DARRINGTON – Darrington residents breathe some of the cleanest air around in the summer, but when cold weather settles in so does the smoke from wood stoves.
The mountain town’s air quality plummets each winter, becoming on some days the most-polluted air of any city monitored by the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency in a four-county region. Kevin Nortz / The Herald
In response, the agency, in conjunction with town officials and the local Hampton Lumber mill, developed a pilot program to pay residents as much as $2,500 to exchange their wood-burning stoves for cleaner furnaces powered by propane, oil or electricity.
Lesser incentives also are available for switching to wood-pellet stoves or more-efficient, air-tight wood stoves.
If successful, the agency could end up trying the incentive-based program elsewhere in Snohomish, King, Pierce and Kitsap counties, said Amy Fowler, an air resource specialist for the agency.
“There have been a lot of wood-stove change-out programs, but they have all been structured as rebate programs,” typically allowing retailers to offer discounts of $50 to $250 for cleaner heaters, Fowler said. “This is the first one that I know of in the state that is an upfront incentive program.”
She cautioned that the generous incentives available in Darrington might not end up being the norm later. The agency has committed $95,000, with another $20,000 offered by Hampton Lumber mill as mitigation for a wood-waste burning steam and electricity plant the mill is planning to build.
“If it’s appropriate, if it pencils out, we could go back to our board and say, ‘How many communities do we want to do this for?’ ” Fowler said.
Plans to use the mill’s wood waste to generate electricity were the original inspiration last year for people in town to ask the clean-air agency to monitor Darrington’s air quality. Some residents opposed allowing a new smokestack at the mill that could further foul the air.
In September 2004, the agency installed monitoring equipment at the high school.
One year later, the results show that Darrington had more fine particles in the air than even the urban places the agency monitors, Fowler said.
Typically, wood burning and diesel emissions are two main sources of fine particles.
Fine particles and other contaminants in wood smoke can cause respiratory illnesses and cancer, according to information from the University of Washington’s School of Public Health and Community Medicine.
For the project to succeed, the agency will need to overcome some skepticism in town.
Like many in town, Roy Morgan, 67, has been heating his home with wood since he first moved to Darrington from Waynesville, N.C., in 1958.
“With the price of gas going up, I don’t think people are going to switch to gas,” Morgan said. “If you buy (wood), you can get it for about $125 to $150 a cord. A cord of wood will last you quite a while.”
Despite that economic hurdle, Fowler said some are interested.
The clean air agency set up an information booth in town earlier this month, and more than 150 residents asked about the program, Fowler said.
So far, about 10 people have turned in applications at City Hall, said City Clerk Lyla Boyd, but she expects that number to increase, based on the inquiries.
Dan Rankin, a town councilman who supported installing the monitors, said the project is not meant to point fingers at people with wood stoves.
“There was a lot of sentiment I heard that ‘You guys are going to ban’ ” wood burning, Rankin said. “Our intention is not to do that. Our intention is to educate and to help people financially to do a better thing.”
Fowler agreed and said much of Darrington’s problem its the topography. The town sits in a bowl surrounded by mountains, so the smoke does not dissipate easily.
“You get a warm air mass that traps the cold air, kind of like a lid on a pot,” Fowler said.
Most of the agency’s monitoring equipment is in less-mountainous terrain, she said.
“I would imagine if we put a monitor in other mountain valley communities where wood stoves are a primary source of heating, we would probably see similar numbers,” Fowler said.
The potential exists for the federal Environmental Protection Agency to impose mandatory reductions if the town resists the voluntary approach, according to a fact sheet from the regional clean air agency.
Even so, federal regulators from the EPA support the incentive program and have not indicated any intention to crack down, Fowler said.
The money available could end up replacing 50 or 60 stoves in town, depending on the options people choose.
Vouchers to pay for the exchange will start to go out as soon as next week, Rankin said.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
