Here's a news release we received from the New York Farm Bureau.
The New York Farm Bureau today announced its fight-back campaign against a proposed ban on outdoor wood boilers appears to have forced the Department of Environmental Conservation to delay any action until next year.
The reported delay, although not formally announced, would allow thousands of rural New Yorkers to continue to heat their homes with wood through the winter.
“We are fighting a good fight so far, but it’s far from over,” said Dean Norton, president of New York Farm Bureau. “While a regulatory delay would get us through the winter, there are still bureaucrats in Albany determined to shut down our wood boilers. We must thwart them.”
The farm bureau has been rallying its 30,000 members to fight the proposed regulations and has been lobbying furiously in the halls of Albany.
If passed, the DEC regulations would force thousands of owners of outdoor wood boilers to: retrofit costly smokestacks to meet new DEC height requirements; limit the use of their units for almost half of the year; and ultimately prohibit the use of any outdoor wood boiler that does not meet new, strict DEC emissions requirements.
The proposed regulations will have significant financial implications for farm and rural homeowners that heat their houses, barns and greenhouses using wood boilers.
This summer, the New York State Senate voted unanimously in favor of legislation that would leave wood-boiler regulation to local zoning boards, not the DEC. That bill was sponsored and championed by Sen. Darrel Aubertine.
Farm bureau members spoke out at public information sessions/hearings around the state in June on the proposal. Farmers and rural residents also flooded the DEC with written comments against the proposed regulations.
“I hope that DEC has seen the light that these regulations will have severe financial impact to our farmers and rural New Yorkers,” Norton said.
