FAIRBANKS — Air quality regulators in Alaska are working to come up with a plan to address pollution in the Fairbanks North Star Borough.
The plan comes as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is expected to change the borough’s pollution designation from moderate to serious in June, The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported.
Once the change is made, the state will have to implement new rules, such as requiring power plants to place additional filters in their smoke stacks. Old wood and coal stoves would also need to be removed before a home can be sold.
State regulators are already working on a plan to reduce harmful particulate pollution.
“We have this very large reduction that we are going to need to make to demonstrate compliance,” said Denise Koch, director of air quality for the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, told the borough Assembly via teleconference Thursday.
Koch said the new plan will need to be complete by 2019, but that the deadline can be extended if the borough shows it has worked to establish “stringent” regulations.
Pollution monitoring of the borough has highlighted problems in some areas of Fairbanks and North Pole, while other areas have made improvements.
Borough air quality manager Ron Lovell said there have been 82 air quality complaints this winter, with 66 of them being confirmed.
The borough also recently implemented burn bans in North Pole because of air made unhealthy by particulate pollution. Lovell said he can’t yet say whether the burn bans have had an impact.
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Information from: Fairbanks (Alaska) Daily News-Miner, http://www.newsminer.com
