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Appendix B. Transcripts from public hearings

Department of Ecology

SIP AM Hearing | 04/02/2015 | Runtime: 26:41

SPEAKER #1:

Go ahead and sign in. If you’d like to receive that document, go ahead and sign in.

CYNTHIA WALL: 

So as I had mentioned earlier, I’m Cynthia Wall. I’m the hearings officer for this officer. And 

this morning, we’re going to conduct a hearing on the proposed statewide implementation Clean 

Air Plan and we'll let the record show that it is 10:18 on April 2nd, 2015. This hearing’s being 

held at the Spokane Regional Clean Air Agency conference room, 3104 East Augusta Avenue, 

Spokane, Washington 99207. In addition, notices of the hearing were sent to, by email, to about 

1800 interested parties. There was a news release in the Spokesman Review on March 2nd. There 

were 488 Twitter notifications were sent out on March 2nd, 4th, 20th, 23rd, and April 1st and 2nd. 

And the SRCAA also distributed outreach materials to their listservs as well.

So I, like I said, I’m going to be calling people to provide testimony based on the order your 

name appears on the sign-in sheet. Once everybody’s had the opportunity to testify, I'll open it 

up to see if others want to come up and testify. When I call your name, please step up here, state 

your name and address for the record, speak clearly so we can get a good recording of your 

testimony, and we will begin with Rene Holaday followed by, um, a question mark for Connee 

Potter [sounds like]. So Rene?

RENE HOLADAY:

My quick question is does this fall under Growth Management Act RCW70A or is this RCW70? 

Does anybody have that answer?

CYNTHIA WALL:

Now can you please state your name and address for the record?

RENE HOLADAY:

Uhm, my name is Rene Holaday, address, I’m in Chewelah, Washington.

CYNTHIA WALL:

OK, thank you.

RENE HOLADAY:

Was there an answer to the question?

CYNTHIA WALL:

We can’t answer questions during public testimony, but you can provide that question.
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RENE HOLADAY: 

I thought that was what you said. So ok, uhm, all right, you can start the clock. Since this is 

being addressed to EPA, first of all, I wanted to let you know that this is UN agenda and we are 

fully aware that this is UN agenda operating through the federal branch of the EPA. Second of 

all, I am an author of a book about that UN agenda called “The Perils of Sustainable 

Development” that has been received nationwide. Third, what you’re proposing to do here has 

absolutely nothing to do with public health and everything to do with taxation through ongoing

seasonal fees and is also about control over personal and private property, which I absolutely 

object to.

The exemptions, the economic impact in regard to exemptions for low-income families does not 

address me because we are far from low-income. However, we still cannot afford to heat our 

home with electric heat because the bill would actually start conflicting with our ability to pay 

for our residence. And over six years ago, we opted to quit using any electric power whatsoever 

because it was causing a huge degradation in our quality of life. Therefore, the exemptions for 

low-income doesn’t even begin to reach the scope of economic impact into the average 

household that does use wood for heat. We would be very, very severely impacted.

The car emissions in this area, well, actually, throughout the whole United States, have been 

reduced so much that they say that the emissions from cars today is actually almost 100 percent 

better than car emissions from, say, 1974. The fact that that part of the air pollution has been 

cleaned up so much in addition to the fact that we have 19 years of falling within attainment in 

this area makes this law, as well as any enforcement of the law, absolutely illogical and has 

absolutely, there’s no reason to even have it or enforce it.

So yes, that is my testimony; that I absolutely oppose it and would never comply. I feel that this 

is on the same level as attempting to take people’s guns, food, or water. Thank you very much.

CYNTHIA WALL:

The next person on my list is Connee Potter?

CONNEE POTTER:

I will put mine in writing, thanks.

CYNTHIA WALL:

OK. Then is it Allen Randall?

ALLEN RANDALL:

Yeah. See, I didn’t change mine.

CYNTHIA WALL: 

I see that. [unintelligible - 00:05:41] like that.

ALLEN RANDALL:
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Can you hear me now? Is it on? OK. My name is Allen Randall, North 40920 Running Deer 

Lane, Deer Park, Washington. Is that all I need to tell there? 

CYNTHIA WALL:

Yes.

ALLEN RANDALL:

OK. I kind of laugh about all this stuff. In Deer Park last year and going back to 2008 when I 

talked to the DNR, I owned 20 acres of wood and they told me they wanted me to limb my trees 

up seven feet, they wanted me to thin the trees so that if we had a forest fire, it wouldn’t keep 

going. So I’ve been working on that now for eight years. And I probably barely touched it 

because there are so many trees out there and so many limbs. Now, what are you going to do 

with the limbs once you fall the tree and pile up the limbs? They’ve got to be burnt sometime. 

And if they don’t, somebody’s going to be coming to me and saying, ‘Why don’t you clean up 

your property?’ So I’m trying to be the responsible owner. The other thing is what do I do with 

all that wood? Most of it is not suitable for building. Depending upon the market, it’s sometimes 

really not suitable. And the other thing is the CO2, which I believe is not a pollutant, that we put 

back into the atmosphere so that we can all breathe, by the way, and we can grow our crops more 

successful, it also allows trees to develop a better solid lignin in their cells and so they may 

become, over time, more suitable for building materials. So I’ve researched this thing; CO2 is 

not a pollutant, no matter what anybody says, it’s a miracle molecule and it allows us, by the 

way, after it’s gone through a tree or a plant, to breathe. Isn’t that amazing?

So I’m wondering what I’m supposed to do with all this wood stacked all over the place, whether 

it’s in limbs or whether it’s in trees. I look again at the power company. Inland Power’s pretty 

happy with me because I’m not wasting electricity on stuff and we burn wood in our certified 

wood stove that cost me $3500 when I put it in. We burn that stuff, thank you, we burn that stuff 

to supplement our heat, especially on cold days. Thank you.

CYNTHIA WALL:

The next person I have on my list is, is it Alene?

