Finally, the city is going to try to eliminate those disgusting plumes of black smoke coming from buildings by proposing rules that will ban cheap heating oils. According to the NY Times' Green blog, "The rules, which are subject to a 30-day period of public comment and will be the focus of a hearing on Feb. 28, would phase out the dirtiest types of heating oil used by about 10,000 buildings in New York: No. 6, the cheapest but most viscous type pumped into aging boilers, and another heavy oil, No. 4, which is only slightly less noxious. Air pollution from these oils can irritate the lungs and worsen conditions like asthma and emphysema as well as increase the risk of heart attack and premature death."
Last year, the Environmental Defense Fund's attorney Isabelle Silverman said of the No. 6 oil, "You can hardly call it heating oil because it's just sludge. This is what they're burning, just black sludge." And an EPA air expert said that one thing probably holding back buildings from switching to a cleaner-burning heating oil is that cost of replacing a boiler (it's about $10,000 to convert boilers).
Trying to ease building owners' costs played a part in how long it took for the city to propose the new rules. The Green adds, "Under a proposed timetable, existing boilers would have to switch from No. 6 oil to the new low sulfur No. 4 heating oil or to an equivalent cleaner fuel by 2015. Any newly installed boiler would have to burn the low-sulfur No. 2 oil, natural gas or an equivalent low-emission fuel, which would in effect eventually phase out No. 4. Altogether, boilers that have not been replaced by 2030 must be modified to meet the regulations, the officials said. They said that property owners who can demonstrate a severe financial hardship can seek to arrange an extended schedule for complying with the new rules." (No. 4 and No. 6 oils "emit up to 15 times more soot pollution than regular No. 2 heating oil or natural gas does").
Fun fact from Silverman: "The buildings that burn the dirty oil are 1 percent of the city’s buildings but create more than 85 percent of the heating oil soot pollution that millions of New Yorkers have to breathe in every single day."
