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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Friday, June 12, 2009

Friday 06/12/2009 Burning

2:30 AM: Light wood smoke. Got up again to use the bathroom. Opened the back door to check the air quality. Still smoky outside. Not as smoky as before, but smoky enough to where you could not open your windows. It is very common for people having bonfires to improperly extinguish their fires leaving them smoldering all night long. The result is that the entire neighborhood reeks of wood smoke because of that one burner. That may be why the air is smoky this late.

5:00 AM: Air is clear and fresh now. Take a deep breath and savor it.

I strongly anticipate this evening and the entire weekend to be very smoky. With cool temperatures and rain earlier in the week combined with kids being out of school, it is a recipe for horrendous wood smoke pollution in the city of North St. Paul, MN.

4:25 PM: Very smoky. Somebody burning yard waste. Humongous cloud of smoke drifting through yards down a way. The smoke is not coming directly at us. The entire neighborhood reeks of burning yard waste. This could be the biggest cloud of smoke I've seen yet in North St. Paul, and I've seen some big ones.

Are there any fines for illegally burning yard waste in this city? Not from what I have seen. No penalty means no compliance with the law.

6:00 PM: Moderate wood smoke. Household nearby is burning wood--AGAIN! I did not notice them burning wood at all last year. New homeowners? Renters? They burn wood 3 or 4 times a week. They stink up the entire neighborhood each time they do it--AND WE ALL HAVE TO SUFFER! I can see the plume of smoke rising from their backyard down a way.

7:00 PM: Light to moderate wood smoke. Those people are still burning.

8:00 PM: Faint to light wood smoke depending on the breeze. Those people have been burning for 2 hours now.

9:00 PM: Faint wood smoke. They are still burning. 3 hours now, no end in sight.

10:00 PM: No wood smoke worth mentioning at this time. We are going to bed now.

10:45 PM: Moderate wood smoke. Out of bed. Checked air. Good and smoky outside. The burning still has not stopped. This is almost 5 hours of foul, polluted air this evening.

I woke up at 3:30 AM. Good and smoky outside. If those people didn't stop burning or extinguish their fire, someone else started burning. If that smoke was from that same household burning at 6 PM, that would make 9-1/2 hours of smoky, polluted air from just that one household.

Yet the city leaders protect the right of that one household to pollute the air we all must breathe. One household burns and the air is polluted all night long.

Isn't this a horrible way to live?