ALENE LINDSTRAND:

Alene Lindstrand, 11305 East Flagstone in the Valley. I represent Citizens’ Alliance for Property 

Rights. It is, we want to comment on the proposed rules for managing wood and pellet stoves. 

It’s made up of 15 chapters, three affiliates in Washington State, five chapters in California. We 

are very concerned about the trend that the Department of Ecology and the Environmental 

Protection Agency are taking against private property owners who use wood heat to use in their 

homes and businesses. CAPR does not think the board of the Spokane Regional Quality Clean 

Air should adopt the EPA’s overzealous air quality directives for the following reasons. This is 

the testimony.

Spokane residents who use wood to heat their homes will experience financial hardships if this is 

adopted. Washington State already has cleaner air standards than the EPA. The EPA’s five year 

clean air dream scheme would lower the stoves’ emission allowed from 4.5 grams of particulate 

per hour this year to 2.5 grams per hour by 2020. Wood stoves have come a long way since the 
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70s and 80s when they did emit 65 grams of particulate per hour. In order to achieve the two and 

a half grams per hour that the EPA wants by 2020, manufacturers will need to redesign stoves, 

which would more than double the cost of wood burning appliances according to the National 

Federation of Independent Businesses. Manufacturers of wood stoves have estimated that the 

proposed new emission requirements could virtually end the burning of wood for heat in the US, 

which is why several states are pushing back these new wood stove proposed emissions. 

State rules for burn ban in 2012 Washington State Wood stove Bill SHB 2326 are being 

implemented this year as a result. Thresholds for determining the Department of Ecology or Air 

Agencies may call bans that have gone from 35 micrograms to 30 micrograms per cubic meter. 

This will lead to more burn bans in Spokane since the chart I reviewed showed that Spokane did 

not go below the 35 limit with burn bans very often in the last few years. But if the threshold is 

lowered to 30, more burn bans will be called. Just as Avista’s raising rates to update their system, 

more and more Spokane residents will look to wood heat to supplement their heating bills. They 

won’t be able to rely on using wood heat if more frequent and unnecessary burn bans are called 

to meet these lower thresholds.

Firewood is plentiful in the Spokane region. Forests stay healthier and are less prone to forest 

fires if dead trees are thinned for firewood. How much pollution was released due to the Carlton 

Fire Complex in one day compared to one year of wood stove usage in the Spokane area. 

Spokane area residents are being good stewards by using renewable resource, keeping our forests 

healthy. The Puget Sound Clean Air Agency went even further than the EPA when it banned 

wood burning in King County for several times and levied $1,000 fines. We should not, this 

organization should not follow EPA’s one size fits all rule, which would effectively ban 

production in 80 percent of all wood stoves in America. These rules are being proposed that 

mostly impact folks on fixed incomes and rural residence. Thank you.

CYNTHIA WALL:

The next person on our main list is Bob Malkow? I’m sorry, some Bob? No? I have Dale Ryan 

as a question mark. No? OK. And I have Jim Robinson as a question mark?

JIM ROBINSON:

No, that’s fine [sounds like (13:00)].

CYNTHIA WALL:

Thank you. And I have Cindy Marshall as a yes?

CINDY MARSHALL:

Hi, I’m Cindy Marshall from 22711 East Euclid out in Otis Orchards. So first, I have a question 

to start it and I wanted to get this in during the question and answer time but didn’t have, the 

time was taken away. What is your expected response or your impact from this public testimony 

to aligning the local plan to the state? That’s my concern, is what we’re stating here today, is this 

going to be something that you’re actually going to take this information from the public here 

and actually, you know, use this as part of your decision making or are we just here expressing 

our view without a purpose?
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Spokane Regional Clean Air Agency is an agency, is part of the EPA, another agency. It’s part of 

the government. The government’s purpose is to protect and defend the citizens. And the citizens 

put government in place to protect that because it’s at the consent of the citizen. So again, this 

kind of reflects back on my question. I’m hoping and praying that you’re going to take the 

information that’s been expressed here through questions, expressed here through testimony, and 

not just walk away with just saying, ‘Well, we’re just going to do what we’re going to do 

because that’s been our plan all along.’ That you’re actually going to hear it [sounds like (14:41)] 

from the consent of the citizens. And from what I’m hearing, the citizens are not happy with 

what’s being proposed.

My husband sent me with a statement as well. He says people depend on wood burning for our 

main source of heat. And the government has required over the years the wood stoves to be 

efficient and to reduce emissions, and we ourselves, my husband and I, have purchased two 

stoves that have met those requirements. And now they want to put further restrictions on us. It’s 

as if we’re moving towards more and more restrictions and more and more banning. It’s not as if 

you’re happy with what has already been put in place and not content, especially by all of the 

information that we’ve even seen that your website offers us as factual. And I know growing up 

in this area in 1974, I think it was Rene that referred to it, 1974, I remember driving into Spokane 

and seeing a black haze over Spokane. And that was from a lot of emissions, probably maybe 

fire places added to that. Regulations have helped clean that up. But I know businesses also 

cleaned up. We are in such, I mean, driving in today, it’s beautiful, beautiful blue skies with 

white fluffy clouds out there. It’s as if the government has nothing else to do but continue adding 

regulations. And we’re asking to stop with the regulations, to sit back and look at the facts and 

really make a determination on what the facts are and not to just add to it. 

So as far as my husband and I are concerned, we’re against any furthering of regulation and any

alignment of what you’re doing with the state and federal. If we’re happy in this area with what 

we’ve got going and if we’re clean air, let’s stick with what we’ve got. Thank you.

CYNTHIA WALL:

I have . . .

MARIAN LONAN:

Marian Lonan.

CYNTHIA WALL:

Thank you. Is it, how do you spell your last name?

MARIAN LONAN:

L-O-N-A-N.

CYNTHIA WALL:

Thank you.

MARIAN LONAN:
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Thank you for hearing us and I’m going to reiterate what I have asked before because I want it 

on record. And I want to state too thank you very much for this information, wherever she is, 

right there. However, it is not contrails, these are chemtrails. Chemicals. And you guys are 

affected by it as much as I am. And you know what? I have been in the military, I have studied 

under biological chemical warfare. We are under biological chemical warfare. Wake up. 

