DUBOIS – With the room full enough that some had to wait out in the foyer, Sandy Township Supervisors held a public hearing on outdoor furnaces.
With Supervisors Jim Jeffers and Mark Sullivan not present for the meeting Monday night it was decided to table the actual vote on the ordinance would occur at the June 1 meeting so that all five could give their opinions on the matter.
“It seems for 18 months it was a permanent feature of our tabled business,” said Township Manager Dick Castonguay at the start of the meeting.
Castonguay had written the ordinance based off of voluntary guidelines by the Environmental Protection Agency and those of other states.
The ordinance outlines the need for permits. As of Monday’s meeting a fee set in stone for a new furnace, but there would be no fee for a permit on an existing outdoor furnace. The ordinance outlines how far from the property lines the burner has to be, flue height and what days of the year they can be used fully. It also covers what can be burned and that wood needs to be covered.
For people living in R-U and R-1, residential zones mostly near the City of DuBois, the wood burner can only be used between Sept. 15 and May 15 each year as currently written. There is an exception for homes that use the wood burner to heat water and pools. These wood burners are only allowed to burn, emitting smoke will be seen as burning, between the hours of 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Most of Sandy Township PRD and R-A zoned.
There were a few people who worried about the precedent this would set.
“How long before you start coming in to look at indoor furnaces?” asked Darell Duttry of Sandy Township.
In a similar vein, a few asked about the difference between an outdoor furnace and an indoor furnace. The answer was that indoor furnaces tend to dissipate the smoke better due to design, almost always have a high flue by design and the complaints leading to the creation of the ordinance stems from outdoor furnaces.
The ordinance will be up for vote at the next meeting with an amendment allowing for some flexibility concerning the May and September 15 dates. These dates had been picked on average dates using past weather statistics, but after talking to the citizens who attended the hearing it was decided to allow for some flexibility on years with unusually late cold snaps.
