According to Maine Department of Health and Human Services figures, asthma has increased significantly in the past decade, from 8.9 percent of the population in 2000 to 10.8 percent in 2011.

Environment Canada reports wood smoke particulate matter (pm 2.5) going into the atmosphere has doubled in provinces around Maine, by census, from 20 percent of total emissions to 40 percent of total emissions, in Quebec for example, since the early 1980s.

If this is happening around Maine, the same pattern probably holds here, per Department of Environmental Protection and DHHS scientists. This and other indicators of airborne particulate matter doubling in recent years shows a correlation between increasing concentrations of wood smoke and asthma. If true, then perhaps asthma in Maine can be decreased in the future by decreasing wood smoke that emits excessive concentrations of particulate matter.

Savings to Mainers could be significant from health cost savings alone, with the potential for fewer deaths and hospitalizations, and less medication prescribed to treat respiratory and other diseases.

The rise in asthma here would also point to a need for improved monitoring or estimating city pollution and hot spot pollution. This would better serve the intent of the Clean Air Act to keep pollution below standards “anywhere,” not just particulate matter measured between cities.

Better portable monitoring systems have been used in New York that show wood smoke pollution throughout the Hudson River Valley.

Dr. Michael Brauer, a professor in the School of Environmental Health at the University of British Columbia, helped New York and the Environmental Protection Agency on the Hudson River Valley project. He estimates that hot spot particulate matter in NYC is about two to three times the level of particulate matter in the regions around the city and well over the legal standard.

In addition, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and EPA have just recently recognized the safe dose for wood smoke particulate matter is about 25 percent of the safe dose for ambient matter emitted mainly from oil and gas burning units.

Recently testifying in support of LD 547, a resolve directing the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention to conduct a review of public health nuisance laws, Ed Miller, executive director of the American Lung Association of Maine, said that all of the science done on air pollution points to a “new and emerging public health problem from wood smoke like tobacco smoke.”

Mainers attending that hearing testified to heart attacks and asthma attacks as a result of exposure to wood smoke, and supported a joint DHHS and CDC study to determine whether current public health laws and enforcement procedures are sufficient to protect the public.

The resolve passed through the House and Senate on June 15, following a unanimous recommendation of the Committee on Health and Human Services. Gov. Paul LePage vetoed the measure last Thursday.

On June 18, at his fifth Capitol for a Day town hall meeting in Rockland, LePage told the crowd that he had received a message from EPA that day warning the federal agency may crack down on states that rely heavily on wood to heat homes, according to a Kennebec Journal report. If that happens, LePage said, “That is one law if the EPA put in, I will disobey.”

Reining emissions is an important public health measure and the Legislature must override the governor’s veto to protect Maine people from dangerous pollution. 

In addition, DHHS policy must require investigation and research to stop and prevent threats to our health.

Ernest Grolimund of Waterville is an engineer and co-founder of The International Coalition Against Wood Burning Pollution.