Residential Wood Smoke Reduction Program
TRIBAL AIR WORK PLAN OBJECTIVE: To design and implement a sustainable program
to reduce emissions from residential wood burning and improve ambient and indoor
air quality; mitigate the negative health effects of wood smoke exposure for
community residents; and contribute to area compliance with Clean Air Act
requirements.
ACTIVITIES/TASKS:
 Hire new or assign existing staff and acquire training as needed in education
and outreach, wood-burning appliance design and use, relevant tribal,
federal, state and local air quality regulations, emissions inventories and air
monitoring, as needed.
 Develop a project plan including overall goals, project timeline, specific tasks
and potential partners.
 Set specific goals such as the number of residents educated on clean burning;
the number of wood burning units replaced or eliminated; improvement in air
quality; and reduction in occurrence of treatment for smoke-related illnesses.
 Establish a baseline assessment of wood burning in the community.
o Survey residents, hearth retailers, chimney sweeps, firewood vendors
and firewood permitting entities to estimate the number of woodburning households and amount of wood used on the reservation.
o Record air monitoring measurements of particulate levels.
o Conduct an emissions inventory and use the EPA Wood Stove and
Fireplace Changeout Emissions Calculator to quantify emissions from
wood burning.
o Quantify the health impacts of wood smoke by assessing the level of
related health conditions within the community; identify the
opportunities for collaboration with healthcare providers in making
these evaluations.
 Conduct an education and outreach program to inform residents of the health
effects of wood smoke and the options available for home heating such as
more efficient wood burning appliances and fireplaces, the most effective
seasoning and burn practices for cord wood, and alternative fuels such as
compressed wood products and propane or natural gas. Emphasize the
potential cost savings of using properly seasoned firewood.
o Enlist the support of leaders and elders through presentations to tribal
councils centered on clean burning and wood stove change out
programs.
o Supply healthcare partners with literature, posters, information and
training to be used to inform patients of the detrimental health effects
of wood smoke.
o Offer workshops to housing departments and residential services staff
on minimizing the impacts of wood heaters on indoor air quality.
o Distribute BurnWise materials which can be tailored to each specific
tribe at community gatherings, fairs, open houses, farmers’ markets,
school functions, home shows and other events. Use free snacks and
giveaways to build interest.
Offer and promote workshops on how to build woodsheds, stack and
store firewood, build and start a fire, use a moisture meter, increase
the life of the appliance and make the fuel last longer and burn hotter.
o Give outreach presentations in schools to teach students about the
relationship between air quality and health effects such as asthma,
bronchitis and heart and lung disease.
o Work with local fire departments, chimney maintenance, hearth
retailers, wood sources and insurance companies to educate residents
on how to maintain and operate stoves safely.
o Mail BurnWise literature with firewood collection and burn permits
where applicable.
o Make educational materials on how to season and store wood available
through firewood sources (USFS, state DNRs, tribal forest management
departments, and firewood vendors).
o Use advertising when possible—buses, billboards, newspapers, TV and
radio PSAs.
o Publicize air quality forecasts and reports through news media, social
media, reverse 911, text alerts and Enviroflash if available for the area.
Create programs to enable use of properly seasoned cord wood.
o Enlist community service organizations and tribal support groups to
furnish woodsheds and organize wood banking reserves from which to
supply elders and those in need with high quality wood.
o Operate a wood exchange program with a facility for intake of green
wood in return for a limited amount of seasoned wood.
o Supply elders and very low income tribal members with low or no cost
wood pellets, pressed wood logs or seasoned cord wood through the
tribal LIHEAP coordinator.
Initiate a wood stove and fireplace insert change out program to install cleanburning, high efficiency EPA certified heaters, with removal and destruction
of old, inefficient, smoky units.
o Identify potential partners: local elected officials; Hearth, Patio and
Barbecue Association (HPBA) and vendors; American Lung Association
(ALA); Chimney Safety Institute of America (CSIA); Alliance for Green
Heat; state energy, environmental and air quality agencies;
environmental non-profit organizations; Indian Health Service and
tribal health clinics, and others.
o Identify and solicit sources of funding.
