Visit the EPA website: http://www.epa.gov/  to be shocked when you read that they are promoting tax credits for wood burning stoves. It seems this tax credit is part of the 2009 Stimulus Package promoted by the IRS and the EPA and the President and his Congress.  Please send letters to the EPA, expressing your outrage at their hypocrisy.  If the EPA is here for our health and welfare, why ever would they promote the use of wood and biomass for fuel?  Both damage health AND our environment. 

http://energystar.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/energystar.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=2873

There is a federal tax credit for biomass fuel stoves (used for heat or water heating) placed in service  2009 and 2010 for 30% of the cost, up to $1,500. The stoves must have a thermal efficiency rating of at least 75% as measured using a lower heating value.

The law defines "biomass fuel" as any plant-derviced fuel available on a renewable or recurring basis, including agricultural crops and trees, wood and wood waste and residues (including wood pellets), plant (including aquatic plants), grasses, residues, and fibers.

http://www.burningissues.org/lukebiomass.html  Read the FACTS about biomass.

People's Action Committee For Healthy Air - published under Opinions - 100 Letters by Vic Steblin

As the cost of home heating rises, the number of wood stoves, OWB's and toxic smoke has also risen. Last fall, the air in my neighborhood was so polluted by wood smoke and its carcinogenic particulate matter that several residents fell ill, including myself. The air surrounding my home was thick with horrible smoke emissions; you couldn't open a window, even during 60 degree days and nights. Your alternative was to lock yourself in a "hot house" where poisonous smoke still entered through cracks and closed windows. A child spent 5 days in the hospital being treated for asthma. The summer before, her father spent 3 weeks in the same hospital, suffering pneumonia, requiring insertion of a chest tube. Who gets pneumonia in August? Perhaps it was from the constant involuntary inhalation of wood smoke from the outdoor wood boiler in his next door neighbor's yard? The one that smoked so badly during the entire summer, to heat hot water, that it set off the family's indoor smoke detector? Something has to be done to regulate and limit the use of all wood burning devices, most urgently during fall and spring, when smoke lingers and hovers in the still air. There are other alternatives to supplementing heating your home, without subjecting neighbors to dirty wood smoke. Visit www.burningissues.org and the American Lung Association http://www.lungusa.org/ for information on this urgent issue. I am currently working to strengthen the NYS legislation that is now with Gov. Paterson in Albany, under his review. This legislation does not address minimum acreage requirements for OWB installations, nor does it even mention the health and environmental hazards of wood smoke, that is now being linked to global warming. Wood smoke is a public nusiance that deprives residents of the enjoyment of their homes, both inside and out. It also poses a grave health hazard due to the toxins found in wood smoke they are forced to breathe. Cigarette smoke was banned because of health reasons-wood smoke is even more harmful and should be banned or at least limited. Even before cigarette bans, you could choose to stay out of smoky places to protect your health, but you have to live in your home-you don't have a choice on this one. It is our right to enjoy a smoke free life. Join us in our fight to breathe clean fresh air. Victoria Valentine, NY

Dear Vice President Gore,

I found your Climate Project information while researching the net on how to contact you. I am writing to you and the Climate Project for help and guidance concerning a serious air pollution/global warming issue endangering my community.  I feel you will understand my urgency, because of your dedication, and the hard work you have done to help protect our environment. 

Contacting you directly may be a shot in the dark, but thus far, all of the contacts I’ve made regarding severe air pollution due to wood smoke in Dutchess County, New York, have been to no avail—and I am desperate to bring this issue to the public and gain support to prompt legislation banning/and or limiting/restricting the burning of wood.  Cigarettes and second hand smoke were finally banned for health reasons. Wood smoke is even more lethal than tobacco and should be banned or limited to rural areas where it poses no danger to innocent victims—and not in growing suburban communities.

It is my hope that you can help or offer suggestions on whom I may contact to bring to light the harmful effects of Outdoor Wood Boiler smoke and Wood Stove smoke and the toxic emissions that are being spewed into our air—the air that some of us are forced to breathe on a daily basis.  This smoke and particulate matter are not only a nuisance and health risk to those living in affected areas, but I have read that wood smoke also poses dangers to our entire environment; human, wild life, vegetation, reducing quality of our air—and this pollution adds to global warming.

