States, environmentalists sue EPA over wood stoves, boilers, furnaces

Seven states and a coalition of environmental and public health groups sued the Obama administration Thursday in an effort to compel the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to update 25-year old standards for outdoor wood boilers, furnaces, and other sources of soot and smoke.

The litigation is based on a provision in the Clean Air Act that requires EPA to review every eight years the new source performance standards for particulates emitted by stationary air pollution sources.

"Wood stoves and boilers are a significant source of harmful particulates and toxic hydrocarbons,” Elena Craft, a toxicologist with Environmental Defense Fund, said.

A number of reports have found that smoke and soot produced by wood combustion can cause harmful increases in particulates. In 2013 EPA released a document that pointed to particulate pollution from wood-burning devices as a cause of increased frequency of heart attacks and asthma.

The NSPS for wood-burning devices was finalized in 1988.

"Since then, research into the pollutants from wood-burning has grown rapidly," Janice Nolen, the assistant vice president for national policy at the American Lung Association, said. "EPA has abundant evidence that the standards from a generation ago endanger public health.”

Because EPA has not updated the NSPS, consumers purchase and install new wood boilers, stoves, and furnaces that produce more pollutants than would be the case if the emission standards applicable to them were updated.

“We’ve seen the market for outdoor boilers expand over the past two decades and over 10,000 units are sold each year,” David Presley, an attorney with Clean Air Council, said.

A website maintained by the Hearth, Patio and Barbecue Association, an industry trade group, indicates that more than 400,000 new wood-burning stoves have been sold in the U.S. since 2007. 

Under the CAA periodic reviews of the wood combustion device NSPS should have occurred in 1996, 2004, and 2012.

The states who sued EPA to compel the statutory review are Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Vermont. The Puget Sound Clean Air Agency is also a plaintiff.

The plaintiffs in the other lawsuit are the American Lung Association, Clean Air Council, Environment and Human Health, Inc., and Environmental Defense Fund.

Image courtesy Wikimedia.