View Full Version : EPA to outlaw many wood burning stoves
http://www.sott.net/article/256170-EPA-to-outlaw-many-wood-burning-stoves
Shortly after the re-election of President Obama, the agency announced new radical environmental regulations that threaten to effect people who live off the grid. The EPA's new environmental regulations reduce the amount of airborne fine-particle matter from 15 micrograms to 12 micrograms per cubic meter of air.
Well....that is a bit hyped, but as with most things involving the EPA the program initially 'encourages' compliance but within 3-5 ears it will eventually come down to a mandate and/or fines.
At present....
The wood-burning fireplace program encourages the development and sale of lower-emitting wood-burning fireplaces. EPA's fireplace program covers new masonry and prefabricated (low-mass) fireplaces and retrofit devices for existing fireplaces. Fireplace retrofits can reduce pollution up to 70% if installed properly.
The EPA is a classic example of the Govt. over reaching thru edicts. It needs serious 'weeding out'.
The EPA is a classic example of the Govt. over reaching thru edicts. It needs serious 'weeding out'.
It needs serious eradication. ;)
Pat
craigepo
01-15-2013, 20:01
I wonder how this will work when the do-gooders hear that the EPA makes poor people stop burning wood during cold weather because their old fireplace is putting out smoke.
Snaquebite
01-15-2013, 20:38
I wonder how this will work when the do-gooders hear that the EPA makes poor people stop burning wood during cold weather because their old fireplace is putting out smoke.
I ain't poor but I burn a couple of cords every winter. My female visitors like the romantic atmosphere. :)
I ain't poor but I burn a couple of cords every winter. My female visitors like the romantic atmosphere. :)
You are just going to have to get you one of those fireplace DVD's to watch on tv when you have them female visitors over in the future :). Who are these people to come up wiith this BS? There is hardly a day goes by anymore that I am glad that I am not a kid.
I'm no fan of the EPA. I think they should be disbanded.
But reading the EPA Burn Wise site, it doesn't look like they're going after old wood burning stoves. They mention that a wood stove is more efficient than a fireplace. They say if you prefer not to haul wood, that a pellet stove may be better.
It also says most wood burning stoves sold are EPA certified. I can't find anywhere that it says you can't use your old stove, just if you're buying a new stove, it's going to be "cleaner burning" than the old ones.
Surgicalcric
01-15-2013, 22:38
EPA, DEA, and ATF are all self-licking ice cream cones and IMHO could be done away with...
However like Koz I cant seem to find anything that hints of wood burning stoves being outlawed just that the older ones dont burn as clean. I can see this being an issue for people who have older stoves but for most it wont be an issue...
Pretty strict burn/no burn rules around here in NorCal now which is a real pain in the @$$ for farmers - BUT - there is a pragmatic exception for the no burn limitations as they do not apply to homes where a wood burning stove or fireplace is the primary source for its heating.
Richard :munchin
This is a joke. I'm here in Afghanistan, so I bet no word of this is talked about on MSM during the evening news. What a JOKE!!
People talk about big Govt getting into peoples lives. Well here is one great example of this.
EPA, DEA, and ATF are all self-licking ice cream cones and IMHO could be done away with...
I'll add IRS to this list too.
ZonieDiver
01-16-2013, 08:31
But reading the EPA Burn Wise site, it doesn't look like they're going after old wood burning stoves... I can't find anywhere that it says you can't use your old stove...
However like Koz I cant seem to find anything that hints of wood burning stoves being outlawed
Well, no wonder you can't see it. You are not wearing the special glasses, or visiting websites written by those who do, that allow you to SEE such things - which may, or may not, actually BE there.:D
Well....that is a bit hyped, but as with most things involving the EPA the program initially 'encourages' compliance but within 3-5 ears it will eventually come down to a mandate and/or fines.
Quote of the Year - although it often doesn't take that many 'ears' out here in the blogosphere before somebody's opining begins to be passed around as a cited source for somebody's feared threat, creation, or mandate.
And so it goes...
Richard :munchin
The EPA is like the gun control crowd. One bite of the apple at a time, slowly bite, bite, bite until no apple remains.
The left wants to control all aspects of a person's life - except the womb of course.
I'm no fan of the EPA. I think they should be disbanded.
But reading the EPA Burn Wise site, it doesn't look like they're going after old wood burning stoves. They mention that a wood stove is more efficient than a fireplace. They say if you prefer not to haul wood, that a pellet stove may be better.
It also says most wood burning stoves sold are EPA certified. I can't find anywhere that it says you can't use your old stove, just if you're buying a new stove, it's going to be "cleaner burning" than the old ones.
At present is merely encourages EPA certified stoves...
That is how the Lead law started, it encouraged home owners to do the 'right thing', but they could opt out by signing off that they acknowledged the dangers. Then after 3-4 years there was no opt out if you hire out the work and it now carry's 35k fine.
