County officials tweaking air quality regs for Libby area
by Brent Shrum, Kootenai Valley Record
November 25, 2009
Hoping to avoid a full ban on woodstove use in the Libby area during times of poor air quality, Lincoln County officials are tweaking the county’s air advisory scheme and planning a new loaner program to provide alternative heating sources on a temporary basis.
Environmental health department director Kathi Hooper briefed the county commissioners on the plan last week. A new "Stage 2" air advisory is being added this year, which will ask residents to forego woodstove use on a voluntary basis unless wood is their only source of heat. A "Stage 1" advisory was instituted last year to request to voluntary use of alternate heating sources.
A "Stage 3" air quality alert remains as a last resort and institutes a mandatory ban on woodstove use when weather conditions lead to poor air quality. Such a ban was put in place over a two-day period last October and led to protests from area residents who rely on woodstoves to heat their homes.
"We have the means to avoid getting to an alert if everybody responds to the advisory stages," Hooper said.
A loaner program is being started to provide backup heating sources for homes where wood provides the only source of heat, Hooper said.
"We don’t want people to be cold, and we don’t want them to have to leave their homes and stay with a friend or let their pipes freeze," she said.
The portable heaters the county plans to purchase will heat 1,000 square feet, she said.
"It may not heat your back room and your office, but it’s going to heat your living space," she said.
The Libby area was designated a nonattainment area for revised federal standards for fine particulate matter based on air quality monitoring data from 2005 through 2007. A woodstove changeout program undertaken to replace old woodstoves with new, EPA-certified clean-burning models contributed to a decline in pollution levels and the recent redesignation of Libby as an attainment area.
The new designation won’t change restrictions that are already in place, Hooper said.
"What it did was really demonstrate that what we’re doing is working," she said.
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Editor’s Note: See the November 24, 2009 edition of the Kootenai Valley Record for the printed version of this story. The Kootenai Valley Record publishes once a week, on Tuesdays, in Libby, Montana. They are a locally owned community newspaper, located at 403 Mineral Avenue in Libby. For in-county and out-of-county subscription information, call 406-293-2424, or e-mail kvrecord@gmail.com.
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