Board to regulate wood heaters

After the Chico City Council recommended that the Butte County Air Quality Management District make its no-burn days mandatory beginning next winter, the AQMD’s Board of Governors bit the bullet on Thursday (Feb. 26) and asked staff to come up with proposed regulations. The board had earlier punted the matter to the council.

At issue was the use of wood-burning heaters and fireplaces on poor air-quality days in the Chico urban area. The particulate matter in wood smoke is a serious public-health danger, and ultimately—because of pressure from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency—the AQMD had little choice. The regulations will apply to the Chico area because pollution levels are highest there.

EPA-certified stoves and homes without gas heaters will be exempt.

Although it wasn’t mentioned at the time, the decision came just two days after California Attorney General Jerry Brown announced that the state, along with 18 other states, had prevailed in a Washington, D.C., circuit court in its suit against EPA standards for fine particulate matter. The inevitable result will be even tighter standards, as the City Council recommended.

The board also decided to move forward on setting up development impact fees for air pollution to create a source of funding to subsidize the replacement of old wood heaters.