Lincoln manager suggests outdoor-boiler rules

LINCOLN – The Town Council might join a growing list of governmental bodies across Maine and the country considering adopting guidelines for outdoor wood-fired boilers.

Town Manager Glenn Aho floated the idea of establishing a permitting system for boilers in the Thanksgiving edition of the weekly newsletter he writes – saying that rising oil prices have caused people to seek this alternative energy source – but this has drawbacks.

“I am just forwarding information,” Aho said Friday. “I am not proposing anything [as an ordinance]. I’m aware of certain concerns, and it’s part of my job to forward them as information to the council.”

Aho suggested:

. Establishing a permit system for all wood boilers.

. Newly installed wood boilers should be prohibited from high density residential zones.

. Wood boilers should be permitted within rural town areas, though with stack height requirements.

. Wood boilers already in residential zones should be grandfathered, but only if certain smoke stack height requirements are met.

Wood boilers were identified as the most likely source of air quality problems at Penobscot Valley Hospital and Ella P. Burr School, Aho said.

Principal Mike Bisson said there are a significant number of children and a few teachers with asthma at the Ella Burr who suffer due to boiler smoke, which occasionally infiltrates the school on especially still days.

Town Council Chairman Stephen Clay said he wasn’t sure whether an ordinance is Lincoln’s answer. No one has proposed one to the council, which meets next on Dec. 10.

“I can see why people would want them, and I can see why some people might not want them outdoors right next to their house,” Clay said Friday.

Regionally, Brewer and East Millinocket are among communities looking to follow Millinocket’s lead and establish ordinances. Northampton, Chicopee and Hadley, Mass.; Nunica and Grand Haven Township, Mich.; and Suffolk County, N.Y., are among out-of-state municipalities that have established ordinances recently.

Citing health concerns, Millinocket’s Town Council voted 6-0 on Oct. 26 to establish a permitting system for outdoor wood-fired boilers.

Under the Millinocket ordinance, boilers must be at least 50 feet from a neighboring home, be rated to burn no more than 27.4 grams of particulate matter per 100,000 Btu per hour, and be at least 24 inches above the roof line of the closest neighboring home.

Most indoor wood-fired stoves produce about 7.5 grams of particulate waste an hour. By comparison, most outdoor boilers are polluters, producing 100- 400 grams an hour, but there is a local answer.

Retailing at $7,500 each, the Black Bear boiler made in East Millinocket is UL- and CSA-certified and recently passed weighted-average emissions tests that showed that the boiler burned 6.6 grams an hour.

Under Millinocket’s ordinance, new boiler owners must pay a $50 permitting fee, but the council waived the fee for people who own boilers now.

The owner of a boiler in violation of the ordinance shall be fined $100 a day but not more than $1,000 in accumulated fines.

Permits shall be suspended for malodorous air contamination caused by boilers burning non-permitted materials or by the improper operation of a boiler.

Anyone who knows of a potentially offending boiler in Millinocket can call enforcement officer Mike Noble at 723-7005.

Millinocket’s ordinance goes into effect Monday, Town Manager Eugene Conlogue said. He estimated that there are six boilers in town.