I have written letters to local officials, literally begging them to help clean up the air and stop the smoke and emissions of OWB’s and wood stoves that are choking residents, causing grievous illness and distress. I have also contacted NYS officials and Senators as well as the DEC.  The DEC has stated they don’t have manpower, equipment or funding to take appropriate and definitive action.  I have been met with resistance every step of the way—not only by “burners” but by Town officials who say there is nothing they can do about it, and news media who prefer to ignore my numerous letters that I hoped to publish in local newspapers, for public interest and support.

One quick note—my Town Attorney admits they cannot enforce local regulations because they cannot quantify them.  All of their laws are “subjective” and therefore they cannot enforce these laws that they themselves have written.  My hope was that New York State would adopt stricter, more enforceable laws, but after reading a recent draft of the NYS OWB regulations which has been sent to Governor Paterson in Albany for review, my frustration and anger is growing—as well as my fear.  The NYS regulations are practically a carbon copy of my Town law, incorporating almost identical wording and regulations; legislature that will certainly prove “subjective” and unenforceable, as our current law.  NYS has not even included in their law, a minimum acreage requirement for the installation of OWB’s, such as 5+ acres that we requested, which would help alleviate the problem in sub-divisions such as mine, with houses set on one acre lots.

 Another problem is that NYS law does not even address the toxic smoke emitted from the many wood stoves that burn in conjunction with OWB’s, from fall to spring, subjecting innocent victims to lethal doses of carcinogens. In the past, OWB’s had no regulations and were therefore permitted to burn 24/7 year round, to heat hot water for homes and swimming pools during the summer! I have neighbors who are so badly affected that they could not crack a window at all, last spring or summer. The smoke set off their indoor smoke alarm. We are forced to exist in “hot houses”, or as an harsh alternative, open windows to let smoke-filled air into our homes.  This is wrong—and deadly.

I have been told by Town Officials and Town Police, “They have their right to burn wood. There’s nothing you can do about it.”  Where is the God-given right for the rest of us to breathe clean, fresh air?  I have asked this question of my Town Supervisor, and here was his reply:  “Air pollution?  You can’t get away from air pollution.  Everything is polluted.  Look at the Hudson River…”   Is this any way to address such a serious matter?  I’ve attended Town Hall Meetings with neighbors who share my distress, presenting the Board with tons of documentation on the hazards and dangers of inhaling wood smoke, along with a stack of my own doctor bills for treatment of illness caused by breathing my neighbor’s wood smoke, day and night, for months. Several Board members were in favor of banning OWB’s, yet nothing was done.  And the issue of wood stove smoke was not even mentioned at that point; it is taboo to even raise the issue of a possible ban or restrictions put on wood stoves or fireplaces here in New York. When the subject is brought up, they look at you like you are insane to even suggest such a thing as stopping the 24/7 operation of a wood stove! As if it’s not bad enough that they are killing humans, they are raping forests and burning wood needlessly.  We are supposed to be looking into renewable “clean” energy, and wood burners are creating air pollution and stripping valuable forestlands instead.

So, here I am, Mr. Gore, writing to you for help.  I realize we cannot stop wood smoke entirely, but we can control it.  All I have asked is for limitations to be set on the length of time OWB’s and wood stoves can burn on a daily basis and for the lawmakers to shorten the burning season.  Right now it spans from October 1^st all the way until April 30^th.  This encompasses Indian summer, when temperatures are well above 60 degrees, and wood smoke hugs the ground in the still air, surrounding and seeping into my home (and homes of others) thru cracks, closed windows and doors.  

This issue also affects our spring, when we would love to open our windows to breathe fresh, sweet air, but cannot, because all that will enter our homes would be the smoke of our next door neighbor’s wood stove.  Living this way is an experience that can leave one sickened, traumatized and living in fear of the next fall and winter, when we know we will once more, be forced to breathe unhealthy wood smoke filled air, air that should be fresh and clean for the health of humans and animals—and for the health and beauty of our world.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Thank you for listening.

New York, (name withheld)

CLEAN AIR IS MY RIGHT

There are many campaigns against cigarette smoke.  We need the same attention drawn to health and environmental damage caused by involuntary inhalation of wood smoke.  Please view this website and contact these people, as I have done below.  Tell them your story and ask them to join our fight to stop wood smoke, just as states have banned cigarette smoke.  Smoke is smoke; our causes are one in the same.   http://www.smokefreehousingny.org/Dutchess.html  

From: stopwoodsmoke@woodsmokefreeny.com
To:
Cc:
Subject: re: Smoke Free Dutchess TV ads  ( Fight for wood smoke and tobacco smoke free housing.)