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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Friday, June 17, 2011

Sunday 06/12/2011 Air Pollution

12:35 AM: Moderate to strong wood smoke continues. You can still taste the wood smoke in the air. 59 degrees, it seems a little humid, and the air is a little hazy from the wood smoke.

2:00 AM: Moderately strong wood smoke continues. No chance of opening the windows for hours.

4:00 AM: Light wood smoke continues. This is why we have to sleep with the windows closed every night in this horrible city! North St. Paul sucks!

6:00 AM: Faint wood smoke continues.

8:00 AM: A very faint smoldering smokiness lingers in the air. Do you want to live in a city like this?

There was no yard waste burning all afternoon.

5:05 PM: Faint wood smoke at this time.

5:30 PM: Light wood smoke at this time. There are two homes near us burning wood at around this time. That's why the air is smoky!

5:56 PM: Very faint wood smoke at this time.

6:30 PM: Faint wood smoke. 67 degrees and cloudy. KARE 11 puts the Twin Cities temperature at 61 degrees but it feels warmer than that.

7:10 PM: Very faint wood smoke continues.

8:10 PM: No wood smoke.

I went out around this time and smelled wood smoke over at Silver Lake beach. I tracked it down 19th. The smoke was getting heavy at Henry St. I expected to find the burner on Reardon, an off-white house that has a metal wood smoke contraption in their backyard visible from the street. I once tracked smoke to that house from a half mile away. But it wasn't that house. It was on 18th at Reardon. I could smell that smoke way over by Silver Lake beach.


It wasn't much of a bonfire. It was more smoke with a tiny bit of flames. There was a 25-foot high column of smoke rising and gently floating to the northwest. It was very smoky.

Whoever was having that smoky bonfire, thank you for polluting the air. Me and everyone else along Silver Lake really enjoyed breathing your wood smoke pollution. Next time, you may actually want some flames to go with your smoke.

9:20 PM: The air is not fresh at this time. I cannot smell smoke but there is something in it.

10:00 PM: No detectable smoke but the air is not fresh. Last check of the evening. 62 degrees. Go to bed with the windows closed as usual.
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