Recreational Fires Must Be Eliminated

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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.

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Sunday, May 3, 2009

Sunday 05/03/2009 Burning & Air Quality Forecast

12:30 AM: Air still reeks. The burning may have stopped or the fire may have been allowed to burn itself out. The air stinks like the remnants of burnt logs.

4:15 AM: Air still stinks like the remnants of burnt logs.

That's 10 hours of non-stop foul air in North St. Paul. From 6 PM yesterday evening until this time the air was contaminated by wood smoke pollution. Do you see the conditions we must endure in this city because of the city council's lack of attention to this issue?

6:30 AM: Fresh air at last!

Air quality forecast for today

North St. Paul, MN, air quality forecast for May 3, 2009: DANGEROUS.

The weather will be very nice today with a high of around 70 degrees. That means what? It means lots of burning wood!

An otherwise gorgeous spring day in North St. Paul will be ruined by a small number of recreational burners polluting the air for fun. This afternoon you may experience isolated pockets of smoke from burning yard waste. With nothing seemingly better to do, a half dozen or more people in a neighborhood will sit around a pile of burning wood this evening while the smoke blows away from them and into the yards and homes of everyone within 1/2 mile downwind. Entire neighborhoods will be smoked up.

Expect the wood smoke to start around 6 PM, maybe sooner, and continue until at least 10 PM, perhaps later. Absent strong winds, the smoke will likely linger close to the ground, making being outside on this gorgeous spring day intolerable. Leaving the windows to your home open is not advised as the wood smoke will enter and fill your lungs with every breath you take. If the wood smoke is strong enough, you may well taste it. You may suffer symptoms of wood smoke pollution including:
  • Burning sinuses
  • Irritated eyes
  • Difficulty breathing
  • Headaches
  • Nausea
This forecast is typical for an evening in North Saint Paul, MN, when the weather is nice.

7:00 PM: Air is starting to get smoky at this time. Light wood smoke. It will get heavier, I am sure of that. It almost always does! Today was a day made in heaven. Beautiful, sunny, not too warm, not too cool. 68 degrees. The evening is spectacular as well. It would be a great evening to sit on the deck as the evening winds down. Maybe watch the sunset over the trees. Too bad it is ruined by wood smoke!

Who the hell wants to sit outside and breathe smoky air, dear city council members? Do you like smoky air? Me and my neighbors don't!

I have no idea who is burning. I looked around and didn't see clouds of smoke from the usual culprits. I have been able to track the source of wood smoke a full 1/2 mile from where I originally smelled it, as I have documented here on this blog. It could be someone 1/2 a mile away with a recreational fire, and hundreds of us downwind have to breathe smoky air!

I wish someone on the city council would have the guts to do something about this instead of making all of us suffer another miserable year in this city. They seem to be more interested in not rocking the boat and upsetting the small number of burners than they are in protecting the right of the majority to breathe fresh air and enjoy a high standard of living.

8:30 PM: Good and smoky outside--like ALWAYS! If you love smoky air, come on down to North St. Paul, Minnesota. There is so much wood smoke here it will make you sick to your stomach! You are literally a prisoner in your own home in this town.

9:30 PM: Light wood smoke. This is the last time I checked the air quality prior to going to bed.
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