Borough objects to federal air pollution timetable
Published Friday, September 26, 2008
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Stumble It!FAIRBANKS — Public officials this week continued their push to convince the federal government to wait before deciding where Fairbanks should apply impending air pollution-prevention rules.
The Environmental Protection Agency is set to draw pollution-prevention maps in December. The mapping is part of a process that will require local officials to clamp down on one type of air pollution, called fine particulate pollution, in a few years.
The Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly on Thursday formally asked the agency to postpone the mapping process for one year while local air-quality specialists study the wintertime pollution, which hits Fairbanks harder than all but a handful of communities in Alaska and other Pacific Northwest states.
The Fairbanks City Council, the borough’s Air Pollution Control Commission and a local transportation board have all made similar requests over the past two weeks. The groups backed their messages by noting air-quality specialists are only halfway through a $2.6 million study aimed at figuring out exactly where the pollution comes from, information they suggest is needed to draft effective pollution-prevention maps and rules.
The pollution comes from inefficient combustion and consists of airborne particles of soot and dust. Beyond that, public officials are still learning where in Fairbanks it comes from.
“The sad thing is, we really don’t know,” Tammie Wilson, a member of the commission, told assembly members Thursday. Wilson, who is also running unopposed for a Borough Assembly seat, suggested the problem could eventually spill into efforts to build a long-discussed, cross-continental natural gas pipeline, which could cut through Fairbanks.
The agency’s proposed pollution-prevention boundaries fall well outside those recommended by state and local officials and would incorporate small communities like Two Rivers, Ester and Salcha.
Golf club proposal
The Borough Assembly rejected on Thursday a landowner’s request to prepare property behind the Fairbanks Golf & Country Club for new homes.
Stutzmann Engineering, a contractor working for the club’s owners, had sought to rezone 65 acres and apply a land-use designation that would open the door for subdivisions.
Neighbors of the club, which sits just south of Farmers Loop, balked at the proposal, calling the land too wet to support new construction.
The Borough Assembly unanimously backed the recommendation of public planners, who had asked public officials to deny the group’s request.
Community Discussion
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Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly
Fairbanks City Council
Borough’s Air Pollution Control Commission
“The sad thing is, we really don’t know,” Tammie Wilson, a member of the commission, told assembly members Thursday. Wilson, who is also running unopposed for a Borough Assembly seat, suggested the problem could eventually spill into efforts to build a long-discussed, cross-continental natural gas pipeline, which could cut through Fairbanks.
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Remember every one of these people when you vote. And vote them out... For losing us the cross-continental natural gas pipeline, which could cut through Fairbanks.
Thier excuses don't apply to fed laws. EPA among other fed departments will get us again because of those who ignore laws for years. The laws are very clear on what must be achieved & when & if not what happens. For any who are running unopposed just don't vote on them. Let them get zero votes.
I'm beginning to think there are more crooked, dishonest, unscrupulous, fraudulent elected people in the Borough than are in DC.
But that's just my thoughts...
The number of dirty (non-certified) wood stoves being installed all around the FNSB will destroy our air quality in this, and future, winters.
Some will save money by using wood stoves, but what about the folks who get lung cancer, or have heart attacks as a direct result of our foul air? There is no free ride.
Crisis management is the way we do things up here, but couldn't some bright person make an effort to ensure we had standards for wood stoves, BEFORE the damage to our air quality occurs?
The air quality issues here are nothing like what it was back in the sixties. Untill we have a clean source of inexpencive fuel for heating we will have the same problems with EPA. It seems like we have so many people in the interior that are just hanging on and are using what they can to stay warm. Converting to natural gas is the best answere. The Susitna Dam is not realistic or possible in the forseable future. We should be focusing on the Feds to impliment and expidite a natural gas distribution system. And we should also be focusing on the Feds to obtain a subsidized source of natural gas for all the Interior of Alaska. Something else, as long as we have the power plant on 1st ave, the power plant for the University and the military power plants all burning coal it would seem logical to me we will have particulat issues there also. So then would it make sence for the local power plants to be converted or moved?
There is a solution to both pollution and energy cost problems in the interior that will help more than just the core of the Fairbanks area. The state owns vast reserves of natural gas on the slope. The oil companies routinely flare off a tremendous amount of it. Build a large combined cycle gas turbine/steam power plant on the slope and fuel it with the gas we already own, and which is now wasted. Run a powerline down the already existing and cleared haul road right of way. With the state providing the fuel that they usually allow the oil companies to waste from flare stacks, electricity could be generated at rates that would make electric heating a viable option. Also, once a backbone line is in place, lines could be run to some of the smaller communities in the northern interior that now rely on very expensive diesel generation for power. There is no net gain in emissions up north as the flares now use more than enough fuel to drive a large plant. There would be less thermal emission from a combined cycle plant than from a flare stack. Reasonably priced electric heat would knock down pollution levels in the Fairbanks area. The only difficult part of this is that it would require that the people who run this state actually do something for the citizens.
