By Alan Pryor –
Information was gathered about the date, time, and location of the complaint as well as generic information on the prevailing weather and the qualitative degree to which the problem existed.
Number of Complaints
There were 248 wood smoke complaints registered in the 2010 – 2011 wood burning season compared to 121 complaints registered for the 2009 – 2010 wood burning season. This is an 105% increase in the total number of complaints in 2010 – 2011 compared to 2009 – 2010.
There were 19 voluntary “Don’t Light Tonight” advisory alerts issued by the Yolo Solano Air Quality Management District for the 2010 – 2011 Wood Burning Season compared with 15 called “Don’t Light Tonight” advisory alerts issued for the 2009 – 2010 wood burning season. This is a 26% increase in 2010 – 2011 compared to 2009 – 2010.
The number of complaints on No Burn Days increased almost 4-fold in 2010-2011 compared to the prior winter.
Conclusions: The higher percentage of complaints received on No-Burn Days compared to Allowable Burn Days indicates that there was relatively little compliance with the voluntary “Don’t Light Tonight” advisory alerts issued by the YSAQMD in 2010 – 2011. This is even more pronounced than during the 2009 – 2010 season. This indicates that a perceived greater wood smoke problem in Davis existed last winter than the prior wood burning season and that the YSAQMD and City outreach program is ineffective or ignored.
Locations of Complaints
The complaints were reported in 25 locations throughout the City in 2010 – 2011 as shown in the following City map compared to 17 locations reported in 2009 -2010.
Conclusions: The wood smoke problem is generally spread throughout the entire City with no neighborhoods completely immune. The number of complaints was more concentrated in the western side of the City, however.
Effects of Wind Speed on Number of Complaints
The vast majority of complaints were registered on days that had the lowest average daily wind speeds (less than 5 mph) as measured by the YSAQMD.
Conclusions: Mandatory wood burning restrictions based on lower wind speeds (as proposed by the NRC last year and in previous years) would have the greatest effect on reducing the number of complaints registered within the City.
Effects of Regional Particulate Matter on Number of Complaints
The vast majority of complaints were registered when regional air quality was well below the threshold level at which the voluntary “Don’t Light Tonight” advisory alerts were issued by the YSAQMD in 2010 – 2011 (i.e at predicted regional PM2.5 levels in excess of 25 ug/m3).
Conclusions: This indicates that mandatory wood burning restrictions based on regional PM2.5 as proposed would have little effect on reducing the number of complaints registered within the City.
Chronological Distribution of Complaints
The number of complaints were chronologically distributed as follows
Conclusions: The majority of complaints were registered in the last two weeks of December and first two weeks of January with an additional spike in late February corresponding with a colder late winter than normal.
Summary
1) Number of Wood Smoke Complaints and Voluntary Advisory Alerts
Wood smoke complaints increased by 105% during the 2010-2011 wood burning season and the number of voluntary “Don’t Light Tonight” advisory alerts issued by the YSAQMD increased 26% compared to the 2009 – 2011 wood burning season => This indicates that a greater and more pervasive wood smoke problem in Davis existed last winter than the prior wood burning season.
2) Effect of Wind Speed on the Number of Complaints
The majority of complaints were registered during the lowest windspeeds (less than 5 mph) => This indicates that wood burning restrictions based on wind speed as previously proposed by the NRC would have the greatest effect on reducing the number of complaints registered within the City.
3) Effects of Regional Particulate Matter on Number of Complaints
The majority of complaints were registered when regional air quality was well below the threshold level at which the voluntary “Don’t Light Tonight” advisory alerts were issued by the YSAQMD in 2010 – 2011 (i.e at predicted regional PM2.5 levels in excess of 25 ug/m3) => This indicates that wood burning restrictions based on regional PM2.5 as proposed would have little effect on reducing the number of complaints registered within the City.
Alan , burning my fire already , cold outside , toasty inside .
I didn’t complain at all last year !
Alan, thank you for the update. I’m wondering about the basis for some of your conclusions. Can we find the data online? How many total “unique complainers” did we have this time? Did some file complaints at both agencies? Was the new study done in the same way by the same person/people as the prior one? DEid anyone complain about Avatar? Thanks.
Here is the basic NRC proposal, copied from Adrienne’s Vanguard post last August:
“If the PM2.5 standard is met and wind speeds are 5 mph or above, EPA-approved stoves may operate. At 10 mph, open hearth fireplaces get to join in.
