Natural gas air pollution is real

Commentary earlier this month by Don Brunell frustrated me by his reasoning.

He talked about Gov. Inslee’s ban on fossil fuels for new construction being “expensive for home and building owners, many of whom installed energy efficient natural gas heat pumps and tank-less water heaters.”

Excuse me? The ban is for new construction, so it would not have any effect on the existing homes and other buildings.

Then he talks about the cost of mitigating the carbon-dioxide and how reducing natural gas consumption will cause loss of jobs. Why not just phase out the source of the CO2? That would reduce mitigation costs. Natural gas industry jobs can be replaced by jobs in clean-energy sources, like solar.

He says that “cleaner burning natural gas has improved our air quality.” He must not be talking about indoor air quality. Homes with gas stoves can expose people to levels of indoor air pollution that would be illegal outdoors under national air quality standards.

And it’s not only carbon-dioxide that gas stoves are polluting our indoor air with. There’s also nitrogen-dioxide (NO2), carbon-monoxide and formaldehyde. For people with asthma, as CO2 levels rise, so does the severity of their asthma, wheezing and need for quick-relief medications like inhalers, particularly children.

Gas companies and gas stove manufacturers don’t want us to know the seriousness of these indoor air pollutants.

This is real, folks.

Christie Bruntlett

Cheney