Clean-air agency makes burn-ban violators feel heat

Donald Harmon's attempt to save a few bucks on his heating bill could cost him $850 — more than half his monthly Social Security — because he picked the wrong fuel.

The 82-year-old retiree was hit with a hefty fine in January for burning wood to take away the chill in his kitchen and the living area in his North Seattle home.

The Puget Sound Clean Air Agency had declared a burn ban that day. While Harmon was feeding broken-up pallets into his woodstove, an agency inspector was outside taking notes and photos as the smoke rose from the chimney.

"It would take me a year or more to pay something like that," Harmon said. He said he was unaware the ban was in place that day, and wondered: "Why didn't they knock on the door and tell me to put it out?"

Harmon was one of 55 homeowners in a four-county region cited for violating a so-called Stage 1 ban against wood burning over five days in January. The agency calls Stage 1 bans when it believes federal air-pollution standards for particulates might be exceeded. The airborne soot is a health hazard, especially for people with allergies or asthma, and for children and the elderly.

The agency monitors and enforces federal air-quality standards in King, Snohomish, Kitsap and Pierce counties, policing about 800,000 chimneys, most of them connected to wood-burning stoves, fireplaces or inserts that spew most of the particulates in the air, said Mario Pedroza, a supervising inspector.

Fires lit during bans — or that produce excessive smoke, cause a nuisance for neighbors or involve garbage burning — can result in up to a $1,000 fine for each incident. People can use wood heat, even during burn bans, but it has to be their only adequate heat source.

Citations usually result from neighbor complaints or the sharp eyes of one of the agency's 12 inspectors, who work in teams during the occasional burn ban looking for smoking chimneys in problem areas.

The agency typically mails citations to violators to avoid angry confrontations with homeowners and renters, who can ask that the fines be reduced or waived.

The agency has used burn bans for pollution control since the 1980s, but restrictions were tightened this winter so the state could meet stricter standards imposed by the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

More than 75 percent of the citations written in January were dismissed when the homeowners attested they had no other adequate source of heat. Fines could be reduced for the 13 or so remaining — including Harmon — but they likely will have to pay up, according to Pedroza.

The Jan. 26 citation given to Harmon was his second burn-ban violation in two years. The first citation, in January 2007, did not carry a fine, Pedroza said.

"This isn't about the money; it's about compliance," Pedroza said. "They've been around this block before. There might be enough of a story where we can suspend part of it. But from my perspective, he's got some 'splainin' to do.' "

Pedroza said the agency's records did not state why an inspector happened to be at Harmon's house that afternoon. But the inspector noted that he observed Harmon's chimney smoking for about six minutes, and estimated that smoke was emanating from the chimney for about four minutes before he arrived, Pedroza said.

The duration of the smoke, he said, made the inspector confident that the smoke wasn't related to starting the fire.

Harmon said he could have used other heating sources that day, and would have done so had he known a ban was in effect. His system, he said, is programmed to use the most efficient energy sources first to heat his 4,000-square-foot home. On most mornings, he said, he heats his house with clean wood broken down from pallets donated to him.

Using a combination of heating systems that he's added to over the past 40 years helps him save hundreds of dollars on heating bills each month, he said. Those savings have become even more important as his investments have tanked; he said he supports himself and three other adults on an average monthly budget of $3,000.

But trying to save money is not an acceptable excuse for avoiding a fine, Pedroza said. The only acceptable reason Harmon could give would be to tell the agency he had no other adequate source of heat besides wood. That's a stretch for a man with a heating system so unique that Harmon, a retired engineer, prepared a six-page overview to assist confounded plumbers and other tradesmen called on to repair it.

Harmon's fine represents the agency's "stick" for enforcing clean-air standards. Education alone hasn't solved the problem, Pedroza said.

"Is Mr. Harmon causing us to go into noncompliance by himself? No, " Pedroza said. "He's the one we caught. He gets to be the poster child."

Pedroza said the agency advertises the bans to get the word out. He also said Harmon could have avoided the citation if the fire wasn't smoking, which would have made its emissions indistinguishable from other fuels.

Harmon, however, said the consequences for his lack of awareness shouldn't be so severe.

"Thirty dollars, I could go for that," he said. "But $850 is infuriating. ... I'll be the poster child — for nonpayment."

Susan Kelleher: 206-464-2508 or skelleher@seattletimes.com