Category Archives: Alaskan Efforts

Experts recommend chimney upkeep, furnace inspection

From The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Saturday, December 25, 2010:

Charlie Whitaker has cleaned chimneys of boilers, furnaces, fireplaces and wood stoves through his company, A Chimney Sweep, for 27 years.

“Boilers and furnaces can malfunction at a moment’s notice,” he said.

While he did not inspect the chimney of Alyson and Mike Padilla, which leaked carbon monoxide into their home last week, he offered some common advice for maintaining and detecting problems in oil-fired boilers and furnaces. He also explained the common causes of soot in these systems.

The National Fire Protection Association recommends you have your chimneys inspected and tuned (if they require it) annually.

State takes lead in limiting Fairbanks pollution

From The Associated Press, Saturday, December 25, 2010:

Since North Star Borough voters eliminated fines for pollution-causing heating devices, the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation has taken up the responsibility.

But, KUAC-FM reports, the DEC must work through several steps before actual enforcement can take place.

The EPA has put Fairbanks on notice to reduce particulate levels by 2014.

DEC acting Air Quality Division Director Alice Edwards said the state’s regulations allow it to issue an advisory that limits the wood-fired heating devices when air quality is low.

“The DEC advisories provide another way for people to find out the status of the local air quality,” Edwards said. “It also allows DEC the ability to follow up on certain compliance concerns that are related to opacity from wood-fired heating devices.”

Violations of the advisory could begin with notices of violations and issuance of nuisance abatements, and could eventually result in civil penalties and civil suits.

Continue reading: State takes lead in limiting Fairbanks pollution

Fairbanks borough administrators rewriting air pollution plan

From The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Thursday, December 23, 2010:

Administrators for the borough are rewriting an air pollution prevention plan following October passage of a voter initiative. The borough’s public pollution control commission will review the changes Monday.

The changes follow commissioners’ request that borough officials try, “as much as possible,” to retain oversight of pollution’s impact on visibility and trans-property boundary effects, Mayor Luke Hopkins said.

The commission meets Monday at 6:30 p.m. at a special venue, Pioneer Park’s Civic Center and Alaska Centennial Center for the Arts.

EPA forms group to increase tribal role in pollution prevention

From The Tundra Drums, Tuesday, December 21, 2010:

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is forming a new tribal committee to provide tribes with an opportunity for greater input on issues related to toxic chemicals and pollution prevention, the agency said in a press release.

The move is part of Administrator Lisa P. Jackson’s priority to build strong tribal partnerships and expand the conversation on environmental justice.

EPA is establishing a National Tribal Toxics Committee (NTTC) that will give tribes a forum for providing advice on the development of EPA’s chemical management and pollution prevention programs that affect tribes. Given the uniqueness of tribal cultures, communities and environmental problems, the forum will help EPA better tailor and more efficiently address a variety of issues, including preventing poisoning from lead paint, expanding pollution prevention and safer chemical initiatives in Indian country, and better evaluating unique chemical exposures on tribal lands.

“This new committee will help increase our already close collaboration and communication with federally recognized tribes and intertribal organizations on critical issues relating to chemical safety and pollution prevention that affect Native peoples,” said Steve Owens, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. “We are committed to reducing toxic exposures and increasing pollution prevention among tribal communities, and to respecting tribal sovereignty, culture and heritage.”

Continue reading: EPA forms group to increase tribal role in pollution prevention

Anchorage elementary getting wind turbine

From The Associated Press, Tuesday, December 21, 2010:

Begich Middle School in Anchorage has won school board approval to install a wind turbine.

The Anchorage Daily News reports it’s part of a federal program to teach renewable energy. The turbine will generate enough electricity to run up to eight computers.

Alaska is one of 11 states in the Energy Department’s Wind for Schools program.

Sherrod Elementary in Palmer also has a turbine. Schools in Juneau are working with the Coast Guard station’s wind turbine.

Continue reading: Anchorage elementary getting wind turbine

Fire destroys K&K Recycling warehouse

From The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Friday, December 17, 2010:

A Friday morning fire at K&K Recycling destroyed a warehouse after cardboard bales inside the building ignited.

The fire at the 50-by-100 foot temporary steel building was discovered by employees arriving at work about 7:15 a.m. The blaze had fully engulfed the building by the time firefighters arrived soon afterward.

North Star Chief Jeff Tucker said firefighters remained on hand throughout the day to keep the blaze from spreading outside the warehouse, but firefighters and K&K officials decided not to make an active effort to hose it down in frigid conditions.

