Assembly gets concerning news about air quality

PALMER — The Mat-Su Borough Assembly got some concerning news at Tuesday night’s meeting from Denise Koch, the borough’s Director of Air Quality.

After narrowly avoiding EPA sanctions in 2016 with regard to the fine particulate matter, 2017 is off to a dangerously polluted start, despite efforts to get out the word about the importance of burning dry wood, Koch said in her power point presentation.

Koch explained that the acceptable level of PM2.5, which is particulate matter 30 times finer than a human hair, is 35 parts per cubic meter. The 2016 tally, which was taken as an aggregate of each of the 98^th percentile of each of the previous three years, came it at 35.1. Only a generous rule in EPA standards prevented the Mat-Su Valley from falling under the same federal scrutiny Fairbanks and Juneau have in recent years.

“Fortunately, the EPA allows you to round down, so the Mat-Su is in attainment,” Koch said. “But it’s way too close. If we want to make progress, we have to get that value down.”

Koch said that since 1998 there have been two air quality gauges in the valley, one near the borough assembly building in downtown Palmer, and another in Butte.

So far in 2017, the readings have been off the charts, with the Butte meter reading 63.5 on Jan. 1, 42.2 on Jan. 2, 41.6 on Jan. 11 and 44.1 on Feb. 6.

Granted, when winter ends and residents, especially in areas where natural gas heating is not available, those numbers will decline, but, if they don’t retreat under the magic 35 number, consequences could be severe, Koch said.

“It’s a very long process, but if you’re over 35, the EPA can declare an area to be in non-attainment and that triggers a very complicated and expensive planning process,” Koch said. “The federal government can require 2 to 1 offsets, so, for instance before you get a permit for one permit of pollution, you can only do it if you remove two from somewhere else. That has a lot of impact on industry.”

She said funding for federally funded road projects could be held up until each shows it conforms to EPA standards, the borough would have to come up with its own plan to address the problem, and even then be under a sort of probation for 20 years.

“I don’t want to go down this path; you don’t want to go down this path,” she said. “But there are ways for us not to go down this path.”

Koch said that the key to achieving that starts with getting the word out to the community that reducing wood smoke is vital, and that starts with making sure people burn only dry wood.

“That’s really the key,” she said.

Koch’s presentation suggested:

Promote or require the selling and burning of seasoned, dry wood

• Moisture Disclosure Program

• Register wood sellers

• Develop community drying lots or kiln

• Loan out moisture meters

• Issue firewood gathering permit to recently burned areas

Encourage hook-up to natural gas

• Develop change-out programs

Pair air advisories with messaging (use alternative source of heat, burn dry wood)

Create a special purpose district with focused control measures

Koch explained that the 98^th percentile checks of pollution levels mean there is some element of chance in the aggregate number.

“There’s still hope for 2017,” she said. “We’re really close to the federal standard, so we need to continue to be vigilant with outreach and education.”

Contact editor Matt Hickman at 352-2268 or matt.hickman@frontiersman.com