Response to wood stove offer heats up

Free, it turns out, is indeed a pretty good price.

The Southwest Clean Air Agency is finding dozens of people willing to accept $1,500 to $3,000 to replace old, dirty-burning wood stoves.

The state Department of Ecology provided $260,000 to help residents replace as many as 140 old wood stoves near an air-monitoring station in central Vancouver. By swapping out wood stoves constructed before 1993, when cleaner-burning standards took effect for manufacturers, the agency hopes to improve air quality while allowing Vancouver to comply with the federal Clean Air Act.

However, when the agency sent hundreds of postcards offering the money earlier this summer, it received no takers.

It wasn’t until a newspaper article revealed the lack of response to the Southwest Clean Air Agency’s mailing — and clarified Executive Director Bob Elliott’s point that it was no scam — that the phones began ringing at the five-county agency’s headquarters in Orchards.

As of midweek, the agency handed out $78,000 worth of vouchers to 46 recipients.
Bud Clarence, who lives near the Royal Oaks Country Club, is among them. Clarence said he responded to the agency’s second mailing after discounting the first one.

“I think I was probably like a lot of people,” Clarence said. “You wonder if a freebie is really a freebie.”

In Clarence’s case, it’s not exactly free.

After soliciting two bids from area dealers, Clarence said he agreed to have his old wood stove replaced for $2,500. The government voucher will pay $1,500. Clarence, who’s lived in the house for 40 years, said he has no problem picking up the $1,000 out-of-pocket cost.

“I get a big reduction in cost, the air gets a little cleaner, and my house value goes up,” he said.

The agency sent out postcards to homes within a mile of its automated gauge atop the old Moose Lodge at 8205 E. Fourth Plain Blvd., now home to Vancouver Christian High School. The gauge measures fine particulate matter, such as wood smoke and diesel exhaust. Last year, it exceeded the health standard. Two more years like that, and the area violates the Clean Air Act. Among other ramifications, a violation could prompt federal highway authorities to withdraw funding for local road construction projects.

Local air-quality authorities, citing the fact that readings tend to spike during cold-weather inversions, are hoping cleaner-burning wood stoves make a difference.

“I wish we could have more funding,” Elliott said. “There’s lots of need.”