From The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Sunday, November 21, 2010:
A new air quality measure by the Fairbanks borough mayor scales back regulations on wood smoke emissions but maintains a prohibition on the installation of old, dirty stoves.The regulations on smoke emissions were set to go into effect next fall.
The ordinance on Monday goes before the Air Pollution Control Commission, an advisory panel to Mayor Luke Hopkins.
Hopkins said he wants rules on the installation of uncertified stoves to continue because the ballot proposition prompting his new air quality ordinance referred to the use of home heating devices and not their installation.
“We are still limiting the stoves so that we don’t keep digging ourselves in a hole,” the mayor said.
Emissions from increased wood burning in the borough include a tiny but toxic particulate known as PM 2.5, and the federal government has put Fairbanks on notice to reduce levels of PM 2.5 by 2014.