Last month, unable to cope with the fumes any longer, Thomas moved out of her Bowdoinham home and put it up for sale.
"It cost me everything to speak out," Thomas told members of the state's Board of Environmental Protection during a hearing on proposed rules to control emissions from outdoor wood boilers. "We've lost our home. We've lost our community."
Roughly 100 people gathered at the Augusta Civic Center for a public hearing Thursday on a proposed set of guidelines that govern emissions, establish setbacks and give the Department of Environmental Protection rules for identifying nuisance boilers.
An outdoor wood boiler burns wood to heat water, which is piped underground to heat a building. A boiler resembles a small shed, with a smokestack, and stands alone outside. An average residential boiler tends to produce less than 1 million Btu per hour.
The boilers, which are not subject to Environmental Protection Agency regulations for traditional indoor wood stoves, are designed to smolder to save fuel and typically have smoke stacks no more than 10 feet tall. Consequently, they can produce heavy smoke and release it near the ground.
Though designed for dry wood, some owners burn green wood, and there have even been reports of people burning trash and other debris in violation of state laws.
"We believe that adopting strong rules that regulate outdoor wood boiler sales and establishing a process for relief from problem boilers is a vital step in improving air quality and protecting the health of those residents of today and the future who find themselves living, working or going to school near an outdoor wood boiler," said Edward Miller, executive director of the American Lung Association of Maine.
Delbert Reed of Augusta, a licensed engineer and master electrician who installed a wood boiler last year, said many of the proposed rules are on target. But he argued against measuring smoke by using opacity -- the degree to which emissions, other than water, reduce light and obscure the view of an object in the background.
"Water vapor is a byproduct of wood combustion," Reed said. "There will always be steam present from any exhaust from a wood fire."
A false opacity reading could lead to a guilty verdict with no proof, he said.
"The homeowner would be forced to prove his innocence," Reed said.
The DEP has reported 50 chronic complaints over the past two years, including from Jane Barron of Kingfield. She said the smoke aggravates her asthma, and, she believes, contributed to her bout of pneumonia last year.
"I believe the wood boiler has greatly interfered with my health," Barron said. "It's a health problem for me. It's a health problem for anyone who walks down the street and smells that smoke. I need your help."
But Beth Ann Luce, a registered nurse who owns the boiler next to Barron, said she has tried to address Barron's complaints by moving the boiler inside a barn and running the smoke stack through the roof.
"The stack is now 10 feet above Ms. Barron's home," Luce said. "We've done everything we can do to address her complaints."
The DEP has twice visited Luce's home and measured opacity levels of 10 percent and 5 percent, well below the 30 percent that would be permitted by the proposed rule.
"The Luce family should be complimented for dealing with the issue properly and carefully," a department inspector wrote.
The nuisance provision in the new rule simply states that no person may operate a boiler "in such a manner as to create a nuisance."
The rule could force users to get rid of even harmless boilers, Luce said. "It's a waste of your time, our time and taxpayer money," she said.
Reader comments
Click here to view or add comments on this story
Were you interviewed for this story? If so, please fill out our accuracy form