By JO HARRISON
Caption: From left: Armidale Dumaresq Council’s environmental officer Carol Davies, Assistant Secretary from SCEW Andrew McNee , Armidale Dumaresq Mayor Jim Maher and Nadia Kanhoush, Principal Air Programs Officer for the NSW Environment Protection Authority, at the public meeting last week in Armidale.
EIGHTIES US pop band The Bangles could have been singing about Armidale in winter when they wrote their smash hit Hazy Shade of Winter. Every year during the colder months Armidale chokes on a hazy shade of wood smoke from wood fires that have serious health implications for the community.
A public consultation meeting was held last week hosted by Armidale Dumaresq Council to discuss the release of the Consultation Regulation Impact Statement (RIS) for reducing emissions from wood heaters which was released on 11 April, 2013 by the Council of Australian Governments Standing Council on Environment and Water (SCEW).
Andrew McNee from SCEW held a presentation at the meeting to give an overview of the Consultation RIS and to get feedback from local community members.
Armidale Dumaresq Council has been actively addressing wood smoke issues in Armidale for many years and council’s environmental officer Carol Davies says that the RIS is an important step in addressing the health implications of wood smoke.
“Representatives from the Commonwealth and State Governments have been in Armidale talking about policy and regulatory options for reducing emission from wood heaters,” Carol Davies said.
“The options on the table are around the design and performance standards of wood heaters, promoting the compliance of retail models against these standards and things that influence the operation of wood heaters.”
Submissions are currently open until 15 July, 2013 and Armidale Dumaresq Council is encouraging the community to put their view to the SCEW.
“Armidale Dumaresq Council will definitely be making a submission on these options and as we were told today the nine options that were presented are not necessarily the options that will get through, they are open to having new options presented,” Ms Davies said.
Throughout the meeting education on the appropriate use of wood heaters was considered the key to reducing emissions and without this any regulatory options on the design of new wood heaters would be in vain.
“Council is continuing the strategy that we have had for a number of years,” Ms Davies said.
“We monitor the air quality daily from two locations in Armidale and are continuing with our education and incentive programs for replacing your wood heater with an approved alternative. We also have daily patrols to identify smoky chimneys and encourage those people to operate their fires so they don’t smoke.”
According to council data, in the last four years the particle emissions remained stable. A number of variables are affecting this including the number of new heaters going in and peoples use of those heaters.
The forum discussed the impact of increased electricity and gas prices as well as the availability of free wood in regional area like Armidale which has seen an increase in the use of wood heaters. Currently approval is required to install a wood heater in NSW however this is hard to police.
“Last year we approved about 40 wood heaters here in Armidale but we do know that there are at least four retail outlets selling wood heaters so a whole lot more are going in that we don’t know about,” Ms Davies said.
The Consultation RIS and other contact information is available at www.scew.gov.au Submissions close Monday 15 July 2013.
