An Environmental Protection Agency grant will help improve winter air quality in the Fairbanks North Pole area.
The $14.7-million dollar award is the latest and largest EPA Targeted Airshed Grant to reduce fine particulate pollution from wood and coal fired heaters in the Fairbanks North Star Borough. The bulk of the money, about $9 million will inject new funds into the brough’s long-running wood stove change-out program. Through past grants, the borough has financed the removal or replacement of nearly 3 thousand stoves and boilers since 2010. FNSB Air Quality Manager Nick Czarnecki says the new grant will allow continuation of the evolving program.
Czarnecki says the EPA grant is projected to cover the replacement or removal of 1,400 appliances. The rest of the new grant money will go to state Department of Environmental Conservation. DEC air quality program manager Cindy Heil says a portion will pay for lighted signs to alert the public when burn bans are in effect.
…target compliance rates.”
Heil says the DEC will hire 3 staffers to go out and observe for violations during burn bans. The borough’s Czarnecki says the grant funding will help to get the Fairbanks North Pole area into compliance with the federal air quality standard by 2024.
…area into attainment.”
The area has made slow progress since falling out of compliance under more stringent air quality regulations over a decade ago, and recently dropped from first to second for the worst PM 2.5 pollution in the country.
