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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Monday, November 2, 2009

Sunday 11/01/2009 Air Pollution

More burning leaves in North St. Paul, MN. If people aren't burning wood, they are burning yard waste. Somebody is always burning something in this screwy pyromaniac town. Every day almost someone is burning something and fouling the air.

11:05 AM: Faint leaf smoke. Someone somewhere is burning leaves. I can hear leaf blowers running at this time. 44 degrees and sunny.

12:15 PM: Very faint leaf smoke continues.

3:00 PM: No smoke of any kind. Fresh air! People have probably taken a break from polluting the air to watch the big Vikings-Green Bay Packers game coming on shortly. 55 degrees at this time.

5:50 PM: Moderate leaf and or wood smoke. It does not smell much like wood, but kind of does. It sort of smells like burning leaves, too. Whatever it is, it smells horrible and as strong as it is, the burner must not be more than a block or two away. It's smoky outside. 55 degrees at this time and dark.

7:00 PM: No smoke of any kind. Wonderful fresh air!

11:15 PM: Light wood smoke. I went to sleep early today, after 7 PM. I woke up and checked the air on my way back to bed. When I checked the air again at 2 AM it was fresh.

I considered going on hiatus until April since we are heading into the Winter months and smoky air is expected when it is cold. I am debating continuing this blog because it is smokier in the Summer months than it is in the Winter in the city of North St. Paul. Most people would expect it to be smokier in the Winter than in the summer. But that is not how it is around here. Last Winter, the air was smoky in the first half of the Winter regularly. By the second half of the Winter, wood smoke pollution dropped dramatically. Wood smoke pollution increased in the Spring as the weather warmed enough for people to have bonfires. This past Summer was a miserable smoky hell.

I have formed a theory that people aren't using fireplaces for home heating as much as they are for recreational purposes. I may continue this blog to document the smoky air in the winter to prove that Summer is smokier than Winter. I have not finalized a decision. I'm getting a little tired of trying to remember to check the air every few hours. Documenting the horrible air pollution in North St. Paul is not as fun as you may think.