Residential Wood Smoke Reduction Program
Tribal Air Work Plan Objective: To design and implement asustainable program to reduce emissions from residential wood burning and improve ambient and indoor air quality; mitigate the negative health effects of wood smoke exposure for community residents; and contribute to area compliance with Clean Air Act requirements.
Activities/Tasks:
  • Hire new or assign existing staff and acquire training as needed in education and outreach, wood-burning appliance design and use, relevanttribal, federal, state and local air quality regulations, emissions inventories and air monitoring, as needed.
  • Develop a project plan including overall goals, project timeline, specific tasks and potential partners.
  • Set specific goals such as the number of residents educated on clean burning; the number of wood burning units replaced or eliminated; improvement in air quality; and reduction in occurrence of treatment for smoke-related illnesses.
  • Establish a baseline assessment of wood burning in the community.
  • Survey residents, hearth retailers, chimney sweeps, firewood vendors and firewood permitting entities to estimate the number of wood-burning households and amount of wood used on the reservation.
  • Record air monitoring measurements of particulate levels.
  • Conduct an emissions inventory and use the EPA Wood Stove and Fireplace Changeout Emissions Calculator to quantify emissions from wood burning.
  • Quantify the health impacts of wood smoke by assessing the level of related health conditions within the community; identify the opportunities for collaboration with healthcare providers in making these evaluations.
  • Conduct an education and outreach program to inform residents of the health effects of wood smoke and the options available for home heating such as more efficient wood burning appliances and fireplaces, the most effective seasoning and burn practices forcord wood, and alternative fuels such as compressed wood products and propane or natural gas. Emphasize the potential cost savings of using properly seasoned firewood.
  • Enlist the support of leaders and elders through presentations to tribal councils centered on clean burning and wood stove change out programs.
  • Supply healthcarepartnerswith literature, posters, informationand training to be used to inform patients of the detrimental health effects of wood smoke.
  • Offer workshops to housing departments and residential services staff on minimizing the impacts of wood heaters on indoor air quality.
  • Distribute BurnWise materials which can be tailored to each specific tribe at community gatherings, fairs, open houses, farmers’ markets, school functions, home shows and other events. Use free snacks and giveaways to build interest.
  • Offer and promote workshops on how to build woodsheds, stack and store firewood, build and start a fire, use a moisture meter, increase the life of the appliance and make the fuel last longer and burn hotter.
  • Give outreach presentations in schools to teach students about the relationship between air quality and health effects such as asthma, bronchitis and heart and lung disease.
  • Work with local fire departments, chimney maintenance, hearth retailers, wood sources and insurance companies to educate residents on how to maintain and operate stoves safely.
  • Mail BurnWise literature with firewood collection and burn permits where applicable.
  • Make educational materials on how to season and store wood available through firewood sources (USFS, state DNRs, tribal forest management departments, and firewood vendors).
  • Use advertising when possible—buses, billboards, newspapers, TV and radio PSAs.
  • Publicize air quality forecasts and reports through news media, social media, reverse 911, text alerts and Enviroflash if available for the area.
  • Create programs to enable use of properly seasoned cord wood.
  • Enlist community service organizations and tribal support groups to furnish woodsheds and organize wood banking reserves from which to supply elders and those in need with high quality wood.
  • Operatea wood exchange program with a facility for intake of green wood in return for a limited amount of seasoned wood.
  • Supply elders and very low income tribal members with low or no cost wood pellets, pressed wood logs or seasoned cord wood through the tribal LIHEAP coordinator.
  • Initiate a wood stove andfireplace insertchange out program to install clean-burning, high efficiency EPA certified heaters, with removal and destruction of old, inefficient, smoky units.
  • Identify potential partners: local elected officials; Hearth, Patio and Barbecue Association (HPBA) and vendors;American Lung Association (ALA); Chimney Safety Institute of America (CSIA); Alliance for Green Heat; state energy, environmental and air quality agencies; environmental non-profit organizations; Indian Health Service and tribal health clinics,and others.
  • Identify and solicit sources of funding.
  • Industry vouchers and discounts.
  • Federal, state and local tax credits.
  • PACE loans repaid through property tax assessments.
  • Federal programs: DOE low-income weatherization program; DHHS LIHEAP; USDA low-income/elderly loan and grant programs; USDA Rural Community Development Initiative; HUD Rural Housing, Economic Development and block grants; federal and state SEP and mitigation projects; EPA Tribal Air Quality, Clean Air Act, emissions offsets, RARE and STAR grants.
  • Regional Clean Air Agencies
  • Utility and energy company incentives.
  • Low-interest loans from state and local programs.
  • Loan programs through third party financial institutions.
  • Congressional earmarks.
  • Tribal funds.
  • Provide subsidies for replacement of old wood burning units with EPA certified wood or pellet stoves,fireplace inserts and Phase 2 retrofit devices, or Phase 2 wood boilers.
  • Pay a bounty on old heaters turned in to be scrapped and destroyed.
  • Provide no-cost upgrades of wood heaters for elderly and low-income tribal members.
  • Institute a regulatory wood smoke curtailment system.
  • Restrict or ban wood burning when air quality is poor or forecasted to be poor.
  • Require that non-certified wood heaters be removed and destroyedwhen ownership of a home changes.
  • Restrict wood heaters and fireplaces in new construction to only EPA certified units; consider a permitting program for wood heating.
  • Place limits on visible emissions or plume opacity, enforced by warnings and fines.
  • Ban all use of uncertified wood stoves and fireplace inserts.
  • Prohibit sale, transfer or installation of uncertified stoves and inserts.

Work Plan Results:
  • Possible Outputs:
  • Report compiled frompost-program surveys evaluating the number of residents educated on and regularly using clean burning practices.
  • Report of the number of partners convened to work together on wood smoke reduction.
  • Report of the number of wood stoves, wood heaters, fireplaces and outdoor wood-fired boilers changed out, scrapped and destroyed or converted.
  • Reports from follow up visits to households with new stoves.
  • Comparison of ambient and indoor air quality measurements before and after a changeout campaign is completed.
  • Comparison of healthcare provider visits due to wood smoke-related illnesses prior to and in the years following the campaign.
  • Evaluation of goals listed in the project plan versus results of the campaign.
  • Documentation of project’s success to be provided to funding sources.
  • Possible Outcomes:
  • Reduction of indoor and outdoor particulate levels.
  • Reduction of occurrence of asthma and other health impacts of wood smoke.
  • Improvement in visibility.
  • Reduction in the number of chimney fires.
  • Reduction of visible smoke reports on burn curtailment days.
  • Reduction in total volume of wood burned community-wide.

Acronyms—

EPA: US Environmental Protection Agency

USFS: US Forest Service

DNR: Department of Natural Resources or equivalent

PSA: Public Service Announcement

PACE: Property Assessed Clean Energy

DOE: Department of Energy

DHHS: US Department of Health and Human Services

LIHEAP: Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program

USDA: US Department of Agriculture

HUD: US Department of Housing and Urban Development

SEP: Supplemental Environmental Project

RARE: Regional Applied Research Effort

STAR: Science to Achieve Results

Sources and resources:

EPA BurnWise Program:

Strategies to Reduce Residential Wood Smoke:

Process for Implementing a Wood Stove Changeout Program:

Financing options:

Emissions calculator:

HBPA Wood Stove Changeout:

Testing moisture content of firewood:

Contacts:

EPA OAQPS BurnWise—Leigh Herrington,

EPA R10 Tribal Air Quality Specialist—Erin McTigue,

EPA R10 Federal Air Rules for Reservations support—Steve Scott,