On the night of July 21, 2009, the Davis City Council dropped back into punt formation and punted the political hot potato that is the wood burning issue back even further off the horizon… yet again.
The issue has been mishandled from the beginning starting with a summer 2008 vote that was done before most people even became aware of the issue where they directed the Natural Resources Commission to draft an ordinance that would ban woodburning in the city of Davis.
What would happen then would be a series of punts by the Davis City Council (hey it was opening weekend for college football and I was on the couch the entire time!) ostensibly to study the issue, but one of the first things any Pol. 1 student learns is that you only study issues when you want to avoid making a decision.
Still, let us not get too carried away, I think a reasonable case could be made that studying the issue after December was the right plan. Having an idea of the extent of the problem was a reasonable approach.
Council finally heard the issue again on July 21, 2009, almost a year after it first made a decision on the subject. This time, they asked for more data collection and analysis during the next burn season, they asked staff to develop a resolution adopting a program or policy to be approved in September that establishes voluntary burn/no burn days and then come up with a plan for implementation.
For a full discussion of what transpired on July 21, take a look at the two guest articles from Alan Pryor:
However, the crux of the decision by council was to defer any meaningful restrictions on wood smoke until a future data.
The council actually has at least two alternative approaches that it was presented by people that they should rely on to make the kind of informed decisions on complex issues of this sort. First, the NRC recommended the city impose mandatory wood burning restrictions based on wind speed. Dr. Tom Cahill, who the city had commissioned to study the data also recommended mandatory restrictions based on the Sacramento Air Quality Management District’s Spare-the-Air program to restrict wood –burning in winter in Davis.
People seem to act as though this issue is simply another case of Davis being Davis. The irony is that Davis is behind the times on this issue. Far from being some sort of misguided social experiment that Davis has undertaken as a certain columnist in another newspaper might allege, most cities in Northern California including the liberal bastions of Bakersfield and Chico face some sort of mandatory wood burning restriction, some have gone as far as an outright ban on use of certain types of fireplaces at all times while others restrict use only during periods of bad air quality.
The point here is that this issue has clearly been studied enough to make at least a preliminary decision on a course of action to take. There may or may not be legitimate concerns about enforcement. Some have suggested the issue has been blown out of proportion, others think it is legitimate. From my standpoint, I think you can play around the specifics of how to enforce and implement a policy separate from the discussion of what policy to implement.
It is time to make a decision–even an unpleasant one that will anger some portion of the constituency. You probably have two or three legitimate options at this point without trying to reinvent the wheel yourself. At minimum you could implement the same policy as Sacramento and probably be relatively covered from both sides.
On Tuesday, the question of course will not be what procedure to implement but rather a procedural question. Councilmember Heystek asked for reconsideration of the Council’s July resolution that deferred action. Three of his colleagues would have to agree with Mr. Heystek to push forward with appropriate action. That does not seem very likely at this time, but it is something the council really needs to do. The city of Davis, long considered an environmental bastion risks falling behind Bakersfield and Chico in terms of the recognition of the environmental hazards of some from the burning of wood.
Some of you are not moved by such things, then perhaps you can be moved by the many tales of discomfort from people extremely sensitive to smoke and what they have to do to avoid breathing the polluted air during certain times of the year.
At the very least, regardless of where we stand on the issue, and I would probably put myself more in a middle position between that of Mr. Pryor and the City Council, let us resolve the issue at least for the time being.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
With that nasty H1N1 flu putting asthmatics and other folks at increased risk, we should not fiddle around any more with the wood burning ordinance.
Take an already twitchy set of lungs, add wood smoke to ramp up the inflammation, add a virus with an elevated tendency to create fatal deep lung infections, and you have a recipe for disaster.
City Council, if you don’t have the courage to pass the Natural Resources Commission wood burning ordinance, then at the very least pass the Sacramento ordinance.
@Barbara
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
Banning wood-burning is a no-brainer. I returned a few days ago from a trip to Washington and Oregon, and as soon as I hit the southern Willamette Valley and all the way down I-5 to Davis, you could see how foul the air was. While in the Olympic Peninsula, the chronic cough I have had since moving to Davis in 2001 disappeared, only to return in the middle of the night of the day I returned home.
For the sake of your kids’ health, wise up already and ban wood-burning stoves and fireplaces. It’s bad enough you have a major freeway running through the middle of town.
Wood smoke in August or September? Must have been from forest fires instead of smokestacks.
I’ve got asthma. If “the only legitimate purpose of government is to protect the weak against the strong,” the Davis City Council has no raison d’etre. Time to do something, folks, instead of chickening out. My guess is that some council members are afraid to incur the wrath of the increasingly nasty and stridently selfish people in Davis. Gosh, are their loud opinions “the heat in the kitchen”? Too bad. Do your job, Council.
But most of what government does is protect the strong from the weak.
Unfortunately, the tone of the wood-burning discussion has become so vitriolic and one-sided on this blog that it is no longer possible to have a reasonable debate about these options. Don’t be surprised if the city council defers action again or opts for the least stringent alternative. There are many people in town opposed to severe restrictions on wood-burning, for a variety of reasons. I’m sure they have made their views known privately to the council members. But you won’t be hearing about it here. This has become another useful lesson in how to alienate potential supporters.
“This has become another useful lesson in how to alienate potential supporters.”
I agree with this statement. Sometimes a side can “overplay their hand” so to speak, especially in this town, which has become far too polarized on various issues. You have to know when to “hold ’em” and when to “fold ’em” – and when to “play ’em”!
I’ve got asthma.
My wife has asthma too, and we had to replace our wood burning fireplace insert with one that uses natural gas.
However, our next door neighbor and one across the street burn wood in the winter. Since we keep our windows closed in the winter no smoke particulate matter enters our living space. Outdoors, the smoke dissipates in the cool winter air. My wife never complains about it. In fact, she comments on how she likes the smell of fireplaces in the winter.
Contrast this with the summer months where high ozone, pollen and windblown dust combine with particulates from the typical fire season – when we keep our windows open to cool the house and save on electricity – my entire family takes Zyrtek or Allegra plus allergy shots just to function.
Since we live in a high-particulate environment already, I think the claims of health problems from wood burning are over-hyped and a ban is unnecessary.
Jeff,
I couldn’t agree more, and my children and I all have asthma. We never have a problem breathing the air in the winter…how ever during the summer-yikes! Should we talk about banning the Union Pacific and shutting down 80?
Dee,
Absolutely. The questions we must always ask ourselves: “what’s next?”
The question we should ask is actually–what will make our lives better and moves towards it.