Butte County is in north central California and Chico is its largest city, with a population of about 87,000. Chico is located in the northern part of the Sacremento Valley and has a wood smoke problem in winter, which is not unusual for a city in a river valley where smoke can get trapped close to the ground. What is unusual is what Chico's newspaper, the Enterprise-Record, did last week. Between Thursday, May 13 and Sunday, May 16 the E-R published a series of ten articles about the wood smoke problem, and what's even more remarkable, they did a terrific job of it.

The four-day series was the result of a kind of partnership between the Enterprise-Record and the California Healthcare Foundation's Center for Health Reporting, which operates under USC's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. The center has been doing similar projects around the state on various health-related topics for several years, providing enough additional resources to papers like the E-R to help it to do an intensive investigation like this.

The series explored the problem of wood smoke, its health effects and the various measures that can be used to resolve it. It reported on the feedback received from residents, both pro and con, the technologies that allow stoves to burn with no visible smoke. And it reviewed reports from other cities that have successfully tackled their wood smoke problem.

We thought the E-R did such a good job, we decided to highlight the series and offer a few samples of the articles. The headlines below are linked to the article in the online version of the newspaper and the text below each headline is a teaser quoted from the article. Our comments are in italics.

About this series
Several weeks ago, the E-R requested readers' views in two daily editions, and more than 50 people wrote or called with their responses, many of which are included in this four-day series. Five reporters spoke to more than 25 physicians, scientists and other specialists in Butte County, California and nationwide in search of the most up-to-date, science-based findings on how wood smoke may affect people's health. They interviewed more than 29 local and state air district officials, as well as officials from other California air districts and from other states whose communities had voted to restrict wood stove burning. Reporters also discussed the economics of wood with more than a dozen local business people, and talked to more than 30 local residents about their views of wood smoke and health.

A Burning Issue: The ordinance - Would limit use of non-EPA-certified stoves
The law would ban use of non-EPA-certified wood stoves and fireplaces on days when bad air quality conditions are forecast. There would be exceptions for cases where natural gas or electricity isn't available (including temporary power outages), or where a wood stove or fireplace was the sole source of heat. There would also be a process to grant hardship exemptions for low-income residents. The law would be enforced through response to the complaints of residents, rather than by having "smoke police" prowling the city. The first violation would result in a fine or "smoke awareness" class. The penalties for further violations would vary with the frequency or size. The timeline approved by the City Council is to have the ordinance in effect by November. It would apply through February.

A Burning Issue: What people say....
"Fines for people who want to heat their homes with wood? It's a very unnatural thing. It's ludicrous."

So said Nancy Lambert, 79, who burns wood and plans to continue "until I leave this world." She began heating with wood in 1966, when she lived in San Rafael. She's done so ever since, including the last 24 years, when she's lived in Chico. She burns because it's economical and because she likes the feel of a wood-heated house. In December, she bought a new EPA-approved stove. She did that, she said, so she'd be exempt if the city imposed regulations on wood stoves.

After reading a lot about the local controversy over wood smoke, Clinton Caywood spent about $2,400 on a new EPA-approved wood stove. "I'm really happy I did," he said. "I'm using at least a third less wood, and the house heats better. It feels a little bit warmer."

Burning wood in an efficient stove makes sense in the north valley, he said. "It's a really good use of a valuable resource we happen to have around here."

Gary Cowden says he's experienced the harmful effects of smoke directly. Cowden, 65, who is retired from a manufacturing company in Oroville, moved with his wife to a home in Chico's California Park 12 years ago. For years, he was plagued with what he called "terrible sinus headaches." Through a process of elimination, he concluded they were caused by burning wood in their home's fireplace. The more often they burned, the more he had headaches. At that point, a couple of years ago, he and his wife switched from burning wood to burning artificial logs, and the headaches occurred much less often.

There must be something wrong with Mr Cowden's fireplace and chimney installation. No correctly installed and used stove or fireplace should spill smoke into the house. It appears that Mr Cowden is not aware that if you can detect even the slightest smell of wood smoke inside the house, something is wrong and it should be inspected and corrected right away. A properly installed and used appliance should not cause headaches.

