Issue burning like fire would

While local municipalities may not opt for an outright ban, tougher legislation to counter pollution created by residential wood burning in fireplaces or stoves is long over due.

Last year, Pointe Claire became the first West Island municipality to regulate residential wood smoke with a bylaw amendment forcing all new residential fireplaces or wood stove ovens to meet environmental health and safety standards set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency or the Canadian Standards Association.

However, Pointe Claire bylaw doesn't go far enough by asking people to replace older or inefficient wood-burning stoves or fireplaces.

Thousands of Canadians and many West Islanders, especially after the 1998 ice storm, decided to keep a fireplace or woodstove in their home as a secondary heat source. Generally speaking, most West Islanders don't use wood-burning as their primary source for heat, barring a power interruption. They simply use it for pleasure. However, there are negative health implications associated with fireplaces, specifically in urban settings, for both the user and their neighbours. Banning wood stoves is a policy being adopted or considered by some jurisdictions in Canada and the United States, but for the most part, any laws being established simply require any wood-burning device meet EPA or CSA certified equipment to cut down on emissions. Pointe Claire recently adopted a bylaw amendment requiring any new residential wood-burning device meet these certified emission standards in order to reduce pollution. Unfortunately, it's the only West Island municipality with such a law and the City of Montreal also doesn't have rules in place.

A study conducted 10 years ago identified residential wood heating as one of the main sources of air pollution in the Greater Montreal area. Another Montreal study, citing Riviere des Prairies, where most homes used wood as a primary or secondary heating system, reported there was more pollution in this residential district than downtown Montreal with all its traffic and concentration of people and businesses. Furthermore, this study (with data collected between 1999 and 2002) concluded that where wood heating is significant, wood smoke affects ambient air quality. As a result, concentrations of certain pollutants can be five times higher in winter than in the summer.

While some argue it might be environmentally OK to heat your home using wood on a regular basis in the countryside, Pointe Claire, while relatively tranquil, doesn't exactly fit that bill. An outright ban on wood-burning is not the offing, but tighter regulations on emission standards need to be adopted sooner than later.