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Commissioners Approve Wood Smoke Reduction Funding
This article was in Wednesday’s (August 29th, 2018) Herald and News
Written By: Tess Novotny, H&N Staff Reporter
Klamath County commissioners approved a request Tuesday morning to add $20,000 of Oregon Department of Environmental Quality funding to the Klamath Wood Smoke Reduction program.
Klamath County Public Health interim director Jessica Dale said the program, commonly referred to as the “air quality program,” aims to keep the community informed about when burning is appropriate and safe within the air quality zone. It operates as an intergovernmental agreement between the DEQ and Klamath County.
The program runs Oct. 15 to March 15 every year, and provides regular notices about air quality levels and restrictions on heating homes with fireplaces, fireplace inserts, woodstoves and pellet stoves. There are four air quality zone advisory levels. A red health alert advisory allows only the use of pellet stoves. A red advisory allows the use of pellet stoves, but restricts use of fireplaces and woodstoves. A yellow advisory allows the use of pellet stoves, certified woodstoves and fireplace inserts. A green advisory allows for use of pellet stoves, fireplaces, certified and non-certified fireplace inserts and woodstoves.
“It’s important for the public to pay attention what the call is for the day,” Dale said.
Dale said the $20,000 from the DEQ goes toward the safety notices, as well as other targeted community outreach efforts.
“A lot of that has to do with what kind of stove you have and what kind of emissions it puts out,” she said. “It’s more of a one-on-one conversation with people about what particular model they have.
Cohesive wildfire management
Commissioners also approved a project submission form to fund the Central Oregon Cohesive Strategy project with $33,750 from the county Secure Rural Schools fund.
The project aims to improve wildland fire management strategy and create a cohesive plan to address growing wildfire issues like greater death tolls and losses to communities, budgets, economies, forests and watersheds.
According to the agenda project description, “the vision of the Cohesive Strategy is to safely and effectively extinguish fire when needed; use fire where allowable; manage our natural resources; and as a nation, to live with wildland fire.”
The project would run from 2019 to 2022, with $13,500 of the requested amount spent in 2019, and $6,750 spent in subsequent years.
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