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!

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Saturday 07/11/2009 Air Pollution

Welcome to hell on earth. It is another smoky hell of an evening in North St. Paul, Minnesota.

5:30 PM: Moderate wood smoke. Someone is grilling with wood. They can't be using a few ounces of wood chips with a smoker box. They have to be grilling over logs because it is very smoky. They will likely leave it smoldering for hours. One person has to grill with wood and everyone around them has to breathe wood smoky air for hours. Is that fair? It isn't to me. I don't have any problem with grilling. Grilling food usually does not take long. But these people leave the wood smoldering for hours after the cooking is done.

6:30 PM: Intermittent moderate wood smoke varying with the wind.

7:00 PM: Moderately heavy wood smoke. The air outside reeks of burning wood. It's from the same people cooking food at 5:30 PM.

8:00 PM: No wood smoke. Fresh air! It will not last long. It never does in this city.

9:00 PM: Light wood smoke. The fresh air did not last long.

9:45 PM: Extremely heavy wood smoke. It almost knocks you off your feet.

10:30 PM: I went out for a spin at this time. I did see that one of city council member Jan Walczak's neighbors is having a bonfire. Very smoky in that area. She has to smell it. She is four houses down from them on the opposite side of the street. I think they have had four fires in the past eight days from what I have seen, maybe more. They are frequent polluters. Enjoy the wood smoke, Ms. Walczak. You, unlike us, have the power to eliminate it. We have to suffer because of you and your colleagues on the city council who do not have the guts to end this air pollution. I hope the wood smoke lasts all night long and you wake up to the scent of burnt wood like we have many, many times. Nothing says good morning like opening the door to retrieve the paper and being greeted by the stench of burnt wood.

Maybe some people like air pollution. It is unfortunate for all residents they are on our city council. Air pollution this bad has no place in modern society. With wood smoke as bad as it is in this city, you would think we were still living in the stone age. How many households have to close their windows this temperate evening because of one or two recreational wood burners? Is that fair?

It is pleasantly cool this evening. The temperature in North St. Paul measured at North High School is 67 degrees at this time. It would be a nice night to have the windows open. But we can't. It is too damn smoky outside! Again! As it is almost every day!

At least we were lucky enough to get a one hour break from the wood smoke this evening. That is better than we get most evenings. Ten hours of constant wood smoke is common.

11:15 PM: Strong wood smoke continues.

Midnight: Strong wood smoke continues.