Around here you can get fined 5k by the EPA for throwing a bag of yard debris in the wrong dumpster.
Evil fireplaces, Evil lead, Evil guns.....it boosts sales and creates jobs.
The EPA is like the gun control crowd. One bite of the apple at a time, slowly bite, bite, bite until no apple remains.
The left wants to control all aspects of a person's life - except the womb of course.
That's a great analogy. Sacramento county fines heavily those who burn in fireplaces on no burn days. I live in a neighboring county that doesn't have such restrictive policies but it's also one of the only red counties in the state.
ZonieDiver
01-16-2013, 16:36
That's a great analogy. Sacramento county fines heavily those who burn in fireplaces on no burn days. I live in a neighboring county that doesn't have such restrictive policies but it's also one of the only red counties in the state.
Not so fast...
This map shows MORE counties in CA are some variation of red than the variations of blue. Unfortunately (for red), there are MORE people in the blue ones.
I'm burning my stove in protest as we speak.
ZonieDiver
01-16-2013, 16:59
I'm burning my stove in protest as we speak.
What are you burning your stove in, an industrial incinerator? :D
What are you burning your stove in, an industrial incinerator? :D
I'm just burning the inside of it.
I'm burning my stove in protest as we speak.
Where'd you get a thermite grenade? :D
Richard
Where'd you get a thermite grenade? :D
Richard
Do I have to 'splain ever lil' thang?
Do I have to 'splain ever lil' thang?
Guess I can't get past the hog hat. :p
Guess I can't get past the hog hat. :p
Nobody else had any problems this season.
Oh well. New coach, new year.
The Horns are goin' down next season. Gonna look like 2000 again. :lifter
I just snapped-talk about a hijack!
http://www.sott.net/article/256170-EPA-to-outlaw-many-wood-burning-stoves
Well....that is a bit hyped, but as with most things involving the EPA the program initially 'encourages' compliance but within 3-5 ears it will eventually come down to a mandate and/or fines.
At present....
Enforcement is impossible, especially given that they can't enforce CERCLA cases from the 80s. They have a lot of regs on the books like this.
Black market stoves - here we come.
When this goes from "encouraged" to "required," I'll probably have to register my original Fisher of Oregon Papa Bear stove, pass a background check, and get an "owners licence" that I have to renew every 5 years. I'll be questioned by those around me "why would anyone *need* a stove capable of heating a small barn? People should just have stoves barely large enough to heat a bungalow and have a small firebox so they have to reload more often. Or better yet, ban them *all.*"
[T]he 'right thing'[.]From The Economist's look forward to The World in 2013 (source is here (http://www.economist.com/news/21566385-lead-tantalisingly-close-death-2013-world-meant-stop-using-leaded-petrol-toxin/print)).Lead is tantalisingly close to death: in 2013 the world is meant to stop using leaded petrol
Nov 21st 2012 |From The World In 2013 print edition
Not all that long ago, lead seemed to be a magical substance. It whitened the skins of young women, outlined their eyes and turned their lips gloss-red. It made house-paint glow fresh and dry fast, and gave toy soldiers their gleaming uniforms. It tasted sweet, too, when you put that toy soldier in your mouth; a reminder that medieval folk added “sugar of lead” to food, and 18th-century oenophiles popped a spoonful into port. Lead stirred in silica gave pots a hard, shining glaze; a little lead oxide, added to glass, gave it a crystalline sparkle; white lead, ground with linseed oil, primed painters’ canvases and made them spring to life. Not least, lead spiked with tin and antimony made hot metal, which when cast into letters and lines of type spread free thought around the world.
Added to petrol (or gasoline, to use the American term), as Thomas Midgley discovered in 1921, lead evened out the process of combustion. Doctors had already discovered that it was good in medicines, making ointments emollient and calming colicky stomachs as if it laid a gentle, heavy hand on them. In car engines, too, it soothed knocking and belching, increasing the octane count and making the motor purr like a contented cat.
It was all too good to be true, of course. Lead had a well-known darker side. Its alchemical symbol was the curved scythe, the sign of death. Despite the silvery dazzle of the fresh-cut ore, it soon acquired a dull and tarnished look. White-lead cream dried and eventually immobilised young, pretty skin; lead cooking pots may have brought down the Roman empire; lead chafed the hands of Benjamin Franklin at his printing press, and riddled the unwary with kidney damage, convulsions and lung disease. In 1924 alone its cold touch first maddened, then killed, 15 refinery workers who were developing tetraethyl lead for petrol. Yet the stuff made cars work so well that Ford and General Motors did not hesitate to keep on adding it.
