Sacramento Bee: Sacramento Air District helps provide cleaner wood stoves

Air district provides vouchers for cleaner wood stoves
By Cathy Locke The Sacramento Bee Published: Sunday, Nov. 13, 2011 - 11:58 am
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Sacramento County residents may be eligible for a voucher to help fund replacement of polluting wood stoves and traditional fireplaces with less polluting units.

To protect air quality, the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District, from Nov. 1 through Feb. 29, restricts or prohibits use of indoor and outdoor fireplaces and wood stoves on days when fine-particle pollution is forecast to exceed safe levels.

The district's incentive program provide vouchers to residents to replace wood stoves, open hearth fireplaces and pellet stoves with less-polluting wood burning devices, or gas or electric appliances.

Low income residents and landlords of low-income rental property may be eligible for a voucher of up to $1,500 toward the purchase and installation of a less polluting wood-burning device, or removal of the old one.

The program is open to residents of Sacramento County, including the cities of Citrus Heights, Elk Grove, Folsom, Galt, Isleton, Rancho Cordova and Sacramento.

Voucher applications are available at the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District office, 777 12th St, third floor, Sacramento, and online at http://www.airquality.org/woodstove. They also may be requested by calling (916) 440-9663, sending a fax to (916) 874-7896, or an email to woodstove@airquality.org.