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 3, 2010

Thursday 06/03/2010 Air Pollution

7:30 PM: No wood smoke. I am confident there will be, as there almost always is. I do not know if the impending rain storm will discourage recreational bonfire air polluters tonight. As of this moment, the sky is cloudy and rain clouds are moving in. It is not supposed to rain until after midnight, according to Chikage Windler at KSTP-TV news. 76 degrees at this time measured at North High School. It is a pleasant, smoke-free evening so far. I will not be disappointed if it starts raining earlier than midnight if it means our air won't be smoky.

There was no wood smoke where we live this evening. We got lucky! But there was wood smoke elsewhere in North St. Paul. Somebody is always burning something in this town. You do not have to look hard to find smoky, polluted air in this city. Polluted air isn't unusual. What is unusual is when the air isn't polluted in the evenings.



1) Light to moderate wood smoke at the location of the first marker just south of St. Mary's Cemetary. I could not locate the source of the wood smoke and could not determine if it was coming from the North St. Paul or the Maplewood side of the street. I first smelled wood smoke at Lydia & Helen and it was strongest at the area of the marker with no wood smoke to the south. The breeze seemed to be blowing north this evening.

2) A very faint trace of wood smoke at this location. With the breeze out of the south, it is possible that it could have been from the source labeled number three. I smelled wood smoke at location two, lost it, and picked it up again by the dock on the lake.

3) Light to moderate wood smoke at this location. It was a little smoky on 18th between Henry & Charles. As I proceeded down on Charles toward Silver Lake Market, it got smokier. As far as bonfires go, this must have been a small one. I could not pinpoint the house that was producing the wood smoke. I did notice a yellow glow from a backyard on the northeast corner of 17th & Charles. But I could not determine if the glow was from a bonfire or from one of the lights on the back of the house as they were on at the time. It was also smoky in this area this past Monday. In 2008, this was the smokiest area of the city. There must be a frequent burner over here.

It did not take more than five minutes for me to find smoky air this evening. Wood, grass, leaves, somebody is always burning something.

A few drops of rain fell around 9:30 PM for a few minutes. It rained a little more about 11:30 PM. The rain continued lightly after midnight. Normally, it would have been smoky where we live. The incoming rain could have discouraged some backyard bonfire polluters. But it did not discourage all of them.
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