Elliot Spitzer without a question is going to be New York State's next governor. I certainly support him in that bid, and expect to do a number of different tasks to help him campaign in New York State. I agree that is time for a change in the governorship, but I also must admit that I have some reservations with this man as governor. As Attorney General he has a long public record, and some of it is not particularly desirable.

One such case is his prosecution or maybe even persecution of Central Boiler, one of the makers of outdoor wood furnaces. These machines supply hot water to a number of farms and other rural households across the state and are supposedly safer then conventional wood heater as the fire is outside of the house. Much like woodstoves that people have in their houses, and campfires outside their house, these machines can often be smoky and sooty. Installed with the standard 4 or 5 foot chimney, they release this smoke nearby the ground and it can bother neighbors. This is why Spitzer is targeting such machines.

Spitzer's office claims that these woodstoves release many dangerous air pollutants near the ground, and that many of the dangers of breathing in woodsmoke are similar to cigarette smoke. Environmentalists have echoed what Spitzer has been claiming for a long time. There is nothing wrong with these arguments per se, but they reflect a fundamental misunderstanding of pollution and human health. Let's review the reality of wood burning and the pollution it creates.

Burning wood often releases potentially toxic chemicals, not unlike other forms of incomplete combustion. It's impossible to burn wood as clearly as petroleum-based fuels that can be carefully injected at a specific rate into an engine, and mixed with a precise amount of energy. Wood fires instead burn with whatever amount of oxygen is available to them, leading to the production of particulate created by a lack of oxygen bonding with the carbon in the wood among other chemicals.

The US Environmental Protection agency has recognized the dangers of particulate and has been regulating woodstoves for a while now. Any new woodstove purchased for use inside a house must meet a specific standard for particulate, when burning a specific type of hardwood. This standard typically is 15 parts particulate to a million parts non-particulate matter, which is much lower then the 60-80 PPM of old stoves, and 80-100 PPM of campfires. Central Boiler claims and has data backed by independent experts that shows that their stoves do meet those standards when operated properly. Others disagree.

The problem comes in when people use the stoves improperly or in ways that cause nuisance. The biggest complaint is smoke blowing into people's windows and around houses. Many of the outdoor wood burners you see near farmsteads around the country have short chimneys, as they are designed to require little draft. This is not a problem for a person with a 500-acre farm and no neighbors, but in a more residential area this can be more controversial. This can lead to irate neighbors, much like when farmers manure their fields in the spring. We have laws that protect such farmers who do a reasonable attempt to use best practices when manuring their fields, but no law for people who use wood to heat their houses.

The manuals for the machines sold by Central Boiler tell people that if a nuisance condition is likely to occur the owner should raise the chimney above the rooflines of other houses. This is an inexpensive fix to the nuisance problem, and some localities have thought about writing that into statutory law. Such a law might be bothersome to farmers who do not have such neighbor problems. Environmentalists would probably decry that such a solution just abates the problem for neighbors and not the larger pollution problems form wood smoke. They are right in claiming that woodsmoke is harmful like any form of smoke or particulate in the air, but are wrong in criticizing the use of wood. Wood is a renewable fuel source that is largely grown in wooded tracks. Most farmers and those with these machines grow their own wood, and harvest it in sustainable ways. Some have argued that the net impact on carbon in our environment is zero, because wood burners are just consuming a natural product that came from existing carbon dioxide in the air as the plant grows.

Environmentalists and Spitzer who claim that these machines are often dirtier then indoor woodstoves are right. They are blaming the wrong people. The manufactures give specific instructions on how to use them and their owners often misuse them. Owners not only often ignore the specific filling schedules and recommended wood types, they also often crank down the drafts at night, and use them to burn trash.

Most owners do not revolve their lives around their outdoor wood burner. They don't follow the recommended schedule. Instead, they stock them up a few times a day, when convent and let them burn down to coals until they need more. As the fire burns down, emissions often go up as existing wood smolders away. At night, many owners crank down the draft on stoves to save on wood. This does reduce the amount of wood consumed, but it also causes the wood to smolder and release larger amounts of particulate, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and several other chemicals caused by incomplete combustion. Nitrous oxides and carbon dioxide are reduced under such conditions.

Elliot Spitizer is going to be a great governor, but his environmental litigation department is going in the wrong way when it comes outdoor wood furnaces. We should be encouraging people to use alternative sources in energy, and wood is plentiful in rural areas. Most the chemicals and particulate from wood burners effect the local region and in net have little effect on the area around. We should instead be aggressively perusing more serious sources of pollution such as big power plants and companies that sell products with dangerous chemicals in them. Spitizer has done that, and I hope that will be center of his future prosecutions.