UPDATE: Chico to regulate wood-burning stoves

The City of Chico will start regulating the use of wood-burning stoves to help rein in the air pollution that hangs over the city during winter months, the Chico Enterprise-Record reports. 

Under the new rules, indoor wood burning would be prohibited from November to March on days the particulate pollution is unhealthy for sensitive groups, with certain exceptions. The ordinance could impose fines of more than $100 on a second offense. The first would trigger a warning letter.

Mayor Ann Schwab supported the restrictions.

"This is an ordinance for the sake of something," Schwab said. "It's for the health of our community. It's not an ordinance for ordinance sake."

Health problems caused by wood smoke pollution were examined in a four-part series produced by the Enterprise-Record in partnership with the Center for Health Reporting in 2010.  The series, which won praise and a major award this spring from the Association of Health Care Journalists, helped pave the way for the new Chico rules, said W. James Wagoner, air pollution control officer for Butte County, where Chico is located.

The reporting team interviewed many scientists across the country and 10 local physicians, as well as local and state air quality officials. The series reported researchers’ findings that particles like those found in wood smoke can worsen chronic diseases such as asthma and increase the risk of heart attacks and strokes.

In an interview for the series, Dr. Mark Miller, a former Chico pediatrician who is now the director of the Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit at UC San Francisco, said, "There are carcinogens. There are respiratory irritants. There are all sorts of bad things."

Of the 10 local physicians interviewed for the project, nine expressed deep concern about potential health effects of wood smoke in and around Chico.

"It's really not a good place to live in winter if you have chronic respiratory problems," Chico pulmonologist Dr. Dinesh Verma told the reporting team. He urges his patients with lung disease to at least switch to other forms of heat.

As of 2008, Butte County homes contained nearly 15,000 free-standing wood stoves and fireplaces, including more than 7,000 concentrated in Chico, according to county assessor records. Wood stove smoke is a leading source of winter air pollution in the Chico area, officials said.

Elsewhere, at least 16 of California's 35 air quality districts have limited the days when residents can use older, more polluting wood stoves and fireplaces to heat their homes, state records show.

To date, while the city of Chico has now instituted mandatory no-burning regulations for high-pollution days, Butte County's air district board has rejected calls to impose rules on burning.

The series pointed out that the debate over wood smoke pollution divided local residents — by financial status and by suspicions about the cause of the area’s pollution.

Many residents said they could not afford any other heat source. For others, suspicion of government meddling and scientific results fueled their opposition to rules governing wood stove burning.

The stories, according to the air district’s Wagoner, were “a tremendous public service.”