10 States Plan to Sue EPA Over Emissions Standards for Residential Wood-Burning Stoves

A Riteway wood stove in Palmer, Alaska, on Jan. 23, 2018. (Loren Holmes/Anchorage Daily News via AP)

Attorneys general in 10 states intend to sue the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over the federal agency’s failure to update wood stove emission standards.

The states involved are Alaska, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington, as well as the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency.

In a notice of intent to sue (pdf) sent to the EPA, the attorneys general say the EPA has failed to review and ensure emissions standards for residential wood-burning stoves, despite its requirements to do so every eight years under the Clean Air Act.

This has allowed the continued sale of appliances that could worsen pollution, they said.

Programs that encourage people to trade in older stoves and other wood-burning appliances, such as forced-air furnaces, haven’t necessarily improved air quality, the states say.

“If newer wood heaters do not meet cleaner standards, then programs to change out old wood heaters may provide little health benefits at significant public cost,” the states wrote.

The states argued that the EPA’s current standards must be reviewed. They also cited a February report from the EPA’s own Office of Inspector General that describes the EPA’s residential wood heater program as ineffective and “puts human health and the environment at risk for exposure to dangerous fine-particulate-matter pollution.”

The agency supports programs aimed at replacing older, dirtier wood heaters with newer, cleaner models and distributed about $82 million in grants for residential exchanges between fiscal years 2015 and 2021, the report said.

The report also noted that about 39 percent of households in the Fairbanks North Star Borough, in Alaska’s Interior, use wood-fired heaters in the winter, when temperatures can plunge well below zero degrees Fahrenheit (minus 18 degrees Celsius). The area is susceptible to inversions that trap layers of cold air close to the ground, which in turn trap pollution for days or weeks at a time.

Wood Smoke a Prime Polluter

“Wood smoke contributes 80 to 90 percent of the air quality problem in Fairbanks and North Pole,” Jason Brune, commissioner of the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, said in a statement.

“This lawsuit is one way Alaska is making sure EPA holds itself to the same standard they are holding us,” he added.

This is the second time states have sued the EPA over its failure to audit residential wood stoves since 1988, when the agency first issued standards regulating their emissions.

In 2013, seven states and the Puget Sound Clear Air Agency sued the EPA for failing to update the wood stoves emissions standards from those set 25 years earlier.

New York City officials have come under fire in recent days for their proposal to curtail the use of wood- and coal-fired ovens that are used in many restaurants and pizzerias in the city.

The New York City Department of Environmental Protection’s new proposal would require eateries using coal- and wood-fired ovens to cut carbon emissions by up to 75 percent.

“All New Yorkers deserve to breathe healthy air and wood and coal-fired stoves are among the largest contributors of harmful pollutants in neighborhoods with poor air quality,” Ted Timbers, a spokesperson from the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), said in a statement on July 2, according to a June 25 report by the New York Post. “This common-sense rule, developed with restaurant and environmental justice groups, requires a professional review of whether installing emission controls is feasible.”

The DEP’s new policy will require restaurants with wood or coal ovens to hire an architect or engineer to conduct a feasibility report about installing emission control devices to achieve the targets.

Naveen Athrappully and The Associated Press contributed to this report.