Letter to the Editor
Fence Post
Daily Herald
Paddock Publications
Arlington Hts, Illinois
January 28, 2008
To the editor: I read Rosemary Glaubitz's recent letter in your newspaper regarding wood smoke and it gave me the courage to write also.
I realize that people have the right to do what they want in their own homes, but the problem is that wood smoke does not stop in their homes or yards. When it drifts to my house and yard, it makes it impossible to breathe.
I have asthma and cannot breathe around wood smoke.
Each day I venture outside, I take a small breath of air to see how bad it is today. I ask myself is today the day I get rushed to the hospital wheezing because I cannot breathe.
On my block, I am aware of at least one person who has asthma and another person who has emphysema and requires oxygen.
Unfortunately, one of our neighbors heats his home exclusively with wood.
In the suburbs, the houses are too close together to allow wood burning.
I understand that people enjoy a fireplace. I pray though that these people would compromise and use gas fireplaces instead.
Please consider your friends, family and neighbors with breathing problems and the suffering that could be alleviated.
Elk Grove Village, Illinois
Editor's comment---We must ban wood smoke emissions for everyone's health, and especially for those with existing illnesses, children, COPD, etc..
Proposed Wood Burning Ban-San Francsco Bay Area
Monday, January 21, 2008
Proposed wood burning ban draws fire
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/20/MNGQUGD16.DTL
Jane Kay, Chronicle Environment Writer
Sunday, January 20, 2008
A proposed ban on burning wood in the Bay Area's 1 million fireplaces and stoves on bad-air days has drawn praise - and heat - from hundreds of residents as regulators consider how to balance the health risks of inhaling smoke against the need to stay warm.
The Bay Area Air Quality Management District's plan to restrict wood burning comes after federal officials imposed tighter limits on emissions of fine particles, a move that regional officials say could lead them to declare 20 Spare the Air days during the winter season. There have been six such days in the region since November.
After sifting through more than 400 comments, Bay Area air-quality officials plan to refine their proposal by spring, intending to put new rules in place by next winter. Presto logs and logs made of coffee grounds and nutshells would be regulated like wood.
"We know there are very toxic components in wood smoke," said Dr. Janice Kim, public health medical officer with the air toxicology and epidemiology branch of the state's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment.
People who burn wood "are exposing themselves, their neighbors and their families to harmful compounds, including carcinogens," Kim said.
Influenced by a rash of studies showing that wood smoke poses severe health hazards, two-thirds of the residents who commented on the air district's plan said they favor mandatory controls on haze, smoke and airborne dust to control pockets of plumes in their neighborhoods.
Paul Spiegel of Walnut Creek said, "There is no escape from inhaling these emissions, even inside your own home with an air-cleaner going." He complained that people use green wood and construction waste that burn dirty.
Spiegel said he'd accept more government controls "to allow these chronic and abusive wood-burners to needlessly pump our lungs full of their irritating, penetrating and persistent fumes and particulates which bring great risks to our immediate and long term health."
But James Sayre of Oakland wrote: "Sometimes it seems as if our government is trying to squeeze out every last bit of fun and joy in life (unless it is sold to us at a profit by major corporations). This proposed regulation of private fireplaces seems quite heavy-handed and probably impractical to enforce, to boot."
Sayre said environmental regulators should instead crack down on diesel truck and bus emissions.
For more than a decade, the Bay Area's air quality district has considered controlling wood smoke from about 1,400 cords of wood - enough to fill the beds of 2,800 pickup trucks - that are burned daily in cold weather.
Air regulators in the San Joaquin Valley and Sacramento have put in place "Check Before You Burn" restrictions, which prohibit wood fires during periods of poor air quality.
"For the most part, once folks understood how the rule works, that there are not burning restrictions every day, they weren't against it," said Aleta Kennard, program supervisor for technical services at the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District.
As early as 1990, scientists attributed 40 percent of the airborne particulates in San Jose in the wintertime to wood smoke, and the researchers found an increase in deaths related to an increase in particulates. In 1997, state researchers conducted a study in Santa Clara County that linked particulate levels and increased emergency room visits for asthma.
