Wood burning season stokes air quality debate in Oakridge.

Byline: Diane Dietz The Register-Guard

OAKRIDGE - Wood stoves chuffing smoke into the cold mountain air have given Oakridge the dirtiest winter air in Oregon.

Each winter, the community in the Cascade mountains east of Eugene skates perilously close to violating the federal Clean Air Act.

For more than a decade, air pollution regulators have tried to help Oakridge with air testing, technical advice and a system of warnings for when the air is at its worst. This month, they installed a new $20,000 computer system that calls each Oakridge resident with news on unhealthy air days.

But as residents this winter fire up their stoves, a question has emerged:

Is the old logging community of 1,100 households willing to enforce its own clean air ordinance?

The current Oakridge mayor says the city's rules - passed in 2003 - aren't necessary because she believes the smoke isn't all that bad; the city manager says he's fond of the smell of wood smoke; and some Oakridge residents are livid about any kind of interference with something as close to hearth and home as a toasty wood stove. The automatic phoning program has grated on some Oakridge residents.

So far this year, air regulators have asked residents 23 times to voluntarily cut their wood stove use.

But the city has not yet confronted a "Red" day, when the smoke is so bad that burning is banned.

Some residents do worry about the air, former Oakridge Mayor Don Hampton said.

"But then there's also a certain segment of the population that's `The government can't tell me what to do. I've burned wood since '06 and I'm going to continue to burn wood.' "

Cough, cough

The soot in Oakridge's air is giving Lane County a black eye.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency published a map showing counties with the worst air in the nation.

Lane County ranked as bad as Los Angeles, Chicago and counties in the rust belt of Ohio. On the map, Lane County appeared as a black spot in the nearly pristine Pacific Northwest.

"The reason we show dark is because of Oakridge. It isn't the whole county," said Brian Jennison, director of the Lane Regional Air Pollution Authority.

Oakridge's air problems come from two factors: the wood stove smoke, and the geography of the two-square-mile town in a narrow, constricted valley at 1,209 feet elevation.

"Whatever they produce up there can hang in that valley. That's why the concentrations build up," Jennison said.

The federal government determined that air becomes unhealthy when the fine particulate level reaches a daily average of 65 micrograms per cubic meter. The American Lung Association likes a lower limit: 41 micrograms per cubic meter.

"Maybe it should be lower; there's no bright line," Jennison said. "You and I might be just fine at 65, but Grandma or a little kid might be coughing and wheezing at 40.''

Every year, Oakridge exceeds the federal limit due to wood stove burning. In 2001, the pollutant at one point soared to 95.7 micrograms per cubic meter. The pollutant was over the top three days in that year, three days the next year and one day in 2003.

No data on any health effects in the city are available.

If Oakridge's air quality were to worsen and the number of days of violation to increase, the federal government might come down hard with more restrictions.

Oakridge has been within four days of topping the allowed number of high-pollution days in recent years.

Jennison said it's frustrating that Oakridge residents are skeptical about the need to regulate wood stoves. "I'd rather educate people than regulate them, but the bottom line is, we can't ignore the health of the people who do want to comply."

Tough rules

Oakridge has the legal tools to regulate its own wood stove smoke.

In 2003, the City Council passed an ordinance instituting a mandatory ban on burning when the particulate becomes heavy - the Red days. The city's ordinance also asks people voluntarily to cut back on burning when the pollution is headed toward a severe level - the Yellow days. On Green days, there's no restriction.

The city has not yet had to issue a mandatory ban because since the ordinance's passage, there haven't been any periods in which the pollution was that bad. But it's unclear how and whether the city would implement a ban if pollution worsened.

Under the ordinance, when the Lane air authority says pollution has deteriorated to a severe level, residents are prohibited from burning wood in their stoves unless they are one of about 50 or so residents who gained an exception from the rule because of their low income level or the fact that a wood stove was their sole source of heat.

The ordinance sets a per-day fine for violations of up to $500.

