Free wood stoves, new air samplers and New Zealand

By CHANSE WATSON

Managing Editor

KELLOGG — Our local Kellogg branch of the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality has made a lot of friends recently in the area, ever since they initiated the West Silver Valley Wood Stove Change-out Program. Paid for with funds from an Environmental Protection Agency airshed grant awarded last year, Dan Smith, IDEQ project coordinator, has used this program to replace 46 obsolete wood stoves (and chimneys) since its conception.

Following up on this success, Smith and IDEQ have recently announced exciting news that has the potential to not only get local kids more interested in science, but also possibly establish relations with a country almost 7,500 miles away.

With help from the University of Montana and their Clean Air and Healthy Homes Program, science classes at Pinehurst Elementary School will be receiving indoor air samplers to measure particulates around them.

Dr. Tony Ward with UM explained at a West Silver Valley Citizens Advisory Committee meeting on Jan. 18 that the program “at its heart, is meant to work with classrooms and with teachers to provide them with air samplers that they can use.”

With these samplers, students will have the opportunity to take their own air quality readings and analyze the data over time for class units. This data can then be compared to other schools and be presented at the end of the year as a project.

Upon receiving the devices, representatives with the program — such as Brett Taylor with UM — show students how they work and teach them about air quality and respiratory health.

Taylor, a former high school science teacher of 35 years who instituted this program in his classes, explained that this project is an out of the ordinary way of teaching the subject.

“The cool thing about this program is that kids get a chance to do actual science,” he said. “The most important thing to me…(is that) they at least get an idea of what scientists do and maybe, hopefully, look at the world a little more critically.”

Taking this idea to the next level, the IDEQ/UM tag team is in the process of arranging a partnership with the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research in New Zealand to share air quality data with each other.

By using 12-15 experimental solar powered air monitors provided by NIWA, IDEQ/UM can use information collected from them to report measurements on a larger scale, locate areas where particulates are more present than others, and find correlations with how those particulates react to certain weather patterns. In order to effectively use them, the solar monitors would be deployed in a sort of grid pattern throughout Pinehurst so that no area is left out.

“The reason that New Zealand is interested in this is these (the solar monitors) are still very much on the prototype side of things,” Smith explained.

When installed in our area and in New Zealand, NIWA will be able to see if these new monitors can work in a region where sunlight is not as prevalent and have two field seasons of testing in one year. This two-season testing opportunity is due to the timing of seasons in New Zealand being different than ours (as we are currently experiencing the winter season, while New Zealand is in the middle of their summer).

This joint research program would also give Pinehurst Elementary the opportunity to share this air quality data with a “sister school” in New Zealand.

“Our goal (is to) establish a sister city down in New Zealand that is studying the same things during the same time period and we can get some interaction between the two communities,” Smith said.

The two participating schools could share their findings and work on projects together while interacting over the web and video chat.

“From an educational point of view,” Smith added, “it’s important for the kids to see beyond their little community and, sometimes in the Silver Valley, we get somewhat insular. I think that by having a program that shows that its not only a problem we have here in the West Silver Valley (referring to historically sub par air quality ratings in the past), but this is an issue world wide.”

All of these exciting new programs add to the already successful Wood Stove Change-out Program that has been going on for roughly a year now. Through May and June 2017, Smith received 68 applications from residents looking to get a new stove through the program. Of those submissions, 46 were approved.

“These new stoves are replacing old wood stoves that don’t meet EPA certification for emission standards, Smith said. “The goal of this program is to replace 188 old wood stoves by August 2020.”

Many of the 2017 replacements were completely paid for through the wood stove program, with others having more than 75 percent of the cost paid for through the program.

Having noticed a sharp decrease in the number of applications for the spring and summer instillation period compared to the fall and winter (30 currently received as of Jan. 18), Smith wants to stress that anyone residing in the West Silver Valley Non-Attainment Area who is currently burning a non-EPA certified wood stove in their residence may apply before Jan. 31.

To apply, contact Dan Smith at 208-783-5781 or go online to http://bit.ly/2zmPwCc. The IDEQ office in the Silver Valley is located at 1005 McKinley Ave., Kellogg.

- • •

For more information on the Wood Stove Change-out program, check out the News-Press’ Nov. 8 article “Out with the old, in with the new.” The article can be found by visiting http://www.shoshonenewspress.com/local_news/20171108/out_with_the_old_in_with_the_new