LOWER TOWNSHIP – A group of neighbors from Greenwood Estates in the township’s Erma section appeared at township council’s Aug. 15 meeting to complain that a neighbor’s outdoor wood boiler (OWB) creates smoke that interferes with their standard of living, but the neighbors – Pawel and Marti Banach – say they haven’t even used the boiler this summer.

An outdoor wood boiler is a variation on a wood stove, in which the fire is outside but the heat transferred into a house or building.

Diane Wharton of South Andrielle Lane spoke for herself and about 12 neighbors who also appeared before council. The group has tried to get action from the township since June 2010, she said.

Wharton questioned why the township is not being more active with respect to OWBs.

“When Mr. Banash applied for a permit for an OWB, no one felt the need to investigate the environmental impact of this outdoor wood boiler, even though there is an Environmental Commission to do just that,” Wharton charged.

“Now we have an OWB about 50 feet from residential property,” she said, “and, since Mr. Banash started his OWB on June 12, 2010, our lives have not been the same.”

Neighbors complain that the smoke emitted by the OWB comes onto their properties and even into their houses if their windows are open.

“OWBs should not be allowed in residential areas, and if they are they should be heavily restricted by lot size, setbacks and times of use,” Wharton contended. Not only has her neighbor’s OWB devalued her property, she charged, but “we all feel that our quality of life has been degraded and we do not want any other residents of Lower Township to suffer the negative effects that we have experienced over the past year.”

Township Solicitor Michael Donohue said that while the township can enact measures regulating certain aspects of outdoor structures, such as the size and placement of chimneys, the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has specific regulations dealing with outdoor smoke.

“In my opinion, that’s their purview, in terms of whether the smoke is exceeding their regulatory limitations …. The DEP has taken that regulatory aspect of it to themselves,” he said.

Donohue said if neighbors complain to the county Health Department, their complaint will be reported to the DEP, though he suspected the regulatory mechanism is “frustratingly challenging.” Nevertheless, he said, the DEP fines are hefty for violations of the smoke regulations.

Another avenue, Donohue said, would be for a neighbor to sign a complaint in municipal court against the neighbor who owns an offending OWB, based on the nuisance created. But the municipal court would not have jurisdiction to stop the OWB from operating, he said.

Councilman Glenn Douglass said he visited Glenwood Estates several times after learning of neighbors’ complaints, including when the OWB was emitting smoke.

“I understand their point,” he said. “When I was there, I think there were a lot of other items in the fire, so the smoke was laying low rather than dissipating.”

The difficulty with township enforcement, he said, is that the township does not have a certified smoke inspector. One is available at the county Board of Health, Douglass said, and he understood that the neighbors were in contact with him.

Township manager Michael Voll, who visited the property in February, said “(t)hese people have a real, legitimate complaint …. Nobody should have to put up with smoke coming in your windows, when you’re trying to enjoy a beautiful night.”

Like Donohue, Voll urged that council consider measures that might prevent additional, future problems.

Greenwood Estates resident Nick Thomson said it is not enough to simply raise the smokestack of an OWB, in the hope that smoke would dissipate about other residences.

“Just because you raise the smokestack higher doesn’t mean the smoke doesn’t billow out,” Thomson said. “It was already recommended, and not very effective.”

Thomson also said it was not effective to call the DEP because “they’re up in North Jersey, and by the time they get here, the thing is out.

“But a couple hours before, my house was full of smoke.”

Thomson said the Banachs use their OWB to heat their residence during the winter and their pool in the summer. It would not be as much of an incursion on other neighbors, he suggested, if the OWB were only used from December to March for home heating.

Donohue said he would research what other communities have done about OWBs. Deputy Mayor Kevin Lare cautioned that in examining possible regulations, it would be important to use language that would not needlessly restrict residents’ rights to have fireplaces and other measures in their own homes.

On Wednesday, Marti Banach appeared surprised that her neighbors had shown up at a township council meeting this week.

The Banachs have not run their OWB all summer, she said, because the neighbors had asked that they shut it down from May 1 to Nov. 1.

Banach said that she and her husband have suggested to neighbors in the past that smoke comes from many different sites in the neighborhood.

“There are campgrounds all around, and people have campfires, and there are a lot of backyard fire pits,” she said. “How can you say something is our smoke?”

In the past, Banach said, the family did use their OWB for both home heating and heating their pool.

“But there were so many people out here last year – the county, the state – and nobody could find anything that was illegal. They couldn’t write us a citation or anything. They said, really, you guys had done everything right.”

“It’s not something we can just return,” Marti Banach said. “It cost between $10,000 and $15,000, and then we upgraded to an even more efficient type. Then we spent another couple grand to do something they recommended. We’ve done everything under the sun.”

“We were trying to do good, but they’re just not giving up,” she said. “But the truth is, if they said they’re smelling something now, it’s definitely the campfires or backyard pits. Yet they’re still complaining about us. What does that say?”

Marti’s husband, Pawel Banach, also said he was surprised to hear that his neighbors were before township council this week.

“You’re kidding me! I thought it was all over by now,” he said. “We have used that only one day this summer, at the very beginning.”

Banach said anyone visiting the area at night will smell fires from surrounding campgrounds.

“Everything is legal – and everybody was here to check that, from Trenton and all,” he said. “People were here for a week sitting on my lawn, for a week, every day, just to check the system. I got my permits before it was started, and I even got $1,500 from the government for putting it in, because it is one of those environmentally safe heaters.”

“Really, it’s a shame. I put this in to save some money – and it does give us heat. My winter gas bill went from $1,000 a month to $7 a month.

“But if I knew it was going to cause such problems, I probably would have wondered about putting it in.”