ALBANY — Farmers are fired up over a plan by the state Department of Environmental Conservation to regulate the use of new outdoor wood boilers.

Farmers and other rural interests are criticizing the DEC for seeking to quietly adopt the regulations in a last-minute move before a new administration takes office Jan. 1.
The battle over regulations for wood boilers was sparked earlier this year when the DEC sought changes to the use of current boilers, such as requiring a chimney stack at least 18 feet tall and prohibiting their use during warmer months.
After pushback from farmers and residents who use the boilers, the DEC delayed a decision on the regulations for existing boilers. The outdoor boilers heat homes and water with wood, but the state has raised concerns about the pollution they emit.
Now the DEC is poised to move forward with regulations just on new boilers. The agency has scheduled a meeting Wednesday of its Environmental Review Board in Albany to approve the new regulations.
“There will still be an additional public outreach process for the existing ones, which was the point of contention with a lot of the comments,” said DEC spokeswoman Lori Severino.
But the state Farm Bureau is crying foul over Wednesday’s meeting, saying it was unexpected. The bureau said state law requires public hearings and comment periods for any changes to existing regulations.
The Farm Bureau has warned that the regulations would have a dire economic impact on nearly 10,000 farmers and rural residents who rely on the boilers for heat.
“On an issue as sensitive as this one, full public disclosure of what they intend to do should be part of the process, and right now it is not,” said Peter Gregg, spokesman for the state Farm Bureau.
Severino said the new guidelines include requiring all new outdoor wood boilers to burn 90 percent cleaner than the existing units and requiring the 18-foot chimney height, but they don’t call for the phase-out of the existing ones.
Moreover, she said, the new regulations offer provisions to help farmers. Farmers would have more room because they would be allowed a 100-foot setback for a wood boiler from an existing home, rather than other owners who would have a 100-foot setback from an adjacent property.
The DEC’s initial proposal would have required that any outdoor wood boilers purchased before Sept. 1, 2005, and that did not meet federal Environmental Protection Agency requirements, be disconnected by Aug. 31, 2015.
The initial plan also called for prohibiting the use of the boilers in northern New York between June 1 and Aug. 31, and between May 15 and Sept. 30 in the southern half of the state.
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20101221/BUSINESS/12210330/Farmers-fired-up-over-possible-boiler-regulation