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!

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Sunday 07/19/2009 Air Pollution

1:00 AM: Moderate wood smoke. Very smoky outside.

2:00 AM: Moderate wood smoke continues.

3:oo AM: Moderate wood smoke continues. That makes almost 15 hours of nonstop smoky air. This city sucks.

9:00 AM: Faint something unpleasant in the air.

6:45 PM: Light wood smoke. Jerk neighbor down the street is burning again. Last year that jerk burned wood daily. He burns grass, too, and has for years. He took some time off the first half of the summer, he's now back in action. Good thing for us the wind isn't blowing our direction. The wood smoke would be pretty heavy if it were.

I sometimes wonder if these neighbors burn to spite each other. Directly behind him is a house with a big firepit in the backyard. Earlier this summer, you could count on them to burn every weekend. It looks like teenagers or young adults live there. The smoke would drift right into the jerk's yard. They don't burn so much the past couple of weeks. But now the jerk is burning several times a week.

Sometimes I think I should buy a bunch of firewood and start burning myself. Why not? We have to breathe smoky air every damn day. Why shouldn't we be the ones polluting the air?

7:45 PM: No wood smoke. Jerk appears to be done burning.

9:00 PM: No wood smoke. The air is not fresh, but it isn't filled with wood smoke.

10:00 PM: No wood smoke. The windows are open and the exhaust fan is on to cool the house before bed.

10:55 PM: Moderate wood smoke. DAMMIT! Someone is burning wood! As soon as I noticed wood smoke coming in, I shut off the fan and closed all the windows. Some asshole had to start a fire this late. It happens ALL THE TIME and the city council doesn't care at all. They suck. I cannot think of a single thing they add to the community other than air pollution. I went outside and looked around and nobody around me was burning. It could be someone a block or two away. It seems like the wood smoke is coming out of the south or southeast. 66 degrees. Gorgeous night to have the windows open except in this f-ed up city!

11:20 PM: Moderate to strong wood smoke. It is very smoky outside. If anybody out there is looking to buy a house and finds this blog, this is what you are going to be living like every day if you move into this town. North St. Paul is a nightmare of epic proportions. It used to be a great place to live. Now it is a smoky, polluted hell. Every single day we are forced to breathe smoky air because of the city council. You will not be happy here as long as this wood smoke nightmare continues.

11:49 PM: Light to moderate wood smoke continues. Going to sleep now. With the windows closed!