BETTER BOILER RULES

To avoid a patchwork of local bans and restrictions, state regulators have proposed new rules to reduce pollution from and complaints about outdoor wood boilers. Cutting emissions from new boilers is a good step, but without stricter regulations on the wood-burning furnaces already in place, the rules won’t do enough to curb complaints or stop communities from passing their own bans and moratoriums.

With rising fuel costs, outdoor wood boilers have become increasingly popular in Maine, with sales tripling between 2004 and 2005. Complaints to the DEP have gone from two in 2004 to 50 now on file. The boilers, which are used to heat water and provide heat, don’t use catalytic emission control devices as most indoor wood stoves do. They also are built with short smokestacks, which keep smoke near the ground, and with big fire boxes, which allows owners to burn all sorts of things that wouldn’t fit into a wood stove.

The average wood boiler emits more than 70 grams of particulate pollution per hour, more than 15 times the Environmental Protection Agency’s standard for indoor wood stoves. Particulate pollution worsens asthma and is linked to lung cancer and other cardiorespiratory diseases.

The EPA recently developed voluntary standards for wood-boiler emissions. Ten manufacturers agreed to sell boilers, beginning this spring, that emit no more than 0.6 pounds of particulate matter per million BTUs of heat input, a 70 percent reduction in soot emissions over most models now on the market. Allowable emissions will drop to 0.32 pounds per BTU in 2010.

In legislation passed in June, lawmakers made these standards mandatory for Maine. Beginning April 1, boilers sold here must meet the 0.6 pound standard. The more restrictive standards goes into effect on April 1, 2010.

To deal with the intervening time, the department has proposed setback and stack height requirements. For existing boilers, the DEP has proposed to regulate what can be burned and by restricting “nuisance” units, defined as boilers that create visible emissions that cross property lines for more than 15 minutes in an hour. The DEP is charged with working with boiler owners and manufacturers to resolve these problems, through boiler improvements, taller stacks and other modifications. The department will provide monthly reports on problem boilers to the Legislature’s Natural Resources Committee.

This is more likely to set up disputes between neighbors than resolve any problems. Setback and stack requirements should also be phased in for boilers already in use. Expanding the setbacks in the rules to existing boilers and giving owners a year to meet them seems reasonable.

The proposed rules are the subject of a public hearing before the Board of Environmental Protection at 1 p.m. today at the Augusta Civic Center.

Making new boilers cleaner and assuring they are properly sited is a positive step, but the same should be done with boilers that are already in use.