Breaking Tradition

Creating a Breath of Fresh Air

This article originally appeared in OR Magazine. The digital-only publication is available here.

By Brittany Norton

Oakridge, Oregon is shaped like a bowl. A gentle upward slope of the hillside buffers the north, east and west sides of the town, while the Willamette River forms the border of the south side. This configuration makes the town prone to stagnant air and temperature inversions. In the winter months especially, cold, dry days cause a lack of wind flow, and when temperature inversions occur, hot air rises, trapping cold air in the valley.

Because there is no natural gas line in Oakridge, people primarily use wood-burning sources to heat their homes; and when smoke escapes from chimneys, it is trapped by the inversion and eventually settles back toward the ground, polluting the air with dangerous particles that are potentially harmful to the health of Oakridge citizens.

"If you're looking over toward the river on the south side of the highway you can see it, but it's pretty much congregated to that  area because that's where the river is and the river acts as a magnet," said Oakridge mayor Jim Coey.

However, all that is starting to change. With the help of educational materials, increased enforcement and a community firewood program, Oakridge is making progress in reducing wood smoke in the area. For many years, Oakridge has been in nonattainment status with the Environmental Protection Agency's air quality standards -- meaning the city exceeded required levels for particulate matter (PM) 2.5, which are solid particles from wood-burning sources that mix with water in the air and can negatively impact health. But in 2016 Oakridge achieved the necessary requirements to be in attainment. Now the clock is ticking to continue that trend.

The EPA requires measurements of PM 2.5 every year and averages out the data from the past three years to determine attainment. If a city is in nonattainment status, it can limit economic development in the area, as well as prevent it from receiving federal funds, according to Oregon Solutions, an organization that acts as a project management company. 

The city of Oakridge partnered with Oregon Solutions and Lane Region Air Protections Agency (LRAPA) to implement a three-part plan to continue improving air quality in the town of just over 3,000 people. 

According to documents put forth by Oregon Solutions, the strategy includes education, enforcement and financial assistance, and will cost over $1 million. Plans for education include distribution of materials that explain wood burning advisories and techniques, as well as a diversion program, whcih is an educational course that replaces a fine for those who are first-time offenders of burning wood during banned days.

In terms of enforcement, the city updated burning codes, exemptions and fines. It also hired a part-time code enforcement officer.

To provide financial assistance, the city is collaborating with Lane Electric Cooperative's low-income assistance program, which offers free ductless heat pumps and home weatherization for low-income homeowners.

The city has also created a community firewood program, which has seemingly been one of the most successful programs for Oakridge thus far. The program is a collective between the city of Oakridge, the Souther Willamette Forest Collaborative -- an environmental planning nonprofit organization -- and Inbound LLC -- a contract firefighting company -- and it provides seasoned firewood to members of the community. This firewood is more effective at heating homes, as it is drier. As a result, it releases fewer harmful particles into the air, as opposed to green wood, which is wood that hasn't been properly dried after being cut down, releasing more smoke into the air. 

The Community Firewood Program sold wood cords for $100 to disabled citizens, elderly citizens and participants of Oakridge's low-income and sole-source heat exemption program -- which allows low-income residents to burn wood on days where it would otherwise be prohibited -- and $150 to everyone else. 

Coey said The Community Firewood program is also an opportunity to educate Oakridge citizens on proper wood burning techniques: "When we're selling firewood it gives us about 15 minutes with the people to talk to them about how to burn wood in these new stoves. I think about 80 stoves were changed out back in '09. It didn't do anything. These new stoves have to have dry wood. Period."

In previous years, Oakridge received dry wood as a donation from a leftover cut in Roseburg, but in 2017 there was no excess wood to donated to the city.

"I think that's why we had an uptick this year because we didn't have the dry wood and we actually had some red days [days residents are prohibited from burning wood] this year," said Coey referring to the increased PM 2.5 levels in 2017. 

