Bay Area Air Quality Management District Issues New Rules and Stiffer Penalties

Another cold winter is right around the corner and many of us have stacked our cord of seasoned almond hard wood neatly into the wood shed. The chimney sweep has cleaned and inspected the chimney and fireplace.

We have settled in for a cozy warm winter in our homes, when we are chilled with reminders from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District that they have issued new rules and more severe penalties for anyone violating Spare The Air days this winter.

The BAAQMD has its investigators (snoops) running around the nine Bay Area counties, in 70 Toyota Priuses no less, trying to spot violators "burning wood" in their home fireplaces on Spare The Air days.

If you burn wood in your home fireplace or in your business place during a 24-hour Spare The Air alert, you will be cited by the BAAQMD for violation of its smoke rule.

An air district inspector (snoop) must personally observe the smoke to write up a violation notice. A first time violator will be given the option of taking a smoke education test or paying a $100 fine.

Second time violators will be fined $500. Third time offenders are fined more, with the penalty based on the severity of the smoke offense. The inspector (snoop) will not knock on your door. The snoop only writes.

During the four years that rule #6 has been in effect, there have been 965 citations to first time violators with 25 repeat violations during 37 Spare The Air days. Prior to 2012, there was no monetary fine, only warning letters to first time violators.

The 25 repeat offenders were subjected to $400 fines. Prior to 2012, repeat offenders were limited to $400 for second offense. Now it is $500. Do the math. That does not pay for 70 Priuses. It does not pay for one Prius, let alone 70 of them.

In order for the BAAQMD to pay for 70 Priuses, it was necessary for the BAAQMD to institute more severe penalty by raising the monetary fines per citation and to eliminate the warning letter for first time violators.

By the way, smoke education school is not free. In another change this year the BAAQMD will use more "conservative criteria in calling Spare The Air alerts at lower pollution levels." The number of Spare The Air alert days will increase.

It seems they are targeting the Tri Valley, when it is Marin and Napa counties that are consistently noted with the air monitoring stations as the highest offenders. it is violations in these counties that the BAAQMD are issuing Spare The Air alerts over all nine Bay Area Counties.

The United States Environmental Protexction Agency has set the allowable level for particulate emission at 7 grams an hour. Six years ago I purchased a state of the art highly efficient wood burning insert for my home fireplace. It emits only 1.26 grams an hour.

Many of my friends and neighbors have also purchased high efficiency wood burning inserts for their home fire places. Many of us purchased our inserts well before the BAAQMD came out with their rule #6 for inclusion into their regulations.

I could spend additional money to install an after burner that would reduce my particular release to zero. But, there is no incentive for me to do so because BAAQMD with their rule #6 forbids all wood burning.

It does not matter how clean I burn, or how clean I could burn on non-spare the air days. With rule #6, I can burn dirty on non-spare the air days, emit up to 7 grams an hour.

There are diesel trucks, buses, farm equipment and construction vehicles running all over the nine county Bay Area that emit more than 7 grams of particulate matter an hour, and more so when they are idling.

Even with the new filtering systems that is mandatory for diesel trucks, there is particulate matter released. Then there is the ship traffic in the area bays, including Suisun, San Francisco, Half Moon and others.

The BAAQMD is composed of hundreds of employees, nearly all of them are engineers, technicians, administrative personal and others. There is a chain of command to filter down suggested policies that originate behind closed doors.

The policies are turned into regulation and are brought to the BAAQMD board where they are literally rubber stamped. The board consists of minor elected officials such as Jennifer Hosterman, Pleasanton's mayor and Nate Miley, Alameda County supervisor.

Hosterman does not bring any expertise to the board. Miley is constantly swimming in scandal. Mary Hayashi, running for district 2 supervisor to replace adulteress and drug addict Nadia Lockyear, is insinuating she will investigate Miley for criminal related conduct when she is elected.

That is a sample of character that make up the BAAQMD Board. The board that each year encroaches into more of our freedoms by rubber stamping regulations that are placed in front of them without insight to what clean air is or what clean air can be if it were a two-way street.