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 24, 2011

Friday 06/24/2011 Air Pollution

It is a nice day in North St. Paul. Everyone has their air conditioners off and their windows open. That means tonight is going to be a brutal, smoky hell! As it always is. This is normal in North St. Paul, MN. All the bonfires and yard waste burning that would have normally taken place Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday will happen tonight and tomorrow. We will have five days of wood and yard waste smoke pollution compressed into two.

5:00 PM: No smoke. Fresh air for the time being. Completely cloudy. 76 degrees with the relative humidity level at a comfortable 35%. The weather forecast calls for the possibility of a passing sprinkle this evening in the St. Paul-Minneapolis area but no rain in any amount to discourage bonfire smoke pollution.

5:20 PM: Light wood smoke varying with the breeze. The burning has already started. There is no cooking odor with the wood smoke. It is just wood being burned. I believe I know who is doing it but I am not driving around the block to be certain. Close the windows! North St. Paul sucks!

5:40 PM: Light to moderate wood smoke at this time.

5:50 PM: No smoke at this time. The wind shifted.

6:15 PM: Light smoke at this time. The burner will leave the wood to smolder itself out as he always does. It is going to be smoky for hours. It will probably be three or more hours until the wood burns itself out. It will be getting dark by that time then the bonfires start and it will be even smokier than it is now. My sinuses are starting to get irritated from the smoke already.

Do you want to live in a city like this? Maybe by morning we will be able to open the windows. The past two weekends have featured smoldering wood smoke in the morning. This is how you are going to live, too, if you make the mistake of buying a house in North St. Paul. Read the blog and see how you will live.

7:00 PM: No smoke.

7:50 PM: A very faint wood smoke is in the air.

8:05 PM: Faint wood smoke.

9:05 PM: Moderate wood smoke. It is very smoky now. It will only get worse as darkness falls.

10:45 PM: Moderate wood smoke continues.

Midnight: Moderate wood smoke continues.

The air was smoky past 5 AM Saturday morning. We were not able to open the windows until 7 AM. The wood smoke pollution was not as heavy as it has been the past few weekends. We only endured very smoky air instead of the extremely smoky air I expected which is more normal on the weekends. But the smoke lasted an awful long time. Which condition is better? Extremely smoky air for a few hours or very smoky air for 8 hours?

If you make the mistake of buying a house in North St. Paul, MN, this is how you are going to live. Wood smoke is a problem throughout most of the city and not limited to our neighborhood. Burners have all the rights in this town. They can legally burn from 4 PM to 11 PM every night of the week and you can do nothing about it. And you can see from this blog that the burning continues well into the morning hours.