Since 1998, about 40 cities and counties in the Bay Area have adopted regulations, mainly prohibiting the construction of fireplaces in new homes - and the cities of Fremont, Gilroy, Los Altos Hills, Los Gatos, Martinez, Mill Valley, Oakland, Rohnert Park, San Pablo and Union City banned burning on bad-air days.
Studies have found that the microscopic mix of solids and liquid droplets in wood smoke are composed of acids, organic chemicals, metals, dust particles and allergens - quite different from the emissions from burning fossil fuels. Scientists are examining the toxicity of the entire mixture - not just separate components - just as they do for tobacco smoke.
UCSF associate clinical professor Dr. Michael Lipsett, who also serves as chief of the exposure assessment section in the California Department of Public Health, was among several authors of a review published last year concluding that wood-burning stoves and fireplaces "emit significant quantities of known health-damaging pollutants, including several cancer-causing compounds."
Among them are polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, benzene, aldehydes, respirable particulate matter, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and other free radicals.
"In the wintertime, residential wood combustion is a significant contributor to fine particles in the air," said Lipsett.
The problem with wood smoke is that it hangs close to the ground, particularly on windless, foggy nights. Complaints come from all over the Bay Area - from Cow Hollow in San Francisco to Menlo Park, Novato and Castro Valley - where neighbors' wood smoke has invaded streets, yards and houses.
Walnut Creek resident Spiegel said the smoke is noticeable as soon as he emerges from the eastern end of the Caldecott Tunnel in Contra Costa County.
"It can come as a big surprise if you're not used to it," he said in an interview.
But rural resident Vernon Huffman, who heats his house with wood on a ranch outside of San Anselmo, said the proposal "will turn this neighborhood into a tattletale state. One smell of smoke will have the cops at each other's doors, which ultimately is a violation of our civil and human rights."
His natural gas heating system is inefficient and costs too much to run, he said, and a ban on burning during periods of poor air would "force me to install a heating and air system and be reliant on PG&E."
Huffman's problem is a problem for the Bay Area air district, too.
Eric Pop, an air-quality specialist for the agency, said his staff is wrestling with how to best define "sole source of heat," one of the few exemptions that the district has offered in the proposed rule. Regulators realize that people without connections to utilities or who can't afford other means of heat need to stay warm, but they don't want people to lower air quality for others by burning wood.
The air district is considering an option that would allow cleaner-burning devices, such as EPA-certified stoves and fireplace inserts, to operate during restricted periods. Officials are also setting up a program to offer retailer discounts to residents who want to upgrade devices.
In west Marin County, where air pollution from wood stoves hovers on still, cold nights, Susan Goldsborough is searching for an amicable solution. Her neighbors can use electricity or propane, but many choose wood for warmth.
"Many residents who would consider themselves to be environmentally aware and live a green life burn wood," she said. "It seems to be a blind spot."
Goldsborough won't let her grandchildren sleep over on smoky nights from November to February, and she suggests that sensors be put in place in problem valleys so neighbors are not policing neighbors.
"We have the right to clean air," she said.
Online resources
Bay Area Air Quality Management District's proposed regulations:
sfgate.com/ZCEC
Air district's report on wood smoke:
sfgate.com/ZCED
"Woodsmoke Health Effects: A Review," Journal of Inhalation Toxicology:
sfgate.com/ZCEA
Health effects of wood smoke
-- Microscopic particles of smoke are so small they get lodged deep in the lungs and sometimes in the bloodstream. In the lungs, they can cause structural and chemical changes. Little is known about effects on the heart. Researchers suspect exposure to the smoke can cause heart attacks and heart arrhythmias.
-- Long-term exposure can reduce lung function and cause bronchitis and premature death. Short-term exposure can aggravate lung disease, causing asthma attacks and susceptibility to infection.
-- Wood smoke and other particles pose a greater threat to adults when they are physically active because they breathe faster and more deeply, taking in more particles.
