Action in Maplewood and hopefully other communities

I got a few more emails since last I checked my inbox (northsaintpaulresident@gmail.com). They have all been from supporters. One person asked me why I haven't updated my blog recently. The reason is because it is winter now and it is expected that the air will be smoky.

Every house in the city just about is connected to natural gas lines. It was forecast that natural gas prices would be up significantly this winter, but that never happened as a result of falling energy prices. I was hoping that burning of wood wouldn't be the primary source of home heating for people. Sadly, it seems to be.

For the most part the air in my section of North St. Paul is smoky 24 hours a day. It is smoky in the morning, smoky in the evening, smoky on weekend days, and even mildly smoky right now at 1 AM. Being that it is winter, the windows are all closed. The only time you experience smoky air is when you are outside going to your vehicle or getting some exercise.

Even in the winter I would prefer to breathe clean, fresh air than smoky air. But it's wintertime, so what can you do? People don't want to pay for natural gas, so they pollute the air instead.

I did a little search for my blog URL and found that someone mentioned it on the Star Tribune website in the comments section for an article. I discovered that it was an article about wood smoke.

http://www.startribune.com/local/30870774.html

That's the problem with recreational burning: you cannot escape the smoky air--not in your home, not in your yard, no where. If you have your windows open, your home fills with smoke. I have experienced this. The smoke odor lingers in the carpeting and draperies for days. If you want to sit outside and enjoy the evening or play in the yard with your kids, you are forced to breathe smoky air. Do you think little children want to breathe smoky air? Does anyone?

The people who burn are the ones who are least likely to suffer from their actions. If you have a recreational fire, you sit upwind from it so the smoke doesn't blow in your face. Right? But that smoke does blow away. It blows downwind and right into the faces of everyone who isn't burning. It blows into their homes and into their lungs. The person burning doesn't get his house filled with smoke. He doesn't have smoky air in his face. But the majority of people who are not burning do.

Is that fair? Is it fair for hundreds, if not thousands, of people who are not burning to be forced to breathe smoky air because the city governments want to protect the ability of the minority to burn?

On my block in North St. Paul which includes the houses on my side of the street, across the street, and directly behind me, there are about 45 homes total. Of those 45 homes, I noticed recreational fires at only five of them this past summer. That's a total of 11% of homes that burn wood during the spring and summer on my block, 89% of homes don't burn. Of those five homes that burn, one burns almost every day (wood and yard waste), two more burn 3 - 4 times per week, the family down the street burns about once per week, and the family across the street burned about five times all last summer.

Why should people who live in the 89% of homes that don't burn--many elderly--have to breathe smoky air because of the small minority of 11% of homes that do burn? Does anyone prefer smoky air over fresh, clean air? How can anyone argue that people would prefer to breathe smoky air over clean air?

Do you think an 80-year-old man wants to breathe smoky air every day? Do you think that elderly man wants to have to run around his house closing windows so his house doesn't reek of wood smoke? How can anyone argue that he would?

How can any politician defend protecting the ability of the small minority of burners to continue frivolous, unnecessary, air pollution causing burning over the right of the majority to breathe fresh air?

Everyone must breathe the air; nobody needs to burn wood for recreational purposes. Very few people are going to prefer breathing smoky air over breathing clean, fresh air.

I saw a letter to the editor recently in the Pioneer Press from a person complaining about the city of Maplewood's task force studying the problem of wood smoke. It looks like the city council members in Maplewood are listening to their residents, unlike Jan Walczak and the others here in North St. Paul.

On the morning of July 4th of this year I went for a bike ride from my home in North St. Paul to Lake Phalen in St. Paul. From White Bear Ave. and County Road C all the way to Phalen the air was smoky in the city of Maplewood--at 6 AM! Even when I was crossing the trail bridge at Highway 36 the air smelled like wood smoke. I had to breathe smoky air for most of the duration of my bike ride. That's how smoky it was in Maplewood that morning. So it looks like the residents of Maplewood and other cities are going through what we are going through here in North St. Paul.

I wish you Maplewood residents the best of luck with your wood smoke problem. Even though I don't live in your city, I travel through Maplewood almost every day since Maplewood envelopes North St. Paul on three sides. I also enjoy walks in the evening which take me through the northern part of Maplewood. Even though I'm not a resident, I still breathe that wood smoke.

I am going to send emails to your city council members and give them my two cents and my encouragement. If we here in North St. Paul can't breathe fresh air, I hope you people in Maplewood can. I wish you Maplewood residents the best of luck.

I only hope that one day we all can breathe fresh, clean air and not air filled with the putrid stench of burning wood.