Number two, I want to know who the authority is and I want to know how you’re going to 

enforce it and have you been offered or have been given ammo and weapons as the post office 

has been, as also the IRS, all these different agencies have been given ability to arrest citizens 

who are the people who put you into place. So I want to make sure that’s on the record. Number 

two, are you limiting the incineration of the burning thing that we all voted that we did not want 

in the Spokane area but you went ahead and put it in anyway. And so yet you’re going to come 

and take my stove away but you’re going to have this thing out there burning tires and 

everything else out there. You know, so that needs to be looked at.

And then we need to stop the chemtrails. This is a multi-national thing that’s going on around the 

world and it needs to stop. And not, that milky rain that we received the other day, it’s like that 

did not come from fires or whatever, and I already stated that. It didn’t come from some Russian 

volcano that happened or whatever. They’re spraying stuff on the American people. 

And my electric bill continues to rise. In the last few years, it’s doubled. I don’t have electricity 

to run my heating in my house. That’s just for running my dryer and my lights. And it’s doubled. 

So I really kind of have a sense that Avista and some of these power companies are behind in 

paying for you guys to move forward with your incremental baby steps to stop the ability to keep 

my house warm. 

And I also want to state that this is taxation without representation. When you’re charging me a 

fine or you’re making me go to you and beg for you to give me the ability to heat my house, 

please, I need a $25, it’s like this is ridiculous. You’re continually taxing us as time goes by. 

We’re going to be taxed for even breathing the air, which we all know that’s coming next. 

So I appreciate the time that you have given for us and as my sister has said, I pray that you will 

take this. You guys are citizens as we are citizens. It’s affecting you as much as it’s affecting me. 

Thank you.

BROOK BEELER: 

30 seconds.

MARIAN LONAN:

And so I want you to really look at this and stop. Enforce the laws that we have, but stop adding 

more stuff to the pile. I appreciate your time, thank you.

CYNTHIA WALL:

The next person on my list is Judy Crowder.

JUDY CROWDER:
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Hello, I’m Judy Crowder, 20315 North Yale Road in Colbert, Washington. And I want to thank 

you all for what you’ve done. The air is really clean now and you’ve come a long way from the 

90s. And so you’re doing a good job. But what we do want to do is keep this local and not let the 

EPA, which has no constitutional authority, to put any requirements on us here in Spokane 

County. We need to stop it. OK, local government closest to the people is the best. 

Now, I’m going to do a little bit on that constitutional thing, but first I do want to say, so this 

Section 8.01 and the particles of 10 and you are going to reduce those, that’s what your 

regulations are asking for now, to 2.5. So we have clean air now, we have not had an area that 

has been above, what is the terminology, the ambient, the national standard, in 15 years. So we 

have clean air and yet you are going to reduce the amount of particulates by up to 80 percent? 

That’s going to be a lot more bans, that’s a movement towards totally reducing our ability to 

burn with wood. The ability to burn with wood is ability to live independently and a lot of people 

now are very concerned with independent. We don’t have to go to a third party who now, who 

has a monopoly, to get our power. So this is a freedom issue, this is a liberty issue.

OK, so on the Constitution, I say the US Constitution does not give the EPA the power to dictate 

anything in regard to the state air or our ability to heat our homes with the God-given abundant 

energy source provided by our forest. So that is based on Article 1, Section 8 and I have a paper 

I’m going to give you all that shows the 18 clauses which are the specific enumerated powers 

that we the people in the States have given the federal government, our EPA. And air quality in 

our local county is not on this list. You all can all look.

And since, I’m just going to read this. Since the beginning of our country, the federal 

government has attempted to take power it was not delegated and James Madison and Thomas 

Jefferson addressed the misuse of the general welfare clause to gain unconstitutional power in 

the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions of 1798. Here is what the Kentucky Resolution says. 

Quote, ‘That if those who administer the general government be permitted to transgress the 

limits fixed by that compact by a total disregard to the special delegated powers therein 

contained, alienation of the state governments and the erection upon their ruin of a general 

consolidated government will be the inevitable consequence. That the several states who form 

that instrument being sovereign and independent have the unquestionable right to judge of its 

infractions and that a nullification by those sovereignties of all unauthorized acts under the color 

of law of that instrument is the rightful remedy.’

Thank you very much.

CYNTHIA WALL:

Do I have anybody else that would like to testify? OK. Thank you everybody who testified. I 

think you'll get, somebody had a question about what’s going to happen with all this, so I think 

this really dry, boring last part of this will help you get the answer to this.

So submitting written comments, if you’d like to submit ecology written comments, please 

remember they’re due by April 10th, 2015. I think that we decided that’s postmarked by April 

10th, so we consider postmarked by April 10th.
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SPEAKER #2:

Is today’s hearing also available to us? The recording?

CYNTHIA WALL:

No, but there will be a, well, let me read through it and maybe it'll answer your question.

The questions, any comments you have are going to go to Joanna Ekrem at the Department of 

Air Quality Program. That address, I think, is on the handout, but it’s PO Box 47600. That’s in 

Olympia, Washington and the ZIP Code is 98504. So all the testimony received at this hearing, 

along with all the written comments postmarked no later than April 10th, will be part of the 

official hearing record for this proposal. Ecology will send a notice about the response to 

comments publication to everybody that provided written comments or oral testimony on this 

SIP proposal and submitted contact information, everybody that signed in for today’s hearing 

that submitted an e-, provided an email address, and other interested parties that are on the 

agency mailing list for this proposal.

So the response to comments will contain, among other things, the agency’s response to 

questions and issues and concerns that were submitted during the public comment period, 

including the ones at this hearing. If you’d like to receive a copy but you didn’t give us your 

contact information, please let one of the Ecology staff know and we'll make sure that you get 

your information added so that you can get back the response to comments.