In consideration of people planning events a day ahead, rules are based on wind speed forecasts rather than actual conditions. A website and phone line inform residents which groups will be able to burn each day. Wood burning would remain a heating option whenever power was out.”
So it appears there were a maximum of 25 people registering complaints, compared to 17 people last year. I’m having trouble understanding the degree of nuisance that requires a City ordinance. And considering that the same individual can make a complaint once every day, analysis on the basis of number of complaints could be very biased.
To Don Shor: There was an additional provision in last year’s NRC proposal that allowed newer high efficiency wood or pellet stoves to operate at all wind speed (even less than 5 mph) as long as regional PM2.5 pollution was not predicted by the YSAQMD to exceed Federal Standards. The definition used for “high efficiency” were those wood burning appliances that produced 2 g/hr or less of particulate matter compared to EPA-approved stoves that are allowed to produce up to 7.5 g/hr. This was done to allow those people that had invested in the cleanest burning technology to operate from 90-95% of the time.
To: JustSaying – The City only provided the raw complaint data to the NRC in pdf format. This was a simple list of the 248 individual complaints and locations in chronological order. This assured that no duplicate complaints were registered by a single complainant. The process of collecting complaints was done in the same manner as last year although a different person in the Davis Public Utilities was involved in collecting the data (the other person had retired). This year, however, there were no summary statistics at all provided with the raw data so all of the charts and data and comparison were made by me after exporting the complaint data from pdf format into Excel and importing meteorological data from the YSAQMD’s special Davis monitoring site and correlating the two sets of data by date. Once this was accomplished then the various charts and summaries were created. I do not know where Avatar lives but he sounds like quite an avid wood burner so it is certainly possible that a number of complaints were generated by him. In my neighborhoods in South Davis, we had people burning wood even into May this year because of the much cooler spring. It made yard work pretty miserable sometimes.
To Davis Enophile – You would understand the need for regulations better if you were one of the people bathed in wood smoke such that you had to tape doors and windows shut every winter to prevent smoke infilitration or if you had to take your kids indoors everytime your neighbor fired up the wood stove. One rule of thumb used in politics is if you get 1 complaint or letter, there are probably 10 times that many people out in the world who feel the same way but don’t bother to communicate it. I know a lot of people who are bothered by wood smoke who don’t bother to register complaints because they don’t think it will matter or change anything…so far they have been right in Davis.
I agree with Davis Enophile – what the data shows is a total of 25 complaining people out of approximately how many households/people in Davis? The only thing the data shows from what I can tell is that there was an increase in complaints from 17 households to 25 households – not a huge number of households complaining.
Lets assume there are 4 persons in each of the 25 households. That is a total of 100 people complaining out of approximately 65,000 or less than 1/10 of 1%. The data just does not support a nuisance pervasive enough that would require a stringent ordinance.
I’m not at all sure there aren’t groups of people who cruise through town on cold nights just looking for smoke coming out of a chimney so they can complain. In any case, I’ve just converted one wood burning fireplace to gas and will hopefully get the other one converted before winter sets in again. A rather expensive undertaking I might add, since the homes in my neighborhood have 1/2″ gas pipes and now they should be at least 3/4″. It requred adding a new gas pipe running off the old one and just the duct work alone for that was $1,500. It’s not something you should just expect everyone to be able to run out and do.
I’m starting to think Alan Pryor is not the guy I want to go camping with.
To ERM: Most of the complainants are seniors and have lived in Davis for decades. Many have asthma or COPD and some use emergency inhalers daily. Some are fundtionally trapped in their homes and cannot even walk up and down the street because of the prevalence of wood smoke most winter eves. Does not your concern for the quality of life for seniors in Davis extend to these folks also even if they are a minority.
To JayTee: I can tell you with certainty that the vast majority of complaints were from seniors reporting smoke conditions in and around their immediate homes and neighborhoods. Only a very few complaints were registered singly. I am glad to hear you converted your fireplaces to gas…you are doing a great service to our air quality. But whether or not other people can afford to do that is irrelevant in my opinion. We do not allow poor people to drive around in smoke belching cars just because they cannot afford to fix their own cars. What if one of those smoke belchers parked right in front of your house and let it run 24/7? Or worse yet, what if they parked it in front of your mother’s home and she happened to have a respiratory impairment? I am guessing you would complaining to the high heavens. I have to admit it is disconcerting to me to hear people dismiss the very valid demands of other people for clean air just because the problem is not in the dismissive peoples’ backyard. Just because you don’t have the problem does not mean it is not extremely serious for others…especially seniors!