-- Older adults are sensitive to air pollution, scientists suspect, because they may have undiagnosed heart or lung disease. Children are sensitive because they are active and also because their lungs are still developing.
-- Most at risk are people with heart or lung disease such as coronary artery disease, congestive heart failure and asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. People with diabetes may be at increased risk because they may have underlying cardiovascular disease. New studies suggest that inhaling fine particles can cause low birth weight in newborns, preterm deliveries and possibly fetal and infant deaths.
Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Weigh in
The opportunity to comment on the air board's proposed wood-burning restrictions ended Dec. 10, but people can e-mail suggestions to the air district's staff or board of directors at: sparetheair@baaqmd.gov.
E-mail Jane Kay at jkay@sfchronicle.com.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/20/MNGQUGD16.DTL
This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/20/MNGQUGD16.DTL
Jane Kay, Chronicle Environment Writer
Sunday, January 20, 2008
A proposed ban on burning wood in the Bay Area's 1 million fireplaces and stoves on bad-air days has drawn praise - and heat - from hundreds of residents as regulators consider how to balance the health risks of inhaling smoke against the need to stay warm.
The Bay Area Air Quality Management District's plan to restrict wood burning comes after federal officials imposed tighter limits on emissions of fine particles, a move that regional officials say could lead them to declare 20 Spare the Air days during the winter season. There have been six such days in the region since November.
After sifting through more than 400 comments, Bay Area air-quality officials plan to refine their proposal by spring, intending to put new rules in place by next winter. Presto logs and logs made of coffee grounds and nutshells would be regulated like wood.
"We know there are very toxic components in wood smoke," said Dr. Janice Kim, public health medical officer with the air toxicology and epidemiology branch of the state's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment.
People who burn wood "are exposing themselves, their neighbors and their families to harmful compounds, including carcinogens," Kim said.
Influenced by a rash of studies showing that wood smoke poses severe health hazards, two-thirds of the residents who commented on the air district's plan said they favor mandatory controls on haze, smoke and airborne dust to control pockets of plumes in their neighborhoods.
Paul Spiegel of Walnut Creek said, "There is no escape from inhaling these emissions, even inside your own home with an air-cleaner going." He complained that people use green wood and construction waste that burn dirty.
Spiegel said he'd accept more government controls "to allow these chronic and abusive wood-burners to needlessly pump our lungs full of their irritating, penetrating and persistent fumes and particulates which bring great risks to our immediate and long term health."
But James Sayre of Oakland wrote: "Sometimes it seems as if our government is trying to squeeze out every last bit of fun and joy in life (unless it is sold to us at a profit by major corporations). This proposed regulation of private fireplaces seems quite heavy-handed and probably impractical to enforce, to boot."
Sayre said environmental regulators should instead crack down on diesel truck and bus emissions.
For more than a decade, the Bay Area's air quality district has considered controlling wood smoke from about 1,400 cords of wood - enough to fill the beds of 2,800 pickup trucks - that are burned daily in cold weather.
Air regulators in the San Joaquin Valley and Sacramento have put in place "Check Before You Burn" restrictions, which prohibit wood fires during periods of poor air quality.
"For the most part, once folks understood how the rule works, that there are not burning restrictions every day, they weren't against it," said Aleta Kennard, program supervisor for technical services at the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District.
As early as 1990, scientists attributed 40 percent of the airborne particulates in San Jose in the wintertime to wood smoke, and the researchers found an increase in deaths related to an increase in particulates. In 1997, state researchers conducted a study in Santa Clara County that linked particulate levels and increased emergency room visits for asthma.
Since 1998, about 40 cities and counties in the Bay Area have adopted regulations, mainly prohibiting the construction of fireplaces in new homes - and the cities of Fremont, Gilroy, Los Altos Hills, Los Gatos, Martinez, Mill Valley, Oakland, Rohnert Park, San Pablo and Union City banned burning on bad-air days.