So the next step after this hearing is to review the comments, for Ecology to review the 

comments, and make a determination whether to adopt the SIP revision. So our Ecology director, 

Maia Bellon, will consider all the documentation and staff recommendations and will make a 

decision about adopting the proposal. 

Ecology will submit the proposed SIP revision to EPA after adoption, EPA will then accept 

public comments before making a decision to approve the SIP revision. If we can be of any 

further help to you, please don’t hesitate to ask or you can contact Joanna if you have other 

questions.

On behalf of the Department of Ecology, thank you for coming. I appreciate your cooperation 

and courtesy. Let the record show that we are adjourning at . . .

SPEAKER #3:

10:44.

CYNTHIA WALL:

. . . 10:44 a.m. Thank you very much for coming. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER #4:

Thank you all.
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Department of Ecology

SIP PM Hearing | 04/02/2015 | Runtime: 41:05

SPEAKER #1:

And it’s defined by essentially township [unintelligible - 00:00:04] and ranges so that people can 

identify where they are. Thank you [sounds like – 00:00:10].

CYNTHIA WALL:

OK, so let’s start the formal portion of the proceedings. This is the public comment period, you 

know, formal testimony where you can come up and give your testimony for the record. So 

we’re starting this right at 7:00 and it’s April 2nd and we’re at the Spokane Regional Clean Air 

Agency in their conference room at 3104 East Augusta Avenue in Spokane. So in addition to this 

hearing, notices were sent, email notices were sent to 1800, and about 1800 interested people, 

there was a news release in the Spokesman on March 2nd, and there were about six different 

Twitter notifications sent to about nearly 500 followers. And then the SRCAA also distributed 

outreach materials to people on their listservs as well.

So I will be calling people to come up and testify based on the order your name appears on the 

sign-in sheet. Once I’ve called through everybody who signed up and indicated they wanted to 

testify, then I'll open it up for anyone who just thinks they want to and didn’t sign up. And so, 

and if you put your name on as a yes and you change your mind, fine. If you didn’t, if you put a 

question mark and you want to change that to a yes, then you can just tell me when I call your 

name. 

So when I call your name, please come up here, state your name and address for the record, and 

speak clearly so we can get a good recording. Since we’re recording, I ask that everybody be 

respectful and listen to the comments and be quiet so we can get a good clear recording for the 

record and so that we can respond to the comments. Because we have quite a few people that 

want to testify, I’m going to limit people’s testimony to three minutes each. Ms. Beeler here will 

keep track of that and she'll let you know when you’re down to your last 30 seconds. If you have 

additional comments that you don’t get to read into the record here, you can submit them in 

writing. They receive equal weight as a spoken comment.

So the first person I have on my list is Dan Clark. Is that you?
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DAN CLARK:

Speak here, you said?

CYNTHIA WALL:

Right up here.

DAN CLARK:

I’m Dan Clark, a Spokane resident for about 64 years, and I wish to say I object to this because I 

think what you’re doing is you’re addressing a problem that doesn’t exist. I think this was taken 

care of about 20 years ago. I haven’t noticed any real pollution and I think I would have noticed 

it. You talk about the farming and the road dust being kicked up and being part of the problem. 

Perhaps at times it is, but I don’t know that you can avoid that.

A larger issue here is that I see this as being a situation of mission creep [sounds like –

00:03:19]. I think that the Department of Ecology and the Environmental Protection Agency was 

created to address industrial problems like the Pittsburgh Steel Mills, Love Canal, perhaps 

Hanford area. And now here they are creeping into Spokane Regional boards where they now 

want to abandon the industrial sites and come into our homes and look at our wood stove. And 

that’s just a little bit too much, you know, and I think we should all be very concerned with that. 

For one thing, we’re paying taxes for this. So that is what I had to say. Again, I object to this. So 

thank you for your efforts, I’m sure you mean well, but I think you’re misdirected.

CYNTHIA WALL:

The next person I have that is indicating they’d like to testify is John Charleston. Is that, did I 

pronounce that right?

JOHN CHARLESTON:

You did, thank you. I saw that 30 second sign and I thought, ‘I'll never get that done.’ So as I 

was saying earlier, I find this really to be an interesting rule. It does show exactly, you know, 

what Dan was talking about. This is, this is, we’re treated, like I said earlier, just like Chicago. 

You know, it’s a national thing. It’s nice to know that I live in the green area, but, you know, that 

could change. All of this can change. And the part that really got me, that was stunning to me, 

was the different size of the particulate matter. Maybe over a beer, I could really understand it, 

but I don’t quite now. But 2.5 from 10 is a big change, it is a big change. 
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The other thing that concerns me, of course, is the burn ban. 24 hours on the burn ban, we had 

the chart up there, there was one time one about 10 days in burn zone two. I would be cold for 

ten days, you know, if I had to do that. I don’t think that that’s right and I don’t think that, you 

know, when we get to that sense of it, that 2.5 and we’re going to have to turn off the heat. I 

don’t know. We’ve had it for decades at 10 and over, so why all of a sudden is that thing [sounds 

like – 00:05:26]? But then I do understand that the agency can deem it to be an emergency and 

blow off the rules, so that’s all good, I get that part.

Then the other part that really concerns me is that by federal law, the Clean Air Act requires the 

EPA to revisit these rules every five years. So it’s, you know, to me, I’ve said in essentially 

coming down here, my gosh, here it is. This is a perfect example of how we expand government 

and then we create jobs. I read the information about the filters. I went through the rules and 

looked at all the plans because I was just, I was amazed, I was stunned. I know how much that 

costs to produce those drawings, just even that. I mean, it’s like this is just huge and all, and not 

to be off of this, but this is really, ‘cuz I’m going to find out I didn’t call Karen [unintelligible -

00:06:13] in Pend Oreille, but she was telling me last week, she says, ‘You know, what our 

population in Pend Oreille County, that 57 percent of the population are government employees. 

57 percent. In an area that used to have their main income came from the forestry industry, 

which is down now to one and a half percent of everything.’

