On Spare the Air Days, only firewood dealers burn

Contra Costa Times ^ | 1/23/12 | Tom Barnidge, Contra Costa Times columnist

[SmithL]

The Bay Area Air Quality Management District is not just another government agency with an unwieldy title and a lot of directors (22, at last count). It is the state-appointed body that regulates the "stationary sources of air pollution in the nine counties that surround San Francisco Bay."

In the winter months, that means it's the fireplace police.

When meteorologists determine that cold, still conditions will trap particulate-filled wood smoke close to the ground, the agency declares a "no burn" day, meaning you're forbidden from burning your firewood in your fireplace in the house you own.

Put another way: On Spare the Air days, this is the land of the free only if you have gas logs.

This has been a big winter for "no burn" days -- 15 since Nov. 1, including both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. If you roasted chestnuts on an open fire on those occasions, you were subject to a warning (first offense) or $400 fine (second offense).

[SmithL]

The smoke police operate by having people turn in their neighbors.

[Noumenon]

That wouldn’t go over too well in my neck of the woods. But extending such policies to rural areas is part of the Agenda 21 plan. Or should I say the 0bama Rural Pacification Plan?

[Steely Tom]

California people love this sort of thing.

[Cicero]

I already thought it was pretty stupid, but reading about the firewood dealers makes it even worse.

Thankfully, although Vermont is full of greenie hippies, they all have guns and they all burn wood if they can.

Better to burn local firewood from keeping the woods cleared of junk than to burn fuel oil from the Arab Gulf at $4.00 a gallon.

Of course it’s not just for show. We use wood stoves, and more recently pellet stoves, to save money on fuel.

Apparently the envirofreaks in California would rather have brushfires and houses burning down than cut the wood and burn it instead of natgas or oil.

[Big Horn]

My fire place insert is clean and smokeless. all it puts out is heat. It is a very efficient unit and burns little wood.You can’t smell it outside and I wish we could smell it inside.

[hinckley buzzard]

Too bad these liberals don't like the boy scouts. They could have learned how to build a smokeless fire. On any day I can fire up the fireplace and with no sign of it outside.

[Fiji Hill]

California people love this sort of thing.

No, we don't.

[wac3rd]

Exactly, we are not all brain-dead out here, but there are a lot of Libtards, unions and illegals running roughshod over a lot of the policies.

[Repeal The 17th]

Sometimes I still go out in the back yard and burn stuff just for the hell of it.
Fire good.

[Navy Patriot]

My fire place insert is clean and smokeless.

Your fireplace insert is a catalytic converter equipped unit that is approved for year round use by the Federal government and national authorities in virtually every other nation that has wood fireplace/stove emissions standards.

Except, of course, in the Stalin enlightened radical Communist sub-utopia of the nine Northern Californicate Bay Area counties. Here, said insert is more illegal than selling pot to children.

Here, you are the lowest form of planet killing vermin and are hunted for sport by pot fueled union thug drones driving coal burning cars.

[Argus]

Damn right. I live in the mountains of SoCal. We burn wood for heat all winter long. The only alternative besides electric heaters is propane. Too expensive. Not that the Green Nazis care, it’s all about power to them.

[Carry_Okie]

There is enough wood in excess of what is good for the forest in the hills above San Francisco Bay to heat the entire region for at least a year. My place alone produces many times what I can use.

The wood will either burn or rot. In either case, wildfire smoke or the mold spores are worse for public health than the fumes from modern wood stoves equipped with catalytic converters, particularly pellet stoves and furnaces. Hence, this is simply a subsidy for the major stockholders of oil and gas companies that run this State's "environmental" bureaucracy.

[Carry_Okie]

On any day I can fire up the fireplace and with no sign of it outside.

I don't buy it. Water vapor from even a clean fire is still visible on a cold day with high relative humidity.

[tet68]

I imagine the smoke police have FLIR equiped helos,
probably BLACK ones...

[tbw2]

What is a catalytic converter equipped fireplace insert illegal in California?

[Carry_Okie]

I imagine the smoke police have FLIR equiped helos,

With satellite resolution being what it is, I doubt they need that. The computer will simply send you a bill.

[Navy Patriot]

What (why) is a catalytic converter equipped fireplace insert illegal in California?

It is illegal to burn wood or wood products in any fireplace, cat insert equipped or not, in the nine SF Bay Area counties included in the environmentally fraudulent, jackboot Bay Area Air Quality Management District, when they dictate (at their appointed whim) that you shall not, by declaring a "spare the air" day. This is not Californicate in it's entirety, just the nine SF Bay Area counties.

The point is, there is no logical or scientific reason that cat equipped inserts should not be allowed to operate in the nine SF Bay Area counties only. They are satisfactory for the rest of the planet every day of the year. The BAAQMD is simply an absolute communist dictatorship that controls by the snitch. Perfect communism.