Press Release: AGH launches Firewood Community Safety Initiative to support high wood heating communities

 

Firewood from Dine Baadeiti
Wood Bank in Moenkopi, AZ

Oct. 3, 2024 - Today the Alliance for Green Heat announced the Firewood Community Safety Initiative, to help communities address wood heating safety issues. The initiative is funded by a three year grant from USDA’s Wood Education Research Center.

“Wood heating, when done well,  is an important renewable energy”, said John Ackerly, President of the Alliance for Green Heat. “This new initiative will provide safe wood heating resources and strategies suitable for wood burning communities”

According to the Rural Energy Consumption Survey approximately 10-13 million U.S. households use wood heat. Wood stoves have long been at the forefront of reducing fossil fuels in rural, lower-income homes.  Unfortunately, many households use old, inefficient and poorly maintained wood stoves that leak smoke inside and outside of the home.

The Firewood Community Safety Initiative is aimed at any firewood bank or high wood-burning town.  Those who participate will receive technical assistance from AGH staff to improve the safety of low-income homes who heat with wood.  A free toolkit, including smoke detector, indoor air sensor, educational resources and other items, is available for towns and firewood banks who sign up for the initiative.

The Alliance is working with Hopi tribal members that lead Pikyanivi Warmth for Hopi and Tewa firewood bank to put air quality monitors in classrooms to educate students about indoor air PM2.5 concentrations. After taking readings at school, each student will take the monitor home for a few days and take readings in the room with their wood stove or heating appliance and see the difference. Almost all homes on the Hopi reservation rely on wood or coal and they hope to identify dangerous stoves and find funding to replace them.

Sixteen other firewood banks have signed up for the Initiative, and some will engage in indoor air quality testing like the Hopi, and others will focus on other strategies. The initiative is part of a larger program that provides small grants to firewood banks to help them serve low income homes who can’t afford to heat their homes.  To date, the Alliance for Green heat has provided over 100 grants to tribes, churches, towns, non-profits and volunteer groups that run firewood banks.

Also part of this initiative is educational activities like webinars and the first one is "Common Problems and Solutions to Self-Installed Wood Stoves" On Oct. 17, from 1:00 - 2:30 EST. 

The Firewood Community Safety Initiative is made possible by a grant from the Wood Education Center at the USDA Forest Service.

For more information contact Hannah Stinson at Hannah@forgreenheat.org. To sign up your firewood bank or community, please fill out the form here.

Ancestral Lands Conservation Corp in Kykotsmovi Village, AZ

The Alliance for Green Heat promotes modern wood and pellet heating systems as a low-carbon, sustainable and affordable energy solution. The Alliance works to advance renewable residential heating technology, particularly for low and middle-income families. Founded in 2009, the Alliance is an independent non-profit organization headquartered in Maryland with staff in Arkansas, Wisconsin and Wyoming. www.forgreenheat.org

USDA funding flows to firewood banks

There is a wood bank in the historic
Village of Walpi in Arizona that works
to maintain their  traditional 
architecture and customs. 

Second year grant details: The US Forest Service approved a second year of funding for AGH's  Firewood Bank Assistance Project.  Applications can be submitted as of Sept. 1, 2023.  Details for who can apply are different for the second year grant cycle and can be found here.

First year grant details: In 2022, the Alliance for Green Heat has received firewood grant applications for over $600,000 and has disbursed $587,000 of the available $590,000 (the remaining $3,000 will be rolled into the second year grant cycle). Fifty-six firewood banks in 20 states received an average of about $12,000 each. With The funding comes from the US Forest Service which part of the US Department of Agriculture and represents the first of five years of funding for firewood banks.

The largest firewood banks receiving funding are run by tribes in New Mexico and Arizona where a large percentage of homes heat with wood.  About 40% of applications received to date are from tribes, some of which process over 1,000 cords of wood and supply more than 500 homes each winter with fuel.  Overall, the 43 firewood banks who have applied so far process an average of 212 cords per year and provide an average of 1.3 cords per household. 

Volunteers at Project Fire in
North Carolina load wood for delivery.

Firewood banks are like food banks and are probably in all US states with the exception of Hawaii. Researchers had estimated there were up to 100 firewood banks across the country, but there are now believed to be at least double that number.

The firewood banks are using the funding mainly to purchase chain saws, splitters, trailers, sheds, moisture meters  and safety equipment. Most firewood banks already have liability insurance and all are required by AGH to have staff and volunteers sign liability waivers.    AGH also requires recipients to regularly test the moisture content of their wood and strive to only provide seasoned wood (20% moisture content or lower) during the heating season.

Firewood, sometimes called the “people’s fuel,” because it is often free and abundant, is seeing a resurgence this year as fossil fuel prices climb.  Most of the firewood banks use wood that was already dead or down and much of it is donated by tree services, towns or local people. Still, most wood that falls across roads or on people’s lawns is thrown away.  According to the EPA, in 2018, landfills received 12.2 million tons of wood, 8.3% of all municipal waste that was landfilled. 

For more information or to apply, go to https://www.firewoodbanks.org.

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The Alliance Partners with USDA & Groups to Promote Wood Heat

John Ackerly, president of the Alliance for Green Heat, on September 11 joined the USDA's Deputy Secretary Krysta Harden, along with leaders from, the Biomass Power Association, the Biomass Thermal Energy Council, and the Pellet Fuels Institute, in Washington for the announcement of their new partnership agreement. The alliance will jointly promote and expand the woody biomass sector, which will help to improve the safety and health of our nation's forests.