So this kind of stuff, I just, you know, where’s it going to end? That’s my concern. Keep us 

healthy, I get that part too.

CYNTHIA WALL:

Thank you. So the next two people I’ve got, it’s Cindy and Gloria but there was arrows and then 

they were crossed out. So are you . . .

CINDY ZAPOTOCKY:

I’m going first.

CYNTHIA WALL:

Are you Cindy?

CINDY ZAPOTOCKY:

Uh-huh.
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CYNTHIA WALL:

OK, thank you.

CINDY ZAPATOCKY: 

Didn’t want to cause any . . .

CYNTHIA WALL:

Nope.

CINDY ZAPATOCKY:

That’s OK. I’m Cindy Zapatocky, I’m president of the Spokane Citizens’ Alliance for Property 

Rights.

CYNTHIA WALL:

Can you please state your address too?

CINDY ZAPATOCKY:

Oh, 1728 East Rockwood Boulevard, Spokane, Washington 99203. The Citizens’ Alliance for 

Property Rights, CAPR, would like to comment on your proposed rules for managing wooden 

pellet stoves. CAPR is made up of 15 chapters and three affiliates in Washington State, we 

represent thousands of people, plus five chapters in California. The Spokane Chapter of CAPR is 

very concerned about the trend that the Department of Ecology and the Environmental Protection 

Agency are taking against private property owners who use wood to heat their houses and 

businesses. CAPR does not think the board of SRCAA should adopt EPA’s overzealous air 

quality directives for the following reasons.

Number one, costs of new wood stoves will increase. Spokane residents who use wood to heat 

their homes will experience financial hardships if SCRAPA [sounds like – 00:08:00] adopts 

EPA’s newly proposed federal rules for wood stoves. Washington State already has cleaner air 

standards than EPA but EPA’s five year clean air dream scheme would lower the stove 

emissions allowed from 4.5 grams of particulate per hour this year to 2.5 grams per hour by 

2020. Wood stoves have come a long way since the 70s and 80s when they emitted 65 grams of 
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particulates per hour. In order to achieve the 2.5 grams per hour that EPA wants by 2020, 

manufacturers will need to design stoves which could more than double the cost of wood burning 

appliances.

Number two, burn bans will increase. New state rules for burn bans in 2012, Washington State 

Wood Stove Bill SHB 2326 are being implemented this year. As a result, thresholds for 

determining when DOE or air agencies may call bans have gone from 35 micrograms to 30 

micrograms per cubic meter. This will lead to more burn bans in Spokane since a chart reviewed 

by us showed that Spokane did not go below the 35 limit with burn bans very often in the past 

few years. But if the threshold is lowered to 30, more burn bans will be called. Just as Avista is 

raising rates to update their system, more and more Spokane residents will look to wood heat to 

supplement their heating bills.

Number three, wood is a renewable resource. Firewood is plentiful in the Spokane region, and 

it’s cheap. Forests stay healthier and are less prone to forest fires if dead trees are thinned for 

firewood. We support this process.

Finally, fines and financial hardship will increase and we hate to see this agency, this unelected 

agency, going into law enforcement. We all want clean air, but won’t accept cold homes. Don’t 

impose EPA’s emission scheme, which the National Federation of Independent Business says 

could eventually end the burning of wood for heat in America.

Thank you.

CYNTHIA WALL:

So the next person on my list is Gloria Clark.

GLORIA CLARK:

Three years ago, I got a call . . .

CYNTHIA WALL:

Can you state your name and address for the record?
B-14

GLORIA CLARK:

Gloria Clark, Spokane County, I wrote my address down there. Three years ago, I got a call from 

a gal, Sharon Hanek, Research Mom, and she told us about a bill, substitute [sounds like -

00:10:30] House Bill 2326. She called it the Wood Stove Bill. It passed, the governor signed it. 

The purpose of this bill was that Pierce County was not meeting their wood stove quality, they 

were in noncompliance or I guess you call it nonattainment. OK, that’s the terminology. So this 

bill was basically written because the people over there were freaking out because they didn’t 

want the EPA to dictate to them what they’re supposed to do in their county. So foolishly, the 

Democrats and Republicans, some of them, got together and passed this bill. 

Now I’m going to read a little bit from this bill that especially alarms me. Number one, it does 

lower the particulates from 35 down to 30, which is alarming because your very, your website 

shows that we have not, we have actually stayed below the 35, but let me tell you, we haven’t 

stayed below the 30, so we’re going to have more burn bans according to what SCRAPA shows 

right here, in my opinion. Anyway, in the law, I want to tell you on page, well, anyway it’s not 

written on pages, but it says, ‘If the area is designated as a nonattainment area as of January 1st, 

2015 or required by the EPA, the local air pollution control authority or the department, that’s 

DOE, may prohibit the use of uncertified devices.’ Then you might ask, ‘Well, what does that 

mean?’ Well, I'll tell you what it means. Prohibit the use or prohibition may include requiring 

disclosure of an uncertified device removal or rendering inoperable as may be approved by rule 

by a local air pollution control authority or the department, that’s DOE. The effective date of this 

rule may not be prior to January 1st, 2015.

I have a feeling that’s why this meeting is now and wasn’t before January 1st of 2015. I don’t 

like, I mean, you know, Obama rendered inoperable many of the cars. We gave my son-in-law a 

car, a Subaru that has 300,000 miles on it. He’s still using it, because it was a pretty good car. 

And so basically, you guys do have the authority, according to this law, correct? To render 

inoperable? So what does that mean? That means that basically if you exceed these standards, 

you’re not going to be able to use your woodstove. I think people need to read this bill. Be sure 

to look 2012, look that up, substitute [sounds like - 00:12:57] House Bill 2326, 62nd legislature. I 

think everybody needs to be very alarmed. 