For Dillon Sanders, managing director of Inbound LLC, getting involved with the community firewood program was a natural choice: "I was born a poor child with a single parent, and we lived very poorly. It was my job from a young age to be in charge of wood. For me personally, it just had traction because I grew up so poorly with only wood heat," he said. 

The history of air quality improvement in Oakridge is extensive. According to the Lane Regional Air Protection Agency’s (LRAPA) 2016 attainment plan, Oakridge was first declared in moderate nonattainment for particulate matter 10 in 1994. At this time, the EPA required PM 10 to be below a three- year average of 65 micrograms per cubic meter. The city of Oakridge, LRAPA and the Oregon Environmental Quality Commission adopted an attainment plan in 1996 and achieved it, on schedule, in 2001.

But five years later, the EPA increased restrictions on PM 2.5, creating the standard that exists today — which is not to exceed 35 micrograms per cubic meter of PM 2.5 over a three-year average. The most harmful type of particulate matter is PM 2.5 because it is small enough to affect the lungs. One human hair is about 30 times larger than PM 2.5, according to the EPA. Asthma and increased respiratory problems are some of the potential health effects of air pollution.

Once again, the institutions adopted a new 2012 attainment plan. While the particulate concentrations from 2013 to 2015 were the lowest recorded in Oakridge’s history of recording for particulate matter, they still weren’t on track to reach attainment status. The city applied for a one-year extension from the EPA – making the new deadline 2016. Oakridge achieved a level of attainment that year.

However, every year is critical and in 2017 Oakridge reported an average of 36 micrograms per cubic meter for PM 2.5. This result didn’t greatly affect the latest three-year average, which is 29. However, if the city continues to end the year with high averages, it could move Oakridge back into nonattainment status.

Coey said he considers the EPA’s air quality standards an “unfunded mandate.”

House Bill 3068, which was passed in 2015, required the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to form a workgroup that could make recommendations to reduce wood smoke. The workgroup recommended increasing state funding for local communities from $170,000 to $550- $700,000 per biennium. As a result of this workgroup, Oakridge received a $75,000 grant from the Oregon DEQ, said Coey.

“We’ve done this for under $100,000. Fixed the problem. But it’s not maintainable that way,” Coey said.

Sarah Altemus-Pope, executive director for the Southern Willamette Forest Collaborative, describes the efforts to reduce wood smoke pollution in Oakridge as a contentious issue, and said community members see it as an act of over-regulation by the government.

Coey agrees: “You know, rural communities — they want to be left alone. They don’t want any regulations. And wood smoke — how long have we been burning wood? Since the Earth existed? Since fire was created?”

Jo Niehaus, public a airs manager with LRAPA, said the cultural history of the town is also a limitation to improving air quality.

“A place like Oakridge – where wood culture is really ingrained – retraining folks and helping them get access to resources has been a challenge,” she said.

Oakridge used to be a logging town, but according to a 2006 article in The New York Times, the last mill closed in 1990 and there have been increasing rates of poverty ever since. But many Oakridge residents are still attached to the old ways of cutting their own wood.

Furthermore, Niehaus said there is reluctance to believe individual actions will amount to large-scale changes. “As an individual, it’s hard to fathom that my one action will make a difference,” she said.

Oftentimes, parents have to make decisions about what is most important to them: “Are they going to prioritize keeping their kid warm today overexposing them to particulate matter?” She asked. “And that answer is probably yes, so then the challenge is providing them with resources.”

There has also been controversy over where the air quality monitor is placed. Currently, it’s located where the air quality is the worst. Coey has argued for having two monitors, one up on the hillside – where the air quality is better – and the other down in the valley, and averaging the two. But, Niehaus said that would be nancially unsuitable for how small the town is, and the purpose of the program is to improve air quality in all parts of Oakridge.

“If you can improve air quality in the worst polluted place, you’re improving it everywhere,” Niehaus said.