Blumenthal cites health concerns in call for ban on outdoor furnaces

Outdoor wood furnaces, home-heating devices that have grown in popularity with the rise of oil and gas prices, "spew toxic smoke 24 hours a day, seven days a week, sickening neighbors and contaminating neighborhoods," according to state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal.

On Wednesday, Blumenthal called for a state ban on outdoor wood furnaces, or standalone wood-fired boilers that heat water to warm homes and provide hot water. Washington is the only state thus far to have banned their use, Blumenthal said.

The state Department of Environmental Protection regulates outdoor-furnace installations but warns of their potentially harmful effects on human health and the environment.

The towns of Granby, Hebron and Tolland have banned their use at the local level.

"The wood itself has been tested and shown to have chemicals that at the very least can irritate the eyes and nose and lungs, and it has been shown to have small (particulate matter) that can lodge in lungs," Blumenthal said Wednesday. "The only question is how severe a hazard it is. ... We believe that it's sufficiently serious that there should be a ban unless, and until, these furnaces can be redesigned."

Locally, Matthew Abrams' complaint concerning his neighbors' outdoor wood furnace in Lyme has drawn attention to the issue. Abrams, who owns the property next door to Glenn "Chip" and Carol Dahlke's Ashlawn Farm, claims the Dahlkes' furnace "emits noxious odor and abundant smoke, affecting our health and well-being as well as that of the surrounding environment."

"We applaud the Attorney General's announcement to ask the General Assembly to ban, statewide, all such devices," Abrams said in a written statement Wednesday. "This issue is what drove us over the past few months to pursue a complaint document against Ashlawn Farm."

But Glenn Dahlke said outdoor wood furnaces are safe if used properly.

"I'm sure that there are people who abuse these, and they can be highly polluting," Dahlke said. "And there are people who use these in a responsible manner, and they live in an area where the smoke isn't going to blow over to the neighbor's yard."

'Hundreds' of complaints

Complaints such as the Abramses' on outdoor wood furnaces have been "in the hundreds" this year, Blumenthal said. He had no official tally on the number of complaints, and the DEP does not keep a record of how many outdoor wood furnaces are in use in the state. But complaints have come from residents all across the state, Blumenthal said.

"I became concerned about this issue because of the burgeoning number of complaints that both my office and the Department of Environmental Protection had been receiving," he said. "They are extraordinarily disturbed and concerned about the possible health effects, not to mention the nuisance of smoke and eye and throat irritation as well as possible longer-term, more serious health effects."

Outdoor wood furnaces are a popular alternative to the use of oil or gas to heat homes, but they emit more smoke than indoor wood stoves because they burn more slowly and at a lower temperature, according to the state of Wisconsin's Department of Health Services Web site.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency does not have emissions standards for outdoor furnaces as it does for indoor models.

Outdoor furnaces emit unhealthy levels of particulate matter, dioxin, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, hydrochloric acid and formaldehyde, according to a state DEP brochure on furnaces that includes the slogan "Don't Choke on the Smoke." One furnace can generate as much particulate matter as 3,000 to 8,000 homes that are heated with natural gas, according to the brochure.

The American Lung Association and the nonprofit Environment and Human Health Inc. (EHHI) have both supported a ban on the furnaces.

"Wood smoke contains many of the same chemicals as cigarette smoke," the EHHI stated in a press release Wednesday. "It is both an irritant and a carcinogen. It interferes with the normal lung development in infants and children. ... Wood smoke particles are so small that if the smoke is very close to a house, doors and windows cannot keep it out."

j.cho@theday.com