I’ve used wood heat, I know how to do it. You have to put the, it better be dry, you’d better put 

them in vertically so they don’t fall out. I mean, we live with wood heat and I’m not going to 

give it up. And I just think it’s just outrageous, and it is EPA approved, and that should be good 

enough. It shouldn’t be lowered any more. We had to move out of a neighborhood because it was 

so polluted back in the 70s. Let me tell you, it’s not that way in Spokane anymore. Thank you.

CYNTHIA WALL:
B-15

Steve Dunham?

STEVE DUNHAM:

What do you want? Steve Dunham, 1616 South Milton, Spokane. I just wanted to go back to a

couple basic things, the EPA to start with. The EPA was put through in the Nixon administration 

in the 1970s, but it was never done constitutionally. Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution 

has a list of enumerated powers that Congress can dictate what they can do. There’s nothing 

about Environmental Protection. So the Federal Government, according to Article 1, Section 8, 

what the EPA is doing is totally illegal according to the US Constitution. It’s totally a rogue 

agency. It’s totally, and we all know in this room, is totally out of control. I’m a building 

contractor that’s been put out of work by the EPA because of their lead paint directives. So you 

are enforcing federal EPA standards that are illegal. That’s something you should consider.

I believe, and most of the people in this room believe, that this whole thing is all about control, 

regulation, taxation, and standards based on very questionable and subjective science. One of 

you stated earlier, which I thought was very interesting, you had the 35 micrograms per cubic 

meter. And I was reading in other articles that some areas in the country, and I must be wrong 

because you said that’s a national standard, they were lowering it from 15 to 12 micrograms. But 

one of you stated tonight that no level is safe. So, and I totally agree with that’s what the EPA 

would say, no level is safe. So I assume that means that over time, this 35’s going to go to 30 to 

25 to 20 to whatever it takes to take total control over us as individual citizens.

And just one other comment since I was doing a little research on this. You did mention the 

Clean Air Act of was it 2008? When the federal, the EPA classified CO2, which is human breath, 

a pollutant under Section 202 of the Clean Air Act. I think the EPA has to be reined in just a little 

bit and, in my opinion, totally eliminated because it is unconstitutional and it’s illegal. Thank 

you.

Can I make just one more comment?

CYNTHIA WALL:

I think your three minutes are up, but you’re welcome to submit written comments.

STEVE DUNHAM:

OK, yeah.
B-16

CYNTHIA WALL:

Thank you. And, Dennis, I’m sorry if I butcher your name, Paradis?

DENNIS PARADIS:

Yeah, I just wanted to ask one question, though, really.

CYNTHIA WALL:

Well, so during formal testimony, you can ask it into the record and it'll . . .

DENNIS PARADIS:

Yeah.

CYNTHIA WALL: 

. . . get answered in the response.

DENNIS PARADIS:

OK. My name’s Dennis Paradis, 15921 North Forker Road and I live in the green zone. My 

question is where are they doing these measurements for air quality to determine that? You 

know, most of the time, we burn our stove, it’s pretty darn clean. And if there’s a problem, we 

shut it off. But I’m wondering if they’re doing these tests in Spokane in the city or what’s 

happening, I’d like to find out about that.

And I also agree that your organization is pretty much infringing on our rights way too much. I 

know you don’t care about it, but that’s my opinion.

CYNTHIA WALL:

Thank you. Gary Cummins?
B-17

GARY CUMMINS:

My name’s Gary Cummins, I live at 3520 East Hastings Avenue in Mead. And I think these 

regulations that we’re taking, accepting from the EPA, first of all, they’re a bunch of bureaucrats 

that live in DC that haven’t the foggiest idea of what real life is about. Because they, somebody 

mentioned Chicago, there is, in the United States, there’s 146 different boutique blends of 

gasoline for cars and 46 of them are in the city of Chicago. Now, that makes good sense. But the 

thing about it is this. If you’ve got a good stove and it’s burning properly, you can’t see anything 

coming out of the chimney, nothing. Even if you’re standing inches from it, you can’t see it. And 

they’re going to measure the particles that are coming out of there at one millionth of a meter? 39 

and a quarter inches is a meter and you’re going to measure one millionth of that? How? Do you 

know how? 

SPEAKER #1:

[unintelligible - 00:19:49] 

CYNTHIA WALL:

Yes.

GARY CUMMINS:

OK. But the thing about it is this. Now us dummies who don’t have a college education, and 

that’s most of us, are not near as stupid as they think we are. But the thing about it that makes me 

angry is this. You accept Chicago, or I should say you accept Seattle. You accept California air 

standards, because that’s where the EPA gets theirs, without even questioning the fact that 

there’s no science on that at all. And that’s easy to prove. EPA tested, when they first started out 

on car emissions, they had one model Ford that failed every time. And finally, they measured the 

ambient air and it was four times dirtier than what was coming out the exhaust pipe. So the thing 

about it is this. The science that they’re using leaves a little bit to be desired. And me, personally, 

the power goes out, my wood stove gets lit. But if you haven’t got one, you’re going to get cold. 

And that’s what I have to say. Thank you.

CYNTHIA WALL:

Let’s see. I have Gene is it Vin with a question mark?

GENE VIN:

Yes, I'll speak [sounds like – 00:21:14].
B-18

CYNTHIA WALL:

OK. 

GENE VIN:

My name is Gene Vin, I’m from the Spokane Valley. The address is in the paper there. I’ve got a 

couple of questions, one of which the limit, the PM to 2.5 is proposed to from 10 to 2.5. My 

question is, first of all, how did they come up with that limit? Second of all, if, in the common 

sense reality, if you guys, if there is no problem, then why to try to fix something? For instance, 

if we are at PM 10 and we don’t really have that many bans, why try to redefine something to 

make it even more specific, which technically should not produce more bans. But on the other 

hand, if we’re seeing the micro, what is it, micrograms per, from 35 to 30, that will obviously 

produce more bans. And if this agency already knows that by proven charts and grafts of a 

historical record, then why create something and impose a tax and fines on the public if you guys 

have a historical record that shows will produce more of these bans?