"Today's announcements will help us find innovative ways to use leftover wood to create renewable energy and support good jobs in rural America," USDA Secretary Vilsack said. "Wood to Energy efforts are a part of our 'all of the above' energy strategy. Appropriately scaled wood energy facilities also support our efforts to remove hazardous fuels and reduce the risks of catastrophic wildfires."

The Alliance for Green Heat is part of this partnership to work more closely with the US government to advance cleaner and more efficient wood and pellet stoves. "The USDA is uniquely positioned to help rural families better use wood and pellets to heat their homes and we look forward to working with them on that," said John Ackerly.

The partnership agreement focuses on promoting wood energy nationwide as a means to address fire risk, bolster rural economic development, improve air quality and help meet the Obama Administration's renewable energy and energy efficiency goals. These organizations support the use of wood energy across the scale of users – from residential users, to commercial and institutional facilities, to industrial production of heat and/or electricity to drive businesses and feed the electrical grid.

Staff from USDA and the four groups will meet regularly to develop and implement an action plan for wood energy, seeking to increase awareness of USDA program opportunities, encourage adoption of wood to energy technologies, and strengthen coordination of industry and USDA initiatives.

See More Photos Here
See the USDA's press release Here
See remarks delivered at the event by John Ackerly below.

Remarks by John Ackerly at the Signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

September 11, 2013

I'm John Ackerly, President of the Alliance for Green Heat. We represent the interests of more than 10 million American households who heat their homes with wood and pellets.

We hear about solar a lot, but families who heat with wood make three times the energy that all residential solar panels make. In fact, it's rural Americans with modern wood and pellet stoves who are leading the residential renewable energy movement and that is something we should be really proud of.

With the resurgence of wood and pellet heating, it's the third most common form of heating in America after gas and electricity.

But we need even cleaner and more efficient stoves on the market, and we need to help remove the older, less efficient wood stoves. The Forest Service is a partner in places like Seeley Lake, Montana, where old stoves are being replaced with modern, new ones, resulting in significant improvements in air quality. We are glad this MOU will put a spotlight on how wood and pellets can help rural families affordably heat their homes with a local, renewable fuel.

On November 16^th through 19^th, we are holding the Wood Stove Decathlon, a competition to see what team can make the cleanest, most efficient, and most affordable wood stove, right here on the National Mall in front of this building. We are proud that USDA is a partner in this technology competition. I invite you all to come.

You probably think you know what a wood stove is. Well, come check out these high-tech stoves in November: you will see computerized wood stoves, condensing wood stoves, stoves you control with your smart phone – and stoves that even charge your smart phone in a black-out. And maybe most importantly, you will see stoves that are automated with oxygen sensors, which are used in all of your cars, and are key to clean and efficient combustion in cars, boilers and many other applications.

Thank you Secretary Vilsack, and also Chief Tidwell, and I look forward to seeing you on the Mall in November. 

Interstate Transport of Firewood to be Regulated

Regulations are now being drafted and reviewed that would place certain labeling and recordkeeping requirement on companies moving firewood across state borders. According the USDA, in essence the regulations would require that the location of the production facility of the firewood be on the label, along with the county or counties from which the trees used to produce the firewood were harvested. If a treatment was applied, then a final labeling element would be required to verify heat treatment and the schedule.

On the record keeping side, firewood producers would need to keep and provide upon request records of where, from whom, and in what quantities they received the wood used to make the firewood. The same is required for shipments of firewood to customers. The USDA says that they are not considering any requirement on information about the costs of or revenues received from those transactions. Firewood distributors would need to keep similar records (volume received and from whom, volume sold or shipped and to whom). Retailers would need records of incoming inventory and total sales volume. 

According to the USDA, the regulations are still in draft form and working their way through the required review processes prior to publication as a proposed rule. The opportunity to review the language and comment will occur during the public comment period after publication as a proposed rule in the Federal Register. The publication date is undetermined at this time because of the time various reviewers take to review regulations varies from reviewer to reviewer. It is unlikely that the firewood labeling and record keeping regulations would be published this calendar year.

The labeling and record keeping requirements described above are predicated on the National Firewood Task Forces’ (NFTF) recommendations for best management practices for firewood. That document can be found here (among other places on the internet):

http://www.ct.gov/deep/lib/deep/forestry/nationalfirewoodtaskforcerecommendations.pdf

Below is the initial notice about the upcoming review process.

Domestic Regulation of Firewood

    Legal Authority: 7 U.S.C. 7701 to 7772; 7 U.S.C. 7781 to 7786.

    Abstract: This rulemaking would require that commercial firewood  destined to be moved interstate be affixed with a label on which the  county and State, or counties and States, in which the wood from which the firewood was produced was harvested, the site at which the firewood was produced, what phytosanitary treatment, if any, the firewood has received, and contact information for reporting detections of suspected plant pests are prominently and legibly displayed. We would also require firewood producers, distributors, and retailers to retain  records regarding the manufacturing, purchase, and sale of the firewood. Although the movement of commercial firewood in interstate commerce can be a pathway for numerous plant pests, this movement is currently largely unregulated. This action would aid in preventing the further dissemination of plant pests within the United States through the interstate movement of firewood.

    Timetable:

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               Action                    Date            FR Cite

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NPRM................................   11/00/13

NPRM Comment Period End.............   01/00/14

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    Regulatory Flexibility Analysis Required: Yes.

    Agency Contact: Paul Chaloux, National Program Manager, Emergency

and Domestic Programs, PPQ, Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant

Health Inspection Service, 4700 River Road, Unit 137, Riverdale, MD

20737-1236, Phone: 301 851-2064.

    RIN: 0579-AD49