A Burning Issue: What people say....
Ray Rummell drives a full-size pickup and says he's no "environmental nut." But when it comes to wood smoke, he doesn't want it. "I don't have the right to pollute my neighborhood, and neither does anyone else," he said.

Although her family burns wood and plans to continue, Alicia Springer thinks the proposed restrictions on burning are a good thing. "We burn wood with an efficient wood stove that doesn't create smoke in our home," she said. "We have always burned wood in cold weather and will do so on days when it is not restricted."

A Burning Issue: For many, burning wood an economic necessity of life
Larry Breitbord can afford to heat his home only because he uses a wood stove. Breitbord, 58, purchased his stove 20 years ago. He hoped to recoup in the winter money he'd spent running his air conditioner for relief from the scorching Chico summers. He estimates he saves about $400 to $500 each winter by burning wood. Breitbord doesn't have an EPA-approved wood stove and is in no position to purchase one. He was laid off in March after a 25-year career in radio broadcasting. Though he has since found employment, spending a few thousand dollars on a new stove when his current one is "still in very good working order" is financially unrealistic.

A Burning Issue: Heated debate - Does wood smoke health risk warrant regulation?
As soon as they arrived home, in thousands of those dwellings fires were lit in fireplaces or wood-burning stoves to drive off the chill. Smoke began drifting out of numerous chimneys. For the rest of the night in Chico, with the county's largest and densest concentration of wood stoves, as much as 38 pounds of those tiny bits would hang in the air at the level where Chicoans were breathing it, based on readings at the California Air Resources Board's Chico pollution monitor. Roughly another 12 pounds of similar-sized bits from other sources also would be in the mix. Dec. 8 turned out to be the winter's biggest violation, but the clean air standard was violated an average of 33 days each winter. This year's improvement is attributed to an increase of rain, which washed the bits out of the air more quickly. The violations were common enough that in December 2009, the EPA set a three-year deadline to clean it up.

A Burning Issue: Finding solutions - Butte's first venture into wood stove vouchers went fast
Butte County's clean air experts recently scraped together $20,000 for a program to help pay residents using wood heat to buy cleaner-burning stoves. They knew that such change-out programs have successfully reined in wood smoke pollution in other California communities, and that as air grows cleaner, human health can improve. The vouchers went in a flash.

The line was so long when the doors opened that some residents had to be turned away. The $20,000 equated to 27 vouchers with different values depending on a person's income. To pay for the March voucher giveaway, his office used civil penalties paid by local polluters rather than tax dollars.

A Burning Issue: Three case studies...
Conversion went smoothly in Montana
The town of Libby, Montana, is emerging as a model for how to clean the air by replacing old stoves with new ones.

Seattle makes progress on problem
Seattle-area officials learned about wood smoke pollution when they probed what they thought was largely industrial pollution in the area around the city's seaport.

Klamath residents changing habits
When Delbert Bell describes how his county is curbing wood smoke pollution, he doesn't start with what his office did, or the state, or U.S. officials. He credits the residents of Klamath County, Ore., whom he says are changing their habits of burning wood.

Editorial: Smoky problem can be alleviated
Today a four-day look at our local wood smoke controversy wraps up in the Enterprise-Record, and we hope a little light has been shined on the issue. It's an issue with many aspects, which is why the project has been so massive. There's incredibly dense science at the core, dense enough to be viewed with skepticism by many.

People are passionate about the subject of wood smoke to the point of hostility to other points of view. The conversation becomes caustic quite quickly. Those sensitive to smoke see themselves left helpless in the face of danger, betrayed by a government that does nothing. Those who rely on wood-burning for heat fear the tyranny of a government that does too much.

Law often seems to be heavy on the threat and thin on the help, which is part of the reason there is so much opposition to mandatory wood-burning bans. Local residents have shown an eagerness to shift to newer, cleaner burning stoves if given a little help. Judging from Reno's experience, reported elsewhere in today's paper, that appears to be a way out of the quagmire. But a burning ban is inexpensive, and a program to swap out stoves isn't.

So guess which one we're going to get.

It is rare to see a newspaper give so much attention to the problem of wood smoke, and to do so in a balanced and thoughtful way. We hope the series prompts a vigorous debate among Chico residents and the politicians who will have to decide on the right mix of measures.
JG