And to build on top of what Steve and a few others were saying, going back to the EPA, we’re 

basically putting ourselves into, giving ourselves up into a national control. To an agency that is 

illegally operating. And my request, as a new generation coming up, to the parents and to the 

grandparents, is please review our history, please review the world’s history. We’re following 

the same path that leads to destruction. And if we don’t accept responsibility and step up to the 

plate but willfully give ourselves up into government just because we get paid by them, then we 

should really question our existence on this planet, in this state, and just as a human being, as a 

common morality. Why are we here? To impose taxes and fines upon our neighbors and our 

citizens? We are the same type of people as you. We’re trying to make a living and there is no 

point to create something more stringent just to please some of the bureaucracies who do not 

understand the low-level lifestyle, if you want to put it that way, that most of us are living.

Thank you.

CYNTHIA WALL:

So I’d like to remind the audience while I appreciate your enthusiasm, this is a formal public 

hearing and not a pep rally. So if you’d hold your applause and your, you know, whatever else 

you’re doing until the end when you can pat yourselves on the back and talk amongst yourselves, 

that’d be appreciated. Marilyn Montgomery?
B-19

MARILYN MONTGOMERY:

I just wanted to say, my name is Marilyn Montgomery, 4715 East Sumac Drive, Spokane, 

Washington 99223. I’ve been hearing draconian things like we have to board up our fireplaces, 

we can’t have barbecues anymore. Heaven knows what else there might be. But this is such an 

infringement. And again, they say you are illegally operating. You [unintelligible - 00:24:59] 

very sweet people and intelligent, but nevertheless, you perhaps are operating against the 

Constitution. And to try to take away the modest amenities of our life like barbecues and like 

fireplaces and board them up inside our homes, I don’t know if that’s true, so I want to hear back 

from you whether or not that is so. But it’s most ridiculous and a great infringement on our 

freedoms and our love of our homes and our lifestyles. Thank you.

CYNTHIA WALL:

The next name I have is Cherrie Barnett with a question mark?

CHERRIE BARNETT: 

It’s fine. They’re speaking for me [sounds like – 00:25:44].

CYNTHIA WALL:

OK. Then I have Jeff Broadhead.

JEFF BROADHEAD:

All right. Jeff Broadhead, 9711 East Mission, Spokane Valley 99206. I basically believe that 

natural law supersedes constitutional law because that’s where all the authority came from for 

the Constitution and I’d like to know, do the SRCAA employees swear an oath of office to 

uphold the Constitution? Also, what is the constitutional line of authority regarding the EPA, the 

state agencies, the local agencies, where does all that authority come from? All the way back to 

the state and the national, the general Constitution. Third, the Department of Natural Resources 

is known to mismanage public lands, which has led to fires with massive amounts of smoke 

coming through the Spokane area and the Federal Government is even worse at managing their 

lands, the public lands.

Next is, without getting into details, nanoparticles are much smaller than these two and a half 

micron smoke particles that we’re talking about and they’re being distributed over the whole 

area. I have photos showing massive amounts of that being spewed. And we have no - there’s no 

public comment. I contacted certain powers that be and they blocked me from any 
B-20

communication. I’m not happy about that but I think if two and a half micron sized particles are 

dangerous to our lungs, then certainly things that are nano sized are going to be even worse. 

The Federal Government doesn’t have our health in mind, we can tell by how they side with Big 

Pharma and yeah, Monsanto and the whole gang. They have nothing, there is no interest at all in 

our health. They’re interested in power. And the last thing is with all the dollars spent on 

regulating, why not come up with something such as electrostatic scrubbers for woodstoves that 

are affordable? I mean, we have electrostatic air filters in houses. Cleanable scrubbers that can 

go on your chimney would seem like a lot of sense. 

Thank you.

CYNTHIA WALL:

Mary Ellen Albertson?

MARY ELLEN ALBERTSON:

I want to thank you guys for your time and I ditto what everybody else said. And I’m ashamed of 

you, sir, from coming out of retirement to put this upon us. I would like to call on Patrick Henry 

back in March 23, 1775 and he was, at that time, working on declaring independence, calling 

upon his countrymen to trust in God whether they want to be independent or not. He says, ‘Sir, 

we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destiny of our 

nation and who will rise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not for the strong 

alone, or is it for the vigilant, or the active, or the brave.’ Now listen to his passion in the 

conclusion. ‘Is life so dear, ma'am [sounds like – 00:30:09], or peace so sweet, as to purchase at 

the price of chains and slavery?’ And that’s what you’re doing to us, trying to take away the 

wood stoves.

And I would like to call your attention to the skies. I took pictures of the jet streams out there in 

the skies and people tried to tell me that’s because they have to let the gas out. Bull. When you 

see the airplanes fly in the opposite direction and all this stuff spewing out from behind the 

airplanes, why are you not concerned about that? Did you come in here with an air mask on 

today? Because what I hear, in that, is more dangerous than what comes out of our chimneys. 

And you need to pay attention to that because it’s not only endangering my life. And even 

though you guys get the money to do this to us, you know what they say. When they come after 

one person and no one stands up for them, so what. But when it gets down to they’re coming 

after you, because they will come after you guys also, who’s going to be left to stand for you? 

You need to stand up for us and not bow down to what Obama is trying to put upon us, and let us 
B-21

have our freedom. And if it’s just liberty to have a fireplace, then why not let us have our 

fireplace?

And I understand that oh, we can sign up and say we’re poor, so please allow us to burn, even 

though you say it’s not national, it is national. And even though you say people aren’t going to 

come in and inspect your houses, I heard they are. So pay attention and give yourself a break and 

figure out what it is in the sky that damages [sounds like – 00:32:06] us. Without history, the 

nation falls apart and with the crap they’re spraying in the sky, you’re not going to remember 

history.

Thank you.

CYNTHIA WALL:

Julian Hale?

