Wood Burning is a Clean Energy Science

Since September 18, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) has declared eight spare the air days, and have disallowed all wood, pallets and manufactured log burning indoors or outdoors during those eight days.

The BAAQMD ignored their own Regulation 6, Rule 3, where the BAAQMD can only declare no wood burning under the mandatory curtailment months November through February.

On Friday we all learned that Saturday December 10, will be the fourth consecutive day of poor air quality in the Bay Area. That it is necessary due to the poor air quality, to declare on Saturday no wood burning will be allowed.

It does not matter that after three days of no wood burning, the poor air quality is not because of wood burning, because wood burning has not been allowed for the three previous days. The poor air quality is due to automotive particulate.

Wednesday December 14 was also declared a Spare the Air day. In an email exchange with Roberta Gonzales (CBS 5 Meteorologist) Roberta said she could see the "haze across the Bay" when she drove into the city Friday afternoon.                                     

Obviously this haze was not due to wood burning I pointed out to Roberta. She countered that people are not adhering to the Spare the Air request — "it is all I smell when I walk outside at night."

Pleasanton is in the Eastern District of the BAAQMD with two monitoring stations, both of which are located in Concord, twenty-five miles north of Pleasanton.

There are three monitoring stations in Oakland. But, Oakland is not in the Eastern District, it is in the Coast and Central Bay district. The three monitoring stations in Oakland are ten to twelve miles closer to Pleasanton than Concord.

The two monitoring stations in Concord catch the air flow off Suisun Bay coming from the North Bay cities of San Rafael, Sonoma, Novato and several oother cities.

The three monitoring stations in Oakland are catching air flow off the ports with the heavy diesel truck traffic and bay ship traffic.

When any single one of the forty monitoring stations for the five districts in the nine-county Bay Area registers poor air quality, the BAAQMD declares a Spare the Air day for the entire nine-county Bay Area.

I spoke over the phone this morning with someone at the BAAQMD in San Francisco regarding air flows, automotive carbon particulate verses burned wood carbon particulate and how the air monitoring stations do not distinguish the burned carbon from fossil or wood.

She agreed with that and after lengthy conversation, she fell back on the Regulation 6, Rule 3, stating it is the regulation, so they follow it. It does not matter that your wood burning insert exceeds EPA standards for particulate release or that one of your neighbors uses a catlytic after burner, the regulation is what it is.

Liza Harper, acting Clerk of the BAAQMD did not return my phone call prior to posting this blog. This issue is not going away. I intend to learn who the board members are and to continue to research the science behind the decisions and will continue to press the issue.

Wood burning inserts manufactured today are immensely efficient in that they can burn eight pounds of seasoned hard wood for up to ten hours and burn it cleaner than automotive exhaust while heating up to 2,500 square feet of living space.