Recreational Fires Must Be Eliminated

Do you support clean air? Click the Facebook Like button if you have a Facebook account.

Share
WELCOME TO HELL ON EARTH

The air is smoky from burning wood in North St. Paul, MN, almost every evening. It is a nightmare. What used to be a nice place to live has become a living hell.

WARNING: If you buy a house in North St. Paul, MN, you will regret it! It may be the biggest, most expensive mistake you ever make. You will breathe smoky air almost every day of your life in this town. This is not an exaggeration. The wood smoke in this town gets heavy and gets heavy often. When you want to get out of this dump of a town, how many people do you think are going to want to buy a house in a city where heavy air pollution every night is normal and clean air is rare? This blog gets thousands of visitors every year. The word is out: North St. Paul is a horrible place to live!

Fresh air is very rare around here. If you are considering moving to North St. Paul or buying a home here, I strongly recommend that you do not do it no matter how good of a price you get. The only way you will be happy in this town is if you love breathing smoky air almost every day. North St. Paul, MN, is a horrible place to live because of the smoky air!

Burning wood, grass, leaves, paper, cardboard, and sometimes plastic, construction materials, and chemicals, if it is combustible it gets burned in North St. Paul and you are going to breathe it.

The air was smoky 25 out of 31 evenings in July 2009. We had 37 hours of continuous wood smoke in the air Aug. 29th - 31st. There was wood smoke in the air 19 consecutive evenings from Aug. 21st to Sept. 8th. It rained heavily on Aug. 20th, providing the only relief we got from wood smoke for almost three weeks.

Is this a good way to live? No. It is a horrible way to live. Take it from someone who knows. Breathing smoky, polluted air every day is misery.

Every day in this city several people are having recreational fires. Every evening the air is filled with the stench of burning wood. I am one person sick and tired of breathing smoky air every day. Is it too much to ask to be able to breathe fresh air in your own home?

Who is responsible for this wood smoke nightmare? The four city council members are responsible. Council members Jan Walczak, Bob Bruton, Terry Furlong, and Dave Zick have refused to do anything about this wood smoke problem. They don't care if you have a child with asthma. They don't care if you have to live like a shut-in because the air is so polluted. They don't care if your sinuses burn because the wood smoke is so heavy.

Our four Council members have defended the rights of a small percentage of households to burn wood daily over the rights of all the rest of us to breathe.

You have no right to breathe under Walczak, Bruton, Furlong, and Zick. Burners have the right to burn wood 49 hours a week recreationally. The rest of us have no rights at all.

If you are considering purchasing real estate in the city of North Saint Paul, Minnesota (55109), factor this blog carefully into your decision. Buying a home in this city means that your kids will breathe smoky air while playing in the yard almost every day. Your baby will breathe smoky air in her crib should you leave the windows open around your house. If you leave your windows open you will wake up in the middle of the night choking on smoky air.

Perhaps worst of all, your utility rates will be high because you will have to run the air conditioner instead of leaving the windows open on a cool summer evening. You have no other choice because almost every night the air is too smoky to breathe in this city. Consider this blog your warning.

North St. Paul, Minnesota, is a wonderful community other than the wood smoke. If we could restore fresh air like we used to enjoy, life would be happy again. But that is not going to happen any time soon.

Tell others about this blog!

Monday, June 23, 2008

Monday 06/23/2008 Burning

3:30 AM: Monday morning and somebody is burning wood. I am not sure who it is, but I strongly suspect the person down the street who has recreational fires several times a week. I can't see anything, but given that they burn so frequently and sometimes have several fires a day, I bet it is them. I wonder if they are doing it just to be a nuisance. As I said, I'm not sure it is them.

Not even fresh air at 3:30 AM on a Monday morning! I just got up to go to the bathroom, opened the window and the air was all smoky.

It is currently 61 degrees outside. I can't imagine anyone would have a fireplace going in late June.

6:45 PM: Someone is burning wood. IT STINKS! Have to close windows.

From about 6:45 PM to about 8:00 PM it was very smoky where I am. The smokiness died down after that. As of this writing (10:00 PM) the air outside is mildy smoky. Not strong smoke, but not clean, fresh, pleasant to breathe air.

From about 8:45 PM to 9:30 PM I went for a drive around the northern part of the city to do a little smoke detecting. It is Monday night, not a peak day for burning, but there were numerous fires all over the northern section of the city. There was a very light breeze blowing due west. This is what I found. Keep in mind that I probably did not find each and every fire since I did not go down each and every road.
  • 17th & Henry: House on the northeast corner had a recreational fire going. I saw the fire. Residents of the home sitting by a small fire. Smoky.
  • 18th & Charles: Pocket of strong smokiness near this intersection. Not from the fire on 17th & Henry. Must be another fire in someone's backyard here. There is always smoke in this area just about every day. There is a frequent burner around here.
  • 18th & Margaret: Strong pocket of smokiness a couple houses east of Margaret on 18th. The smokiness was not consistent along 18th Ave. It is unlikely that this smokiness was from the same source as that on 18th & Charles but from another fire.
  • 16th & Charles: Very strong pocket of smokiness here. I saw a guy and a kid sitting at a table outside Silver Lake Market. I hope that little girl likes smoky air. She's sitting in it.
  • Longview, middle of street just east of the curve: I saw large clouds of smoke coming from the back yard. It was wood smoke. The person who lives in that house is a frequent burner. They burn several days a week, possibly every day.
  • 19th & Longview: Very strong pocket of smokiness here. Somebody very nearby was burning wood. Not from the same source up Longview. It was so strong I could barely breathe!
  • 17th & 1st: It was either the first or second house on the southeast corner of this intersection that was having a large bonfire. I saw the fire. The flames were about 5 - 6 feet off the ground, not legal. The air reeked of smoke.
  • 14th & 1st: House on the southwest corner was having a fire. I saw the fire.
  • 13th & 3rd: It was the house on the southeast corner of this intersection (or the intersection of 14th & 3rd, I forgot) that had a incredibly smoky fire. The streets were filled with a giant cloud of smoke. Probably the smokiest thing I've ever seen in my life.
  • Navajo & Chippewa: The guy on the northwest corner of Navajo and Chippewa is a frequent burner. If he doesn't have a fire going I assume he is ill since he burns several times a week. Both he and his next door neighbor had fires going in their front yards. Both fires were very smoky. Two fires barely 20 feet apart from each other. Maybe those two could consolidate their uneccesary air pollution into only one smoky fire.
  • 1st just north of Navajo: Strong pocket of smokiness here about halfway up the street between Navajo and Indian Way.
I did not notice any fires at all in the neighborhood bounded by 17th, Radatz, and McKnight. I wonder if they realize how fortunate they are. But smoke from the fires on Navajo could be detected here.

And that's on a Monday! North St. Paul is a very smoky city. That's why I call it the smokiest city in the world. My clothes reeked of smoke just going for a 45 minute drive through the neighborhoods. That's how bad it is in this city.
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Please leave a message if you desire.

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)