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Recommendations
Recommendations for the Federal Government
- The federal government should ban outdoor wood furnaces until safer technologies are found.
- If the federal government supports the idea of outdoor wood furnaces for the purpose of
heating, then it should support research on how to make them safe. At the very least, the
federal government should stop giving tax credits for their purchase.
- The government should determine the levels of particulates, carcinogens and carbon
monoxide emanating from an outdoor wood furnace.
- The EPA’s stated mission is “to protect human health and to safeguard the natural
environment.”With that as its mission, the agency should recommend a ban on outdoor
wood furnaces until safer technologies are found.
- The federal government should set air safety standards for inside air, including PM0.5
particles, just as it has set standards for outside air.
- Healthful air emission standards should be applied to outdoor wood furnaces.
Recommendations for State Governments
- States should ban outdoor wood furnaces until safer technologies are found.
- States should set air standards that are stringent enough to protect human health, and
require OWFs to comply.
- States should add “wood smoke” to their Public Health Nuisance Codes so that state health
departments and local health departments are required to enforce wood smoke nuisance cases.
- States should put outdoor wood furnace information on their websites and explain why
OWFs are dangerous to human health.
- States’ air standards should take into account peak exposures, as well as the current 24-hour
average exposures.
Recommendations for Towns
- Towns should ban outdoor wood furnaces through their planning
and zoning commissions or appropriate governmental agencies.
- Local health departments should enforce wood smoke public
health issues in ways that protect an individual’s health.
Recommendations for Individuals
- People should find other ways to heat their homes rather than
installing outdoor wood furnaces, which harm neighbors’ health
and property values.
- People should work with their town planning and zoning commissions
to have outdoor wood furnaces banned in their towns.
- People who are being harmed by an outdoor wood furnace should
contact their state or local health department and ask to have the
offending outdoor wood furnace closed down under their state or
local public health nuisance code.
- Individuals living in homes impacted by wood smoke from outdoor
wood furnaces might want to purchase an air monitor that
measures and records the particulates inside their houses. Monitors
such as this sell for about $250. See pages 32–34, Appendix A, for
instructions for using a monitor of this type. Having actual
documentation of the smoke infiltration inside a home may cause
state or local health departments, or other government agencies, to
act in ways that will protect human health.
- Patients who are being treated for respiratory issues should discuss
their exposures to an OWF when being evaluated by their
physician, as other health issues related to these exposures might
be involved.
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