the borough’s research will help guide the discussion to come.'
In order to debate what issue moving where???? You say nothing at all here remotely coherent or intelligible.
The days that we violate the particulate matter levels in the winter also happen to be the days that no one in their right mind would be outside more than necessary. I would like to see a comparison to indoor air quality on these days and if there is not a dramatic change then we should tell the feds to take a hike. The particulate matter from summer forest fires is way worse than any winter problems that can be traced back to human causes. A large forest fire consumes more wood in a day than all wood burned for heat does in a year.
"Fairbanks might make the list. But it will hold a unique spot on that list — at least as far as we are concerned."
Who is this mysterious "we" that keeps writing these editorials? If there's a name on their paycheck there should be a name on their piece.
Hopefully someone will put their name on the "supposed" research that is talked about in this article.
Whoever wrote the story is spot on.
Some of the comments here seem too indicate that we violate the emission standards on a regular basis which is far from the truth.
A few days a year due to a weather phenomenon called an inversion, we exceed the limits set by the EPA. When we (the community) start violating the standard consistently throughout the year on a regular basis, then and only then can we really say yes we have a problem and may need to seek out solutions.
Exceeding the standard a few times a year is hardly a dangerous situation threatening the Fairbanks populations overall health. Requiring any stringent measures to prevent the occasionally exceeded limits will likely be onerous, costly, and unenforceable.
During summer months smoke from Forest fires occasionally results in exceeding the limits. There is no need for study to tell us the cause of the exceeded emissions and there certainly isn't a solution either unless you can prevent lightening from starting the fires in the first place.
The trouble with government sponsored studies like this [or septic tanks, too] is these initiatives almost always end up being enacted as a law that attempts to solve the problem by creating a whole new layer of control-freaks who are armed with TICKETBOOKS, TASERS, and GUNS who drive around in a fleet of expensive smog belching exempt enFARCEement vehicles while fleecing the public for billions in fines and penalties into a mazework accounting system...
...it ends up being a giant SCAM for feeding parasites!
Purchasing an air monitoring spectroscope a couple years ago would have cost a few-million-bux-deluxe..
...nowdays they're much cheaper and more plentiful, less than $10thousand.
You can even buy miniature gizmos that plug into your laptop-USB that will detect threshold limits down to 1part per billion.
http://www.photon-control.com/spectrosco...
Heck, there's already college students building flying robots that follow smells as sensitive as a flying bug smells it's mate..
..and the control-freaks are already eager to pay big-bux for these things to be purchased with municipal funds..
ROBOT SCAM!!! ..so they don't have to look you in the eyes when they write you a $5000 ticket.
The Fairbanks Northstar Borough is currently conducting a telephone survey.
The survey ask 2 questions.
1.Do you own a wood stove?
Yes or NO
2.Have you been bothered by smoke in your community?
Never, sometimes, always
Hardly a scientific study but I bet they will attempt to use it as such. It certainly seems to be biased survey/study in that it is already concluding that the wood stoves are the problem by excluding any other suggested sources.
Beware soon your economical source of staying warm will be threatened.
Just for the record, while I have the chimney for a stove, I currently do no have one installed, however should the cost of fuel, the lack of the state to return my revenue left over after funding state services fails to show up, then I most certainly am entertaining the idea of chopping wood, for the economics and for the exercise wrought by the handling of logs and burning it in my home :)
The question boils down to just wanting to find out what is in our air, and then, where did it come from. Sounds reasonable on the surface, since we all breath the air, it would be nice to know what's in it. My problem with the proposal(?) is, fine spend a few million $ to figure it out - and then what? So 50% of particulates are caused by burning Diesel, 10% from woodstoves and 40% from the Aurora Energy plant and the University plant. So that's nice, now how do you go about changing that and to what levels? And by the time you figure that one out (over two or three years) our air quality mix will have changed due to cost of various fuels, technology and transportation vs. heating needs for any given year.
So bottom line, spending money to study a potential health risk is usually a good idea. But with an ever changing set of parameters, if you don't have a plan of how (or why) to implement changes based on the results, the study is nothing more than a waste of time and money. One thing is certain though, we're lucky we don't have the ability to run vehicles on firewood. Burning a half cord of wood to run your 6,000 pound Expedition to Fred's for a 6 pack of beer would likely cause a REAL air quality problem....
I'd like to see all of you who responded so far sit on a panel that would be in power either approve or not approve projects like suggested. Nice to see some common sense.
The suggestion to spend lots of cash to rehash what is common knowlage sounds like a big scam. My guess is the problem is noticed during inversions and primarily caused by combination of drip stoves/oil burners/coal fired plant/cold diesels and wood burners?
Being kind of an outsider looking in(only been up here 3 years), seems like a lot of this kind of stuff going on up here -vs anywhere else in the country. Wonder if were the testing ground for scams?
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