JULIAN HALE:

Julian Hale, 3912 East Oregon Road in Elk. So first, I just want to say, you know, some of these 

rules really actually make a lot of sense. Tracking 2.5 micron particles rather than 10, to track 

wood stove, you know, wood smoke instead of road dust makes a lot of sense. My concern here 

is that there has been a general, over time, sort of a ratcheting process where it’s always turning 

in the direction of less and less ability for people to, in this particular case, it would be heating 

with wood stoves. I really appreciate that the regional, the Spokane Regional Clean Air Agency’s 

policy is to not use law enforcement, is to not go into people’s homes, is to not do any particular 

kind of enforcement beyond, say, writing a ticket.

But I also recognize that while that may have been the past policy and the current policy, that 

that may not continue on into the future. And that the rules that are being put into place do 

potentially allow for a lot more enforcement than currently goes on. And so we don’t want to put 

rules in place that create the possibility of future law enforcement action or disabling of people’s 

heating sources or what have you. So that’s my big concern with the rules that are going in here, 

is that it enables future action. That even though it’s not something that’s taking place right now, 

we don’t know who'll be running the Clean Air Agency in five years or ten years or fifteen years. 

And so that’s why people are here and concerned about the rules that are being put into place. 

Because we don’t know what future administrations will have in store for us. 

So thank you.
B-22

CYNTHIA WALL:

Jim Robinson?

JIM ROBINSON:

My name is Jim Robinson, 7721 North Campbell Road in the Valley. I’m here to voice my 

strong opposition to the proposal to tighten restrictions on solid fuel combustion devices, that is 

wood stoves. Due to time restrictions, I will only share a couple of my concerns.

I’ve resided in the Spokane Valley for almost 50 years and much has changed during that time. I 

recall the daily commute to Spokane during which I recall observing an almost perennial haze 

over Spokane Valley. During that same time that the haze disappeared, wood stove technology as 

well as automobile technology has taken a quantum leap as an efficiency. The number of burn 

bans has dwindled also from the bad old days, and with the exception of geoengineering 

contractors crisscrossing our skies with plumes of who knows what, our air in Spokane County is 

remarkably clean and clear.

To give you an idea of the proportion of the amount of pollution in general that man contributes 

in relation to all other sources, we can look at the amount of CO2 contributed by Homo sapiens. 

With the concentration of CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere just a little under 400 parts per million, 

that means that about four one hundredths of a percent of the Earth’s atmosphere is carbon 

dioxide. Put another way, if the entire atmosphere was represented by $10,000, the amount of 

CO2 would only be 40 cents. Of all the greenhouse gases, water vapor accounts for 98 percent 

with CO2 in second place at about one and a half to 1.8 percent. Taken from figures posted by 

the US Department of Energy in October of 2000, man’s activities at that time account for about 

3.2 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions, ignoring, rather, the water vapor which takes up 

most of it. The amount, therefore, of CO2 attributable to man is only about 1 penny out of that 

$10,000. In terms of concentration of the entire atmosphere, it would be about 1 penny out of a 

million dollars.

If levels established in 1994 were deemed acceptable at that time, then why is it necessary to 

ratchet up these draconian regulations, especially considering how much cleaner the air and 

water is today compared to 20 years ago? Why is it that we need to unnecessarily impose even 

greater hardships upon those who struggle to make ends meet, what the government calls the 

working poor, when our skies are clear? With most of the wood stove prices between three and 

five thousand these days, most of those folks have been priced out of the market and don’t have a 

wood stove in case we get a 30 below zero day. 
B-23

Trained as a chemist in the 60s, I learned that carbon dioxide was a key compound in the carbon 

cycle and was referred to then as a gas of life, not a pollutant as the EPA does today. In terms of 

particulate, Spokane is downwind from millions of agricultural acres that routinely share tons of 

particulates called dust accounting for much of the allergy and asthma reactions in Spokane 

County. These regulations sound to me like a solution in a desperate search of a problem. 

Tyranny always comes riding in on a white horse wearing a smiley face. This is tyranny.

Thank you.

CYNTHIA WALL:

Thank you. Is there anyone else that did not sign up that would like to testify? No? 

OK, so these comments will be incorporated and I will transcribe them, give them to Joanna, so 

they'll be incorporated along with any written comments you’d like to send Ecology. Written 

comments are due by April 10th, and that means, and due means postmarked by April 10th. And 

those should go to Joanna Ekrem at the Department of Ecology Air Program. Her address was on 

the screen. If you didn’t get that, I’ve got it up here. And you’ve got your . . .

SPEAKER #2:

It’s in this.

CYNTHIA WALL:

Is it on the focus sheet?

SPEAKER #2:

Right here.

CYNTHIA WALL:

OK, great, thank you. So all the testimony received at this hearing, along with all written 

comments postmarked no later than April 10th will be part of the official hearing record for this 

proposal. Ecology will send a notice about the Response to Comments publication to everyone 

that provided written comments or oral testimony on this SIP proposal and submitted contact 
B-24

information, everyone that signed in for today’s hearing that provided an email address and other 

interested parties on agency mailing lists for this proposal. 

So the Response to Comments will be, among other things, contain the agency’s response to 

questions and issues of concerns that were submitted during the public comment period. If you 

would like to receive a copy but did not give us your contact information, please let one of our 

Ecology staff at this hearing know or contact Joanna at the contact information provided for 

submitting comments.

The next step after we receive comments and the comment period closes is to review the 

comments and make a determination whether to adopt the SIP revision. Ecology Director Maia 

Bellon will consider the SIP documentation and staff recommendations and she'll make a 

decision about adopting the proposal.

Ecology will then submit the proposed SIP revision to EPA for adoption. And the EPA will then 

accept public comment before making a decision to approve the SIP revision.

If we can be of further help to you, please don’t hesitate to ask. You can call Joanna if you have 

other questions.

On behalf of the Department of Ecology, thank you for coming. I appreciate your cooperation 

and courtesy and your time away from your families and dinner and everything else to be here 

tonight to give us your opinions.

And so I'll let the record show this hearing is adjourned at, Brook?

BROOK BEELER:

7:41.

CYNTHIA WALL:

7:41. Thank you, everybody.