Iowa puts halt to Linn County wood boiler exemptions

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources swooped in and put the brakes on Linn County's plans to exempt existing wood-fired boilers from a new ordinance regulating the units.

The boilers don't meet federal emissions standards and should not be exempted in the new ordinance, said Catharine Fitzsimmons, head of the DNR's Air Quality Bureau, at a supervisor meeting Monday.

If the supervisors exempt the boilers, Fitzsimmons said, her agency would review Linn County's air quality division and perhaps withdraw the state's stamp of approval. Such a decision would pull state and federal funding from the local air quality division.

“The majority of their funding is state and federal,” Fitzsimmons said.

The supervisors responded Monday by postponing the second reading of the ordinance until Sept. 9, time enough to decide whether it's possible to exempt existing boilers without losing funding for local air quality monitoring.

Wood-fired boilers heat water, which is piped into homes to provide hot water and/or heat. Owners - some 200 in Linn County - contend they checked with the county when they purchased the units in recent years, and nobody told them the boilers were illegal.

The units came under Linn County Public Health scrutiny over the past year after a handful of neighbors complained about smoke blowing into their yards. It turned out the boilers had been in violation of emissions standards on the books for the past 30 years, Linn County Air Quality Supervisor Jim Hodina said.

Hodina worked for months on an ordinance that would bring the boilers into compliance without forcing owners to abandon what was in some cases a $10,000 investment.

Under Hodina's proposal, owners of boilers not in compliance can raise their smokestacks to between 15 and 25 feet above ground, depending on the distance to neighbors.

The supervisors disregarded the recommendation and voted 4-1 on Aug. 27 to exempt existing boilers. The emissions rules would apply to new units, but complaints against existing ones would be handled case-by-case using nuisance laws.