FAIRBANKS — An Alaska lawmaker has turned in more than 2,500 signatures in an attempt to put a question on the municipal ballot in the fall that would restrict the Fairbanks North Star Borough government's oversight on wood burning.
Rep. Tammie Wilson, a North Pole Republican, needs just over 1,700 registered voters' signatures to get her initiative to voters on Oct. 6, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reports.
"I am now looking forward to the borough doing the certification process for this October ballot," Wilson said.
An air quality program put in place earlier this year give the borough the ability to alert the public and prevent people from burning wood in certain areas.
Wilson says her ballot measure, if approved, would scale that back by exempting solid fuel appliances that are certified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from regulation.
If the signatures hold up, it will be the sixth ballot measure to address air quality or wood burning since 2009.
"We are in the middle of the review process right now," Borough Clerk Nanci Ashford-Bingham said.
Voters rejected a ballot measure last fall that would have prevented the borough from conducting any oversight of wood burning.