The House Resources Committee heard testimony on Monday about the air quality in the Fairbanks North Star Borough nonattainment area as a group of representatives offered support for a joint resolution.
House Joint Resolution 11, sponsored by Reps. Will Stapp, Ashley Carrick, Maxine Dibert, Frank Tomaszewski, Mike Prax, Mike Cronk and nine other state representatives, is urging the Environmental Protection Agency to develop a proper wood stove certification program.
The resolution also asks the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation “to develop an economically and legally defensible state implementation plan.
“The wood stove certification program has been a bone of contention, with state officials noting the EPA’s current list contained models that emitted as much PM2.5 pollution as older models.
“The Environmental Protection Agency seems intent on turning attention toward so-called greener sources of heat, including electric heat pumps that will not work as solutions in the Fairbanks North Star Borough,” reads a sponsor from Stapp, the resolution’s chief sponsor.
While the EPA acknowledged Alaska and grant-sponsored borough programs have helped reduce pollution over the last decade, it’s not enough.
The EPA issued a proposed partial disapproval/partial approval of Alaska’s Serious State Implementation Plan in January. The Serious SIP is the state’s proposed action to address the Fairbanks/North Pole particulate matter (PM2.5) pollution.
The FNSB has some of the worst wintertime air pollution in the nation, driven largely by the use of wood stoves as a heating source during the cold months. The area’s natural inversion, where a layer of cold air is trapped below a layer of warmer air, compounds the situation since it traps air pollution and prevents it from being dispersed.
The federal agency proposes to reject components because the state failed to support conclusions that emission controls for coal and oil-fired plants are economically and/or technologically infeasible; did not recommend control strategies for commercial, industrial and residential heating sources such as ultra-low sulfur diesel (ULSD); or did not adopt adequate contingency measures, among other items.
Some of the proposed actions include having the state identify, adopt and implement technologically and economically feasible control measures on sources of sulfur dioxide for five power plants in the nonattainment area and push for oil-based heating solutions to switch from Heating Oil No. 1 to ULSD, which has 97% less sulfur emission levels.
“Overall these types of implementations would have a crushing impact on our local economy,” Stapp said during Monday’s committee hearing. “Fairbanks will not be a community most of us could live in.”
Stapp added residents have already seen a spike in expenses when the state mandated a switch from Heating Oil No. 2 in September.
“It is already difficult for [consumers] to stomach the increase in prices,” Stapp said.
Stapp said his resolution’s second request — for DEC to develop a sustainable, economical and legally defensible air quality plan — is intended to ensure the “state can lock arms and defend the Interior.”
Alaska DEC officials have stood by its plan and stated it will provide updated data backing the information it provided. Several other stakeholders have come out against the proposed EPA action, including the entire Interior Delegation.
Nick Czarnecki, with DEC Air Quality Division, agreed with Stapp’s position on the EPA’s wood stove certification program.
“The EPA has provided us with a broken tool and proposed to penalize us by taking away federal highway funds,” Czarnecki said. “The EPA has not been providing the clean wood stoves needed for this nonattainment zone.”
He noted that the EPA Inspector General’s office opened up an investigation into the issue, and the findings were released Feb. 28.
“The EPA’s ineffective residential wood heater program puts human health and the environment at risk for exposure to dangerous fine-particulate-matter pollution by allowing sales of wood heaters that may not meet emission standards,” the Inspector General report states.
It added the agency’s 2015 testing standards for manufacturers were flawed, too flexible and lacked clarity.
“As a result, certification tests may not be accurate, do not reflect real-world conditions, and may result in some wood heaters being certified for sale that emit too much particulate-matter pollution,” the report states. While the EPA removed some models, others remain on the list and available for sale.
Several recommendations were made, including developing a reliable certification test method based on real-world conditions; and implementing internal controls to, among other things, review certification test reports and conduct systematic compliance audit tests.
The report stated that the EPA distributed approximately $82 million in grants for residential wood heater changeout programs from fiscal years 2015 through 2021.
“Clean air is important to the community because we need it to thrive but we can still do it economically and still be able to use certified wood stoves,” Czarnecki said.