 Industry vouchers and discounts.
 Federal, state and local tax credits.
 PACE loans repaid through property tax assessments.
 Federal programs: DOE low-income weatherization program;
DHHS LIHEAP; USDA low-income/elderly loan and grant
programs; USDA Rural Community Development Initiative; HUD
Rural Housing, Economic Development and block grants; federal
and state SEP and mitigation projects; EPA Tribal Air Quality,
Clean Air Act, emissions offsets, RARE and STAR grants.
 Regional Clean Air Agencies
 Utility and energy company incentives.
 Low-interest loans from state and local programs.
 Loan programs through third party financial institutions.
o
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 Congressional earmarks.
 Tribal funds.
o Provide subsidies for replacement of old wood burning units with EPA
certified wood or pellet stoves, fireplace inserts and Phase 2 retrofit
devices, or Phase 2 wood boilers.
o Pay a bounty on old heaters turned in to be scrapped and destroyed.
o Provide no-cost upgrades of wood heaters for elderly and low-income
tribal members.
Institute a regulatory wood smoke curtailment system.
o Restrict or ban wood burning when air quality is poor or forecasted to
be poor.
o Require that non-certified wood heaters be removed and destroyed
when ownership of a home changes.
o Restrict wood heaters and fireplaces in new construction to only EPA
certified units; consider a permitting program for wood heating.
o Place limits on visible emissions or plume opacity, enforced by
warnings and fines.
o Ban all use of uncertified wood stoves and fireplace inserts.
o Prohibit sale, transfer or installation of uncertified stoves and inserts.
WORK PLAN RESULTS:
 Possible Outputs:
o Report compiled from post-program surveys evaluating the number of
residents educated on and regularly using clean burning practices.
o Report of the number of partners convened to work together on wood
smoke reduction.
o Report of the number of wood stoves, wood heaters, fireplaces and
outdoor wood-fired boilers changed out, scrapped and destroyed or
converted.
o Reports from follow up visits to households with new stoves.
o Comparison of ambient and indoor air quality measurements before
and after a change out campaign is completed.
o Comparison of healthcare provider visits due to wood smoke-related
illnesses prior to and in the years following the campaign.
o Evaluation of goals listed in the project plan versus results of the
campaign.
o Documentation of project’s success to be provided to funding sources.
 Possible Outcomes:
o Reduction of indoor and outdoor particulate levels.
o Reduction of occurrence of asthma and other health impacts of wood
smoke.
o Improvement in visibility.
o Reduction in the number of chimney fires.
o Reduction of visible smoke reports on burn curtailment days.
o Reduction in total volume of wood burned community-wide.
Acronyms—
EPA: US Environmental Protection Agency
USFS: US Forest Service
DNR: Department of Natural Resources or equivalent
PSA: Public Service Announcement
PACE: Property Assessed Clean Energy
DOE: Department of Energy
DHHS: US Department of Health and Human Services
LIHEAP: Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program
USDA: US Department of Agriculture
HUD: US Department of Housing and Urban Development
SEP: Supplemental Environmental Project
RARE: Regional Applied Research Effort
STAR: Science to Achieve Results
Sources and resources:
EPA BurnWise Program: http://www.epa.gov/burnwise
Strategies to Reduce Residential Wood Smoke:
http://www.epa.gov/burnwise/strategies.html
Process for Implementing a Wood Stove Changeout Program:
http://www.epa.gov/burnwise/pdfs/HowToImplementaWoodStoveChangeout.pdf
Financing options: http://www.epa.gov/burnwise/pdfs/financing.pdf
Emissions calculator: http://www.epa.gov/burnwise/xls/EmissionCalculator.xls
HBPA Wood Stove Changeout: http://woodstovechangeout.org/index.php?id=1
Testing moisture content of firewood:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGpxh9q665A
Contacts:
EPA OAQPS BurnWise—Leigh Herrington, Herrington.leigh@epa.gov
EPA R10 Tribal Air Quality Specialist—Erin McTigue, mctigue.erin@epa.gov
EPA R10 Federal Air Rules for Reservations support—Steve Scott, scott.steve@epa.gov