Word: missoula
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...major problem was not exhaust from motor vehicles but a new and growing source of pollution: the acrid, stinging smoke from wood-stove fires. Ever since the mid-1970s, when the Arab oil embargo sent fuel prices skyrocketing, the people of Missoula and many other American communities have been seeking out alternative sources of heat, including wood stoves. In the past decade, wood burning has more than doubled across the country. The Department of Energy estimates that more than 20% of all households now burn wood for some or all of their heat. In Vermont, more heating is done with...
Although wood in many areas has the virtue of being cheap, home-grown and renewable, its use as fuel exacts a terrible toll. In such cities as Denver, Portland, Ore., and Missoula, more than half the minute solids in the winter air, so-called particulates, may stem from wood burning. Geography compounds the problem when there are atmospheric inversions; in mountain-rimmed Missoula last week, low-lying cold air was trapped under a smothering blanket of warmer air, preventing the escape of particulates...
Most antipollution laws were devised to control industrial wastes and the fumes of the internal combustion engine, not contamination from individual homes. When governments try to invade this sacred terrain, the political effects can be incendiary. Explains Barbara Evans, a member of the board of Missoula County commissioners, which passed bitterly contested legislation controlling home wood fires: "People feel their personal rights are being invaded. They become angry, frustrated...
...Missoula County tried persuasion, adopting a voluntary plan that called for avoiding green wood and fires on smoggy days, and installing cleaner stoves. The approach failed. When the county commissioners held public hearings last year on tougher measures, a hastily organized group calling itself the United Woodburners of Missoula County staged a "Right to Burn" march that flaunted placards proclaiming WOODBURNERS ARE WARM PEOPLE. In November the commissioners passed a watered-down set of regulations that empowered local inspectors to slap warnings and then citations carrying fines up to $100 on those who continue to burn wood during a pollution...
According to Taxidermist Dick Turner, a leader of the Missoula opposition group, which hopes to put the question of regulation to a countywide vote...