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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Saturday, February 27, 2010

Saturday 02/27/2010 Air Pollution

2:00 AM: Faint wood smoke continues.

9:00 AM: Fresh air! 27 degrees.

5:00 PM: No wood smoke. Fresh air all day. 37 degrees.

8:20 PM: Moderately strong wood smoke. It's very smoky outside. Last check of the evening.

Friday 02/26/2010 Air Pollution

4:00 PM: No wood smoke. 32 degrees.

8:00 PM: Light to moderate wood smoke at this time. It's pretty smoky outside.

11:15 PM: Faint wood smoke continues.

Faint wood smoke was in the air when I checked again at 2 AM.

Thursday 02/25/2010 Air Pollution

4:25 PM: Fresh air! No wood smoke at all for the time being. Take a deep breath and savor the fresh air. It won't last long. It never does. It is rare we have an evening without smoky, polluted air in North St. Paul. 24 degrees.

8:52 PM: No wood smoke yet. Lovely fresh air continues.

10:45 PM: Moderate wood smoke at this time. It is very smoky outside. You do not want to breathe this horrible polluted air! We must have air infiltration in the kitchen because I could smell a slight bit of wood smoke in the kitchen before I opened the door.

You know it's very smoky outside when you can smell burning wood in your home with all the windows and doors closed.

11:15 PM: Moderate to strong wood smoke! It does not get this smoky often in the winter in North St. Paul. It gets this smoky more often in the summer than it does in the winter. I opened the back door for only a few seconds to check the air quality and I came back into the kitchen several minutes later and the kitchen smelled of wood smoke.

Wednesday 02/24/2010 Air Pollution

9:10 PM: Moderate wood smoke at this time. The air in North St. Paul is very smoky! 15 degrees.

I did not document any other times this evening. I do not find much excitement in monitoring the air quality where I live. If it is smoky at any point during the evening, that is about all I need to know.

Tuesday 02/23/2010 Air Pollution

6:00 PM: There is a very faint something in the air. Not sure what it is.

8:40 PM: Faint wood smoke at this time. 16 degrees.

10:30 PM: No wood smoke at this time. Fresh air!

Monday 02/22/2010 Air Pollution

5:40 PM: Very faint wood smoke at this time. 29 degrees.

10:15 PM: No real wood smoke in the air. Not fresh air.

11:00 PM: Faint wood smoke.

Sunday 02/21/2010 Air Pollution

8:30 PM: No wood smoke yet this evening. 23 degrees.

11:45 PM: Very faint wood smoke.

We almost had an evening of fresh air in the city of North St. Paul, MN. We did not quite make it.

Saturday 02/20/2010 Air Pollution

5:00 PM: No wood smoke. 31 degrees.

6:45 PM: Light to moderate wood smoke. We can't have an evening without wood smoke pollution, can we? Not in the city of North St. Paul, Minnesota.

9:20 PM: Light wood smoke at this time.

11:00 PM: No real wood smoke in the air at this time. The air is not fresh. But I cannot smell any wood smoke in it.

Friday 02/19/2010 Air Pollution

5:55 PM: Light to moderate wood smoke and vehicle exhaust. 30 degrees.

7:45 PM: Light to moderate wood and vehicle exhaust smoke.

10:00 PM: Moderate wood smoke with a sulfur smell from downtown North St. Paul. It's very smoky and the air smells really bad. The air quality is very poor this evening.

Thursday 02/18/2010 Air Pollution

6:00 PM: No wood smoke yet. 34 degrees.

7:35 PM: Very faint wood smoke at this time.

10:00 PM: Faint to light wood smoke.

11:45 PM: Light wood smoke.

Wednesday 02/17/2010 Air Pollution

5:20 PM: Very faint wood smoke at this time. 34 degrees.

6:20 PM: No wood smoke. 31 degrees.

8:40 PM: No wood smoke.

10:30 PM: No wood smoke. Last check of the evening.

Not much wood smoke this evening.

Tuesday 02/16/2010 Air Pollution

4:45 PM: Faint to light wood smoke at this time. 34 degrees.

6:45 PM: No wood smoke. Where did it go? Windy. Is the wind blowing it another direction?

8:00 PM: No wood smoke.

9:45 PM: Faint to light wood smoke. It has returned.

11:30 PM: Faint to light wood smoke.

Monday 02/15/2010 Air Pollution

5:30 AM: No wood smoke.

4:35 PM: No wood smoke. 28 degrees.

7:00 PM: No wood smoke.

8:00 PM: No wood smoke.

10:00 PM: No wood smoke. Where is the air pollution? Last check of the evening.

Sunday 02/14/2010 Air Pollution

4:00 PM: No wood smoke. The air was fresh all day.

6:55 PM: Light to moderate wood smoke at this time. Windy, snowing. Last check of the evening.

I failed to record the evening temperature again.

Saturday 02/13/2010 Air Pollution

8:00 AM: No wood smoke. In the morning I like to step outside and take a deep breathe of cool fresh air.

4:00 PM: No wood smoke. The air was fresh all day.

In the middle of winter the air is usually free of wood smoke during the day. If fireplace use is mainly for home heating, why do so few people use them in the day?

Most fireplace use is for recreational purposes, not home heating.