Show me one single fact to support the statement that we are all going to get lung cancer because of wood burning. There is no chance that winter wood burning could create air that is half as bad as what we experience when there are forest fires burning in the summer. One major piece of commonsense that is missing is that indoor air quality is less affected by particulate pollution.
If I remember right the instructions from federal and borough officials during the forest fires was to try and stay indoors and keep your windows shut. This should be pretty easy to implement when it is -40 outside. If someone has a documented problem from wood smoke, close your window and if you still have a problem stop by walmart and pick up a $40 indoor air filter. The borough could buy a lot of those for $2.6 million, 65,000 of them to be exact. The problem is not people trying to stay warm by affordable means.
The EPA doesn't have the authority to implement this program. They will only be able to do it because of local governments not will to fight it. The FNSB assembly needs to get some backbone, and take this to court. There are tens of thousands of people that use wood heating in the Fairbanks area, a large percentage of which can't afford otherwise. This policy will affect (read: oppress) the poor the most (just like the IM policy, but worse). It will cost us all tens of millions of dollars.
I'd rather the mill rate be raised to pay for lawyers, than us rolling over to the Feds overstepping their boundaries.
Mr. Eshleman, well done on failing to relate the rest of the events at last night's assembly meeting. Did you run out of time, or was there not room in the paper? If it is the latter, perhaps the News-Miner should consider printing fewer of those redundant "letters to the editor."
Wood pellets are almost emission free. Southeastern is building a pellet plant so people there will have a cheap, renewable, low cost, 98% emission free source of heat. Three applications are sitting in DNR for the Interior. DNR is refusing to act on them. Pellets can be burned in a pellet or regular wood stove. Anyone really think local government is looking for solutions.
Why is that the EPA does not stand up and do what is right for the country AND us? They should ban Chinese imports that litter our environment and occupy to much space in our landfills, and the production of which creates mucho bad air that falls on our heads here and all over North America.
Well...
That is just about as likely as shutting down peoples woodstoves around here... It would be foolish to enter the bears den, and that is where they would find themselves. Locally, it would not be a very desirable position to be in, to find oneself tasked to go forward with prosecuting this effort.
I will comment on the refusal of the assembly to rezone 65 acres. The justification is that "neighbors" said it was to wet to build on. I have seen other areas rezoned over the objections of neighbors who said it was to wet to build on.
Of course these people didn't live next to a golf course because they don't have the money. I wonder if there is a connection there.
The borough should have sought expert advice on whether it was to wet other than the opinion of people of political influence.
Maybe if we paid the teachers more that would vent some of the hot air and take the waste particles with it ...lol.
All joking aside … what we really need is to study it more and have better IM testing … that has really worked well over the past 20 years so far … lol.
Get rid of the EPA...junk regulations...While I'm at it....Get rid of the ACLU, the UN. Who is controling your life today?
Maybe we can just wait for Global warming......Fairbanks might turn in to Hawaii of the North and then the EPA will be after our air conditioners.............
Fairbanksgas. Normally you do your homework, but on this issue you've blown it.
First, the idea that we should all go into our homes in the winter and turn on air filters has a huge flaw.
Care to guess what it is?
In the winter people still like to go outside, to exercise, to go to work, to shop for food... Are you suggesting that we all stay in our homes for six months? Come on. When people go outside they still need to breath.
http://www.burningissues.org/health-effe...
As far as the hazards of wood smoke go, they are extraordinarily well documented, visit the link above and the research will scare the hell out of you.
I've had two friends from this town die horrible deaths of lung cancer- it is truly a miserable way to go- one friend was only in his 40's and left behind small kids... To avoid the chance that more of us will die like this, we need to look at all the available research that reveals what our exposure to wood smoke will do to our health.
Having all the new wood stoves installed in a community of 90,000 people is not a viable plan. What might have worked 50 years ago when we only had a few thousand people living here is not going to work with our present population density.
"Smoke equals ultra fine particulates. Much of the following research pertains to all fine particulates (also known as PM2.5). PM2.5 is primarily created by combustion."
"Wood smoke is more damaging than tobacco smoke."
"While wood smoke is similar to second hand tobacco smoke, research findings indicate that second hand wood smoke has potentially an even greater ability to damage your health and the health of your family and loved ones."- http://www.burningissues.org/ws-more-dam...
The EPA and FNSB air polution people are searching for a reason to continue fleecing the tax paying public of their hard earned dollars. If they both just went a way would anyone notice?
If I am going to die from wood smoke induced lung cancer then it's going to be from brand new wood smoke and not some second hand rebreathed stuff.
I did read somewhere that the polar regions of the planet collect fine particulates that are constanly pushed into the atmosphere by volcanic erruptions, wind storms, and wildfires. Tracking their origins isn't and easy task, but assigning blame to the recepients will remain simple. We have dirty air because this is one of the areas where jet streams dump their loads.
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