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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Thursday, June 24, 2010

Thursday 06/24/2010 Air Pollution - Forest Fires In Canada

We will have smoky air all day today across the state of Minnesota. There are forest fires in Saskatchewan and Manitoba (Canada) that are bringing wood smoke into the northern plains of the United States. At around 11 AM this morning, I noticed the sky was very hazy where I am in the Twin Cities. I went outside and could smell a very faint trace of smoke. It smelled a little like wood smoke. The haze is smoke from Canadian forest fires.

Living in North St. Paul, MN, we endure far worse wood smoke pollution than this most evenings. The smoke from Canadian forest fires will be a minor nuisance compared with the wood smoke we usually have.

There should be an air quality alert issued by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency at this time. There is not. If you can see the air pollution or can smell it, you probably should not be breathing it. Exercising in wood smoke haze is ill advised. Small particulate matter from wood smoke pollution will enter your lungs and can enter your blood stream putting additional strain on your cardiovascular system. People with asthma and respiratory disorders may want to stay inside today.

NOAH Smoke Report
Central Canada/Extreme N US Great Plains:
The large fires across the northern woods of Saskatchewan (and West Central Manitoba) continue to pour out copious amounts of dense smoke that is moving SE covering nearly all of Saskatchewan and southern half of Manitoba connecting up with the large area of dense smoke from yesterday's output that is currently seen from S Lake Winnepeg over Lake of the Woods in N MN over to Lake Nipigon and nearing Akimiski Island in James Bay. Thin to moderate smoke extends further S into the US nearly covering all of ND, the NE corner of SD and the NW 2/3rds of MN.

The wood smoke pollution in the air should produce a pretty orange-red sunset this evening, according to Chikage Windler at KSTP-TV. By the time the sun sets, bonfires should be going around here adding additional smoke to the air. If the air isn't too smoky to be outside, we will be watching the sky around sunset.

4:15 PM: No local wood or grass smoke at this time. The light wood smoke haze and very faint trace of wood smoke odor from the Canadian wildfires continues. 80 degrees.

7:00 PM: No local wood smoke. The light hazy Canadian forest fire smoke remains in the air.

7:45 PM: Very faint wood smoke coming in on the breeze. Somebody in the distance is burning wood.

8:00 PM: Faint wood smoke coming in on the breeze.

9:15 PM: No wood smoke other than the haze from Canada.

There was no more local wood smoke this evening.
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