6:20 PM: Faint to light wood smoke at this time. I did not record any more air quality checks this evening.

I failed record the temperature this evening.

Friday 02/12/2010 Air Pollution

5:30 PM: A faint to light smokiness is in the air. It smells more like vehicle exhaust than wood smoke. The air is polluted again all the same. 24 degrees.

11:30 PM: Moderate horrible stinky wood smoke at this time. The air reeks. Last check of the evening.

Thursday 02/11/2010 Air Pollution

4:00 AM: Light to moderate wood smoke continues. Mornings are usually free of wood smoke. Not this morning.

7:00 AM: A very faint trace of wood smoke continues.

I did not log any wood smoke this evening. I may have forgotten to check the air. I don't update this blog daily in the winter. But I always document the air quality in North St. Paul, MN, on my notepad.

Wednesday 02/10/2010 Air Pollution

2:30 AM: Faint wood smoke at this time.

5:30 AM: Faint to light wood smoke. 6 degrees.

5:30 PM: Light wood smoke at this time. 20 degrees.

7:40 PM: Moderate wood smoke. It's very smoky outside. You don't want to breathe this polluted air!

8:35 PM: Moderate to strong wood smoke. It is the smokiest it has been in a while. The wood smoke smells terrible and is very potent. Stinky wood smoke. The stench of wood smoke hit me in the face like a mallet when I stuck my head out the back door. Last check of the evening.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Tuesday 02/09/2010 Air Pollution

1:00 AM: Very faint wood smoke is in the air. It did not start until late tonight. Back to bed.

4:00 PM: No wood smoke. More snow today. Time to clear it out of the driveway. 25 degrees.

5:00 PM: No wood smoke.

6:25 PM: No wood smoke.

9:50 PM: Faint wood smoke. Last check of the evening.

Monday 02/08/2010 Air Pollution

6:30 PM: No wood smoke yet. We had more snow today. 25 degrees.

9:30 PM: A very faint smokiness of some kind in the air. It smells more like exhaust fumes from snow blowers than wood smoke. I can hear a snow blower.

11:30 PM: No wood smoke. Last check of the evening.

We will count this as a rare evening without wood smoke.

Sunday 02/07/2010 Air Pollution

12:45 AM: Light to moderate wood smoke continues. Stinks.

There was no wood smoke when I woke in the morning and none all day until the evening.

8:00 PM: Light to moderate wood smoke. The air is very smoky. 21 degrees. We got 6 inches of snow in the city of North St. Paul. This was the last check of the evening.

Saturday 02/06/2010 Air Pollution

7:35 PM: Very faint wood smoke at this time. 23 degrees. There was no wood smoke all day. If people are using fireplaces for home heating, there should be wood smoke during the day. There usually is not.

Midnight: Moderate wood smoke. Horrible smelling wood smoke fills the air. It stinks terribly.

Friday 02/05/2010 Air Pollution

5:50 PM: No wood smoke yet. 32 degrees.

8:35 PM: Still no wood smoke.

9:40 PM: No wood smoke. Where is it? It doesn't seem like North St. Paul without polluted air.

11:30 PM: No wood smoke. Last check of the evening.

It was a nice evening to step outside and grab a breath of fresh air. We don't get much fresh air in this city.

Thursday 02/04/2010 Air Pollution

6:15 PM: No wood smoke. 28 degrees, light snow falling at this time. It's pretty in North St. Paul.

8:30 PM: Faint wood smoke.

9:20 PM: Faint to light wood smoke.

11:00 PM: Faint wood smoke. Last check of the evening.

Wednesday 02/03/2010 Air Pollution

1:00 AM: Moderate to strong wood smoke at this time. The air is very smoky. You could not stand to breathe this polluted air for long. Back to bed.

6:00 AM: Very faint wood smoke lingers in the air.

5:15 PM: No wood smoke. 21 degrees.

7:15 PM: No wood smoke.

8:45 PM: No wood smoke.

10:00 PM: No wood smoke.

Midnight: No wood smoke.

The evening was free of wood smoke. Whoever was burning last night must have burned through his entire supply of wood.

Tuesday 02/02/2010 Air Pollution

It's another smoky hell of an evening in North St. Paul, MN

5:10 PM: Faint wood smoke. 20 degrees.

6:30 PM: Faint wood smoke continues.

7:40 PM: Moderate wood smoke. Very stinky wood smoke fills the air. All you can smell is that horrible stench from burning wood.

Monday 02/01/2010 Air Pollution

6:20 PM: No wood smoke. 15 degrees.

7:30 PM: No wood smoke.

11:45 PM: No wood smoke.

There was no wood smoke at all this evening.

Sunday 01/31/2010 Air Pollution

2:30 PM: No wood smoke. No wood smoke all day.

5:15 PM: Light wood smoke. 14 degrees.

7:15 PM: No real wood smoke in the air as of now.

8:40 PM: Light wood smoke.

9:30 PM: Light to moderate wood smoke. Last check of the evening.

Saturday 01/30/2010 Air Pollution

6:15 PM: Faint to light wood smoke. 15 degrees.

7:30 PM: Very faint wood smoke in the air at this time.

8:30 PM: Very faint wood smoke continues. Last check of the evening.