Air quality in Fairbanks, somewhat infamously, has at times been among the worst in the nation. But efforts to clear the air and lose that reputation are paying off.
Levels of a specific air pollutant known as PM 2.5 are down by about half over the past decade, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
With particles no bigger than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, PM 2.5 is just right for embedding in people's lungs. It mainly comes from burning wood, an important heat source in Fairbanks.
Alaska Beacon reporter Yereth Rosen recently wrote about how -- despite a combination of cold air and geography that traps bad air -- Fairbanks is seeing its air quality improve, thanks in large part to drying out birch firewood before burning it.
Below is the transcript of an interview with Rosen on Alaska News Nightly. It has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Yereth Rosen: Birch has a lot of moisture in it, like a lot more than spruce. And so when people are, they have a bunch of birch logs, and they're putting them into the wood stove without drying them, they're not going to burn efficiently. They're going to produce a lot more smoke and a lot more particulates.
So drying the birch, this is an important part of the big plan called a SIP, or a state implementation plan. There's a lot of bureaucratic stuff, but anyway, this is about, this is an important part, like, have kiln-dried birch available, kiln-dried wood available. If you go to the kiln, which I did, and you stand outside, you just see all the steam coming up. And that's all the steam coming out of the wood.
Casey Grove: Yeah. So that, along with the stove buy-back program — they had money to pay people for their old stoves, to get them more efficient new stoves — brings us to the fun part, which is that the air quality is dramatically better now in Fairbanks, right?
YR: Yeah, if you look at the air quality, all these air quality measurements, you know, these measuring stations. And the way that EPA puts it is the days when there are violations, it's at a level that is only about half as high as it used to be. And there just aren't that many 24-hour violations. But there's still some.
CG: I imagine, like, the local leaders in Fairbanks, Borough Mayor Grier Hopkins, might be applauding this and, you know, not exactly declaring victory, but definitely happy about this. But, I mean, there are still days that are in violation. What's the long-term picture here? I mean, do they get out of this situation where they're, like, constantly being monitored by the EPA, or what?
YR: Well, it doesn't look like that's going to happen anytime soon, that they'll get out of the situation. And if you kind of look at other cities that have inversions and air pollution problems, they sort of never get out of this situation where they have to worry. They always are going to have to worry about it. The very long-term solution would be, you know, some kind of energy that doesn't make smoke, which would be like an alternative energy, you know, renewable energy, which is all why, partly, why the Fairbanks situation is of interest to people who are outside of Fairbanks and outside of Alaska and outside of the United States, even, because it's a really interesting case study.
You know, the mayor and other people in Fairbanks kind of get it irritated at the idea that Fairbanks has this bad reputation. They don't like having a bad reputation for having bad air. So it's important for them to show the progress. And, you know, they do deserve credit for making progress, even though people got mad and didn't want to have the borough do any enforcement. So now the borough is just like in a position of, you know, they're trying to encourage people to do things and show the benefits. And so it's more like a carrot than a stick.
CG: Yeah, I feel like that's what this turned into, yeah. And I guess this is the part where I have to admit publicly that I'm from Fairbanks. I remember being there when, you know, there were many, many, many meetings about this at the borough level. And I mean, I distinctly remember one man testifying in public testimony that if a borough inspector tried to come up on his roof, he'd shoot him off like a squirrel, you know.
So I guess that makes that all makes me wonder, you know, with this news that the number of days per year that they're in violation is half as much as it used to be, is it any less controversial than it was?
YR: There's some things in the plan that are still bothering people. There's some things that homeowners have to do. But I think that just the fact that there is progress, and it's, like, not a hopeless thing is probably making people a little less upset about it. And, you know, people don't want to breathe dirty air, as well. You know, there's plenty of people who who are taking it seriously, plenty of residents that don't want want their kids breathing fine particulates.
CG: Well, I thought I saw a photo in this story at Alaskabeacon.com that showed some West Valley High School ski team members.
YR: Oh yeah.
CG: You took the photo. So I wondered, does that mean that you went to Fairbanks? Did you go skiing?
YR: Of course I went skiing!
CG: How was the air quality?
YR: Well, I was actually at Birch Hill. Of course, I went skiing because, you know how it's been in Anchorage. And I came back and, like, told my Junior Nordic kids, and they were all jealous that I was actually on real snow.
The air quality, actually, when I was there, it was fine. It was good. And I guess that's even part of the story, because it's like there was nothing wrong with the air quality. It was fine. There were a few stations, a few monitoring stations, that, you know, showed a little bit of issues. There's a few that are just kind of chronically, where there's some chronic things. I don't know what's going on with them, but, yeah, but basically, they were all, like, in the good quality. So it's like, it used to be, I guess, that if you'd go to Fairbanks in the winter, there was a really good chance that you'd hit bad air. And, you know, I went there and I didn't hit any bad air.
CG: Well, congratulations. Your Yereth Rosen Attainment Days were in attainment.