So things went until the 1970s. As lead in paint, pipes and pesticides was outlawed, more and more studies confirmed that lead particles from car exhaust, filling the air, packing the soil and contaminating crops, were also bad for everyone, especially children. Lead not only made them ill. It had more subtle effects on the nervous system, rendering children anti-social, violent and aggressive: with a time-lag of 20 years or so, the crime rate exactly reflected childhood exposure to lead. Intelligence was affected, too: a blood lead level of even 5 µ/dl was enough to damage the infant brain, and with permanent effect.
Yet the thought of removing lead caused grief, too. Nothing else was quite as malleable, ductile and plentiful. And it had a way of lingering. Anyone feeling nostalgic for added lead in the 21st century, by when it was banned from almost everything, could still find it in traditional kohl, enhancing the beauty of Indian eyes, and in tiny amounts in Western lipsticks, helping them hold their colour longer. Though banned from sweets, it still gave a kick to Mexican chili-coated candies; though forbidden in medicines, it still strengthened herbal pills for wheezing Chinese asthmatics. Artists still preferred lead-based flake and Cremnitz white to safer titanium, and sought out the dwindling supplies. Aesthetes still enjoyed lead crystal, as long as they remembered not to keep wine in it.
So with petrol, too, carmakers resisted removing lead as long as they could. They balked until, in the 1970s, they had to install catalytic converters in cars to check emissions, and found that lead fouled them up. They moaned that there was no alternative; and indeed the alternatives—manganese or methyl tertiary butyl ether—brought pollution problems of their own, including, some say, a collapse in the numbers of Britain’s sparrows. But governments insisted, until by 2012 only a handful of countries still served up leaded petrol at the pumps; and even they, according to a deadline hopefully set by the United Nations, are meant to stop in 2013.
Et in Arcadia ego
They are an interesting bunch: Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Myanmar, North Korea, Sierra Leone, Yemen. None is a happy place. All are afflicted by violence, and three by long-running wars. Opponents of lead in petrol, or in anything else, might conclude that their case is closed. Lead’s pernicious presence lowers intelligence and increases aggression, typified by the urge to roar through dusty cities in heavily armed, pollution-spewing trucks.
The removal of lead from all petrol, then, should usher in a Golden Age. In America, since the ban of 1996, researchers estimate that IQ scores have risen by several points and 58m crimes have been avoided. The spread of peace to some of the world’s more benighted countries may happen not because leaders parley or Western troops leave, but because the element of wickedness has been taken out of their cars. In so far as lead survives, it will no longer be in forms that can be widely ingested or inhaled.
Can there be any possible downside to the end of the added-lead age? Only one, perhaps: that as lions lie down with lambs in meadows of blissfully uncontaminated grass, shaded by unpolluted apple trees, where children’s test scores are way above average and the safely painted picket fences hide no muggers, you may listen in vain for the song of the sparrow.
The NIEHS portal on lead is here (http://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topics/agents/lead/).
Fox News piece on danger of lead in toys <<LINK (http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/12/21/unwrapping-dangers-heavy-metals-in-toys/)>>.
From The Economist's look forward to The World in 2013 (source is here (http://www.economist.com/news/21566385-lead-tantalisingly-close-death-2013-world-meant-stop-using-leaded-petrol-toxin/print)).
The NIEHS portal on lead is here (http://www.niehs.nih.gov/health/topics/agents/lead/).
Fox News piece on danger of lead in toys <<LINK (http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/12/21/unwrapping-dangers-heavy-metals-in-toys/)>>.
Lead is a nasty beast, it's effects may even be linked to NY'ers voting in people like Cuomo and Schumer ;)
The Fox News piece you kinked about toys has not one mention as too where most of those toys originate....China.
You remember there was a toy recall in 2007 due to lead paint in toys originating in China. Mattel was fined 2.9 million dollars, yet 6 years later the US Protectorate still allows toy imports from China and there are no warning labels on those toys that read This may contain Lead which has been determined to dangerous to your health, especially the health and development in adolescents.
IMO.. if it was truly about health and the welfare of the kids there would be a ban on toy imports from China or any other country found to produce and export hazardous toys.
Enforcement is impossible, especially given that they can't enforce CERCLA cases from the 80s. They have a lot of regs on the books like this.
It's about money and control.
rubberneck
01-17-2013, 09:24
I wonder how this will work when the do-gooders hear that the EPA makes poor people stop burning wood during cold weather because their old fireplace is putting out smoke.
Doesn't that assume that they care more about poor people being warm than they do with their own special pet cause? Living in Ny & NJ for 35 years I knew more liberals than I care to remember and most of them had contempt for the homeless. They loved their pet causes though.
Do I have to 'splain ever lil' thang?
Don't worry Dusty, as someone that spent the first couple decades of his life "burning the stove" 7 months out of the year, I understood you just fine.
Not so fast...
This map shows MORE counties in CA are some variation of red than the variations of blue. Unfortunately (for red), there are MORE people in the blue ones.
Thank you for correcting me :o