Elk Grove Village, Illinois, Must Ban Wood Smoke

Letter to the Editor
Daily Herald Newspaper
Paddock Publications
Published December 5, 2007

Elk Grove Village Must Ban Wood Smoke

Soaring asthma and autism rates in our cities correspond with skyrocketing fine particulate pollution, caused mostly by vehicle exhaust and wood smoke.
When fine particulate pollution goes up, people die-from asthma attacks, heart attacks and even sudden infant death syndrome.

Burning for fun is wreaking havoc and infiltrating our lungs, air, water and crops with deadly pollutants that harm both man and the planet. Are we OK with this?
As the Midwestern director for Clean Air Revival, an international organization dedicated to providing scientific information on the hazards of wood smoke, I have been involved with the Elk Grove Village community in fighting wood smoke. I spoke in favor of reinstating the one-time progressive ban on outdoor recreational burning at its town hall meeting in October.

While Mayor Craig Johnson is concerned with stopping smoking by educational means, equally needed is a major educational campaign on the harms of wood smoke!
Just as the Illinois Smoking Ban will help people quit smoking and protect others from secondhand smoke, so would a wood-burning ban help people stop polluting for fun, and protect others from the fine particulate fallout.

We must ban wood burning now.

Julie Mellum
Midwestern Director
Clean Air Revival
Minneapolis

Note…Elk Grove Village, Illinois, is on the western border of O’Hare Airport, and is a northwest suburb of Chicago.

Comment...All of us need to continually write letters to the newspapers and our elected officials to ban wood burning.