“We could put it out, but you’d have one giant frozen mess,” Tucker said. “The decision was made just to let it burn down.”

Tucker said it’s unlikely the origin of the fire will be determined because of extensive damage to the building. He said the blaze isn’t considered suspicious.

Group developing efficient homes for rural Alaska

From Alaska Journal of Commerce, Saturday, December 10, 2010:

With high fuel prices and harsh winter climes, constructing energy-efficient housing in rural Alaska communities can be a difficult task that is compounded by the prohibitively high costs.

In Fairbanks, Jack Hebert and a team of engineers with the Cold Climate Housing Research Center are rising to the challenge, designing and building prototype homes and empowering communities to build more of them for themselves.

In 2008, the CCHRC began its Sustainable Northern Shelter Program. CCHRC designs sustainable home technology, with its aim being to reduce the amount of fuel used to heat rural homes.

The group contracts with local crews to get the homes built. In fact, CCHRC officials don’t actually build the homes; with input from the locals, they design it and the locals themselves build them.

Consultations with the community help establish what their cultural needs are, among other things, Hebert said.

The goal, Hebert said, is to enable local residents to build their own sustainable homes without the aid of outsiders.

 “The wisdom of the people who have lived here for 10,000 years is important,” Hebert said.

Continue reading:  Group developing efficient homes for rural Alaska

Fairbanks Borough Assembly considers $1 million in upgrades to landfill

From The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Saturday, December 10, 2010:

The Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly is looking at more than $1 million in new funding for an ongoing landfill project on South Cushman.

The project includes two major parts: sealing sections of the landfill and building a line that circulates moisture through the closed sections. The first phase of the three-year project was completed during the summer and cost about $6 million.

Both parts were undertaken so the landfill will comply with federal and state regulations. They also align with plans for methane capture project the public works department has on the drawing board.

On Thursday, the assembly moved forward with two sources of state funding for the project. The rest of the funding comes from tipping fees paid by municipalities and other customers.

Landfill managers are required to continually close cells as they fill, said Scott Johnson, director of public works for the borough. This prevents landfill gas, which contains methane and carbon dioxide, from escaping at the top and the bottom of each cell.

“We seal it with a chemically impervious membrane,” he said.

That membrane is buried by gravel, soil and grass, “so you see a grassy hillside,” he said.

Parts of the old landfill and newer landfill were closed this summer. The assembly requested $340,000 in additional funding from Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation to go toward the same project.

“I wanted to grab on to that because it’s 100 percent reimbursement,” Johnson said.

Sufferers testify about ills of wood smoke

From The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Thursday, December 9, 2010:

School counselor Dawn Brashear enjoyed good health until about two years ago.

That was about the same time residents near her school, Woodriver Elementary School, began installing outdoor wood boilers.

Now Brashear has chronic sinus problems, including a cyst, that doctors tell her is related to breathing air pollution.

Woodriver school is located off Chena Pump Road in west Fairbanks and lies in one of the community’s multiple air pollution problem areas.

Brashear was one of more than a dozen people who testified Wednesday before the Air Pollution Control Commission, an advisory panel to Borough Mayor Luke Hopkins.

Tok School burns biomass in big boiler

From The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, Monday, December 6, 2010:

A new wood energy project in Tok has turned surrounding forests from a fire hazard into renewable fuel. The Tok School lit a new wood chip-fired boiler for the first time several weeks ago.

The 5.5-million-BTU steam boiler produces the school’s heat, saving the school district thousands of dollars in heating fuel and saving forest managers untold costs fighting fires and eliminating waste wood. The school district plans to add a steam turbine generator to the system in May to produce 75 percent of its electricity.

“We’re the first school in the state to be heated entirely by wood,” said project manager and assistant superintendent Scott MacManus, who has been trying to spur wood energy in Tok for 10 years. “As far as I know, we’d be the first public school in the country to produce heat and power from biomass.”

At the school’s new biomass facility, trees and slash are fed into a Rotochopper grinder, processed into chips that resemble wood shavings, spit into a bin and carried by conveyor belt into the boiler, which is

17 feet tall, six feet wide and 12 feet long. Fuel comes from forest thinning projects, scraps and nearby sawmills. The forest around the school has yielded enough biomass for the first year, according to Alaska Division of Forestry spokeswoman Maggie Rogers. Project leaders hope the system will be used as a model of energy independence for other school districts, communities and utilities.