[i] I can tell you with certainty that the vast majority of complaints were from seniors reporting smoke conditions in and around their immediate homes and neighborhoods. [/i]
How do you know this? It’s not a rhetorical question; I am genuinely curious.
[quote]Most of the complainants are seniors and have lived in Davis for decades. Many have asthma or COPD and some use emergency inhalers daily. [/quote]Wow… the complaint process appears to be more thorough in capturing the complainant’s personal information than I could have imagined!
[quote]I can tell you with certainty that the vast majority of complaints were from seniors reporting smoke conditions in and around their immediate homes and neighborhoods.[/quote]Sure would like to see the complaint form… a lot more information than I thought the government should be collecting!
As I understand it, a lot of COPD sufferers are/were morbidly obese &/or heavy smokers. We should definitely restrict each other’s activities to protect these victims.
To Don Shor: Many off these people contacted me years ago when they became aware of my support for wood burning restrictions..primarily through the series of Enterprise articles. Through this acquantaince, I came to know them and where they live. It was then a simple matter of looking through the list of addresses on the logs and recognizing their streets. If I was unsure, I contacted them and asked if they have made the complaints. I can also say the number of people that filed complaints was much less than the number of people who have complained to me privately or spoke before the Council about the matter…meaning just because someone did not file a formal complaint it does not mean it is not a problem to them. Some of these seniors are fairly reclusive in their old age and simply will not put their name out in the public eye in any way. So I truly believe the number of complaints filed far underestimates the actual number of people adverseley affected by wood smoke.
To HPierce: Well if you don’t care much about these senior’s health, what about the 10-15% of kids in the San Joaquin Valley with serious asthma due to breathing polluted Valley air their entire lives. My daughter is 26 and has never smoked a cigarette in her life but has serious asthma which can turn into a full blown attack if the wood smoke gets bad when she is outdoors. There are also 2 kids on my cul-de-sac with severe respiratory problems such that when the burners in our neighborhood fire up they have to bring their kids back from the park and hustle them inside. Like I said earlier, it is amazing to me how easy many people dismiss a problem like this as long as the problem does not affect them.
Alan: You response to my comment is rhetorical. You can keep referencing the same anecdotes about tape and plastic, but basing argument on bombastic extremes only makes you humorous. Can you report on what is next? Are we to anticipate a revised ordinance proposal?
[i]” I came to know them and where they live. It was then a simple matter of looking through the list of addresses on the logs and recognizing their streets. If I was unsure, I contacted them and asked if they have made the complaints.”[/i]
If you think about it, this claim by Alan Pryor damns the larger claim by Alan Pryor. In effect, it says, there is a very small group of kvetchers, so small that Alan Pryor knows every single one of them by name, address, social security number and drink of choice. The other 99.9274% of people in Davis don’t seem to be complaining at all.
[img]http://mrsfussypants.com/wp-content/uploads/mrsfussypants/HLIC/fussypants.typepad.com/whatsmartmommiesknow/images/2008/04/14/enemies_whining_3.jpg[/img]
[quote]I’m starting to think Alan Pryor is not the guy I want to go camping with.[/quote]
No, Rich – you’ve got it all wrong!
Alan is exactly the guy you want to go camping with. Just make that you always sit on the opposite side of the campfire. The smoke always drifts towards him.
Before anyone gets upset: I’m joking here.
I’m going to assume he got a chuckle out of that, but please keep to the topic of the wood burning ordinance now.
[i]”Just make that you always sit on the opposite side of the campfire. The smoke always drifts towards him.”[/i]
I think I know what you mean, David.
[img]http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YyZNjcK10dc/TgqIAHbGAiI/AAAAAAAAAe0/ZT-KW-JEsxk/s1600/campfire.bmp[/img]
Before Don gets upset: I’m joking here. But please, back to the topic of the wood burning ordinance now.
“One rule of thumb used in politics is if you get 1 complaint or letter, there are probably 10 times that many people out in the world who feel the same way but don’t bother to communicate it.”
Another rule of thumb in politics is if there is one person out there who isn’t bothered by the fireplace smoke there are probably thousands of times more people in the world who feel the same way. LOL, I can make up figures too.