"This was something they did on their own volition. It was their initiative to do that," said Ralph Johnston, meteorologist at the Lane air agency.

To help prod residents, air regulators this spring won the $20,000 EPA grant for an automated telephone system that could call all households in Oakridge.

So far this year, the agency has announced 23 Yellow alerts - now generating phone calls asking residents to voluntarily cease from burning, and warning them that if the condition worsens to Red, burning will be banned.

"Our goal here is to keep them from violating (federal) standards," Johnston said. "That's the goal of the whole program."

Blowing smoke?

But City Hall turnover has now brought a skeptical leadership to power in Oakridge.

Unlike other Lane County cities, Oakridge opted to enforce the wood stove rules itself, rather than ask Lane air pollution regulators to do the job.

Oakridge Mayor Sue Bond said the wood stove ordinance is to appease the air agency and the federal government rather than protect the citizens.

"Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the time, I do not feel it's too smoky to breathe," she said. "Personally, I don't hear any complaints. I know LRAPA has a meter and the meter says we have a problem."

City Administrator Gordon Zimmerman says the agency might have done better by buying clean-burning pellet stoves for low-income residents rather than the call system.

"We are 55.6 percent low and moderate income," he said. "Sometimes it's tough to pay the rent, never mind the rent, food and heating bills."

Oakridge resident James Moore, a retired heavy-equipment operator, said he was irked last weekend when he got the automated call.

He said everybody, including the city's leaders, would use wood heating if they had to - no matter what the alert level.

"It's `By God I'm going to keep warm; I don't care if the smoke comes back down the chimney.' It's just common sense survival of the fittest. That's what we have up here," he said.

The job of enforcing the no-burn rule falls to Oakridge Police Chief Louis Gomez. He got a reprieve last winter - the first burning season the ordinance was in effect - thanks to unusually heavy rain, which cleaned the air and meant no Red alerts.

He might not be so lucky this year. Gomez said he's preparing residents by talking about the smoke he sees coming from their chimneys.

"We don't go in there with both barrels a'going. It's very low key - trying to educate, trying to get compliance versus issuing tickets," he said.

If a Red day comes, he said, Oakridge officers will have to knock on doors at homes with smoky chimneys and ask to see exemptions - though it's a job they don't relish.

"It would be tough for the officer because - you know what the reaction would be," he said. "You know this is a tough one."

OAKRIDGE AIR WOES 

LRAPA meteorologist Ralph Johnston sets the air pollution alert level by noon each day from November through February. He forecasts how dirty the air is likely to get by looking at how much particulate is already in the air, how stagnant the air is and whether it is cold enough for residents to crank up their stoves. An automatic calling system relays alerts to residents.

Green: Air quality good; unrestricted use of wood stove or fireplace allowed. Fine particulates under 40 micrograms per cubic meter of air.

Yellow: Air quality deteriorating. Residents are asked to voluntarily cut back on wood burning. Issued 101 times in Oakridge over the past five years; particulates at more than 40 micrograms per cubic meter of air.

Red Stage I: Air quality reaching unhealthy stage. Visible smoke from chimney could result in violation citation, unless a resident has an exemption. Burning allowed if done without producing any visible smoke. Warning issued twice in Oakridge over the past five years. Particulates from 55 to 65 micrograms per cubic meter.

Red Stage II: All burning must stop. Use of a pellet stove allowed if no visible smoke emitted. Particulates exceed 65 micrograms per cubic meter of air, a level known to cause harm to humans.

CAPTION(S):

Smoke rises from an Oakridge home. Households with wood stoves as the sole heat source are exempt from burning bans. Inversion layers on cold winter days mean unhealthy air quality for Oakridge. Both wood stove smoke and the community's location in a constricted valley contribute to the air problems. "Whatever they produce up there can hang in that valley," says Brian Jennison, director of LRAPA. Brian Davies / The Register-Guard "Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the time, I do not feel it's too smoky to breathe." SUE BOND, OAKRIDGE MAYOR