Studies have found that the microscopic mix of solids and liquid droplets in wood smoke are composed of acids, organic chemicals, metals, dust particles and allergens - quite different from the emissions from burning fossil fuels. Scientists are examining the toxicity of the entire mixture - not just separate components - just as they do for tobacco smoke.
UCSF associate clinical professor Dr. Michael Lipsett, who also serves as chief of the exposure assessment section in the California Department of Public Health, was among several authors of a review published last year concluding that wood-burning stoves and fireplaces "emit significant quantities of known health-damaging pollutants, including several cancer-causing compounds."
Among them are polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, benzene, aldehydes, respirable particulate matter, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and other free radicals.
"In the wintertime, residential wood combustion is a significant contributor to fine particles in the air," said Lipsett.
The problem with wood smoke is that it hangs close to the ground, particularly on windless, foggy nights. Complaints come from all over the Bay Area - from Cow Hollow in San Francisco to Menlo Park, Novato and Castro Valley - where neighbors' wood smoke has invaded streets, yards and houses.
Walnut Creek resident Spiegel said the smoke is noticeable as soon as he emerges from the eastern end of the Caldecott Tunnel in Contra Costa County.
"It can come as a big surprise if you're not used to it," he said in an interview.
But rural resident Vernon Huffman, who heats his house with wood on a ranch outside of San Anselmo, said the proposal "will turn this neighborhood into a tattletale state. One smell of smoke will have the cops at each other's doors, which ultimately is a violation of our civil and human rights."
His natural gas heating system is inefficient and costs too much to run, he said, and a ban on burning during periods of poor air would "force me to install a heating and air system and be reliant on PG&E."
Huffman's problem is a problem for the Bay Area air district, too.
Eric Pop, an air-quality specialist for the agency, said his staff is wrestling with how to best define "sole source of heat," one of the few exemptions that the district has offered in the proposed rule. Regulators realize that people without connections to utilities or who can't afford other means of heat need to stay warm, but they don't want people to lower air quality for others by burning wood.
The air district is considering an option that would allow cleaner-burning devices, such as EPA-certified stoves and fireplace inserts, to operate during restricted periods. Officials are also setting up a program to offer retailer discounts to residents who want to upgrade devices.
In west Marin County, where air pollution from wood stoves hovers on still, cold nights, Susan Goldsborough is searching for an amicable solution. Her neighbors can use electricity or propane, but many choose wood for warmth.
"Many residents who would consider themselves to be environmentally aware and live a green life burn wood," she said. "It seems to be a blind spot."
Goldsborough won't let her grandchildren sleep over on smoky nights from November to February, and she suggests that sensors be put in place in problem valleys so neighbors are not policing neighbors.
"We have the right to clean air," she said.
Online resources
Bay Area Air Quality Management District's proposed regulations:
sfgate.com/ZCEC
Air district's report on wood smoke:
sfgate.com/ZCED
"Woodsmoke Health Effects: A Review," Journal of Inhalation Toxicology:
sfgate.com/ZCEA
Health effects of wood smoke
-- Microscopic particles of smoke are so small they get lodged deep in the lungs and sometimes in the bloodstream. In the lungs, they can cause structural and chemical changes. Little is known about effects on the heart. Researchers suspect exposure to the smoke can cause heart attacks and heart arrhythmias.
-- Long-term exposure can reduce lung function and cause bronchitis and premature death. Short-term exposure can aggravate lung disease, causing asthma attacks and susceptibility to infection.
-- Wood smoke and other particles pose a greater threat to adults when they are physically active because they breathe faster and more deeply, taking in more particles.
-- Older adults are sensitive to air pollution, scientists suspect, because they may have undiagnosed heart or lung disease. Children are sensitive because they are active and also because their lungs are still developing.
-- Most at risk are people with heart or lung disease such as coronary artery disease, congestive heart failure and asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. People with diabetes may be at increased risk because they may have underlying cardiovascular disease. New studies suggest that inhaling fine particles can cause low birth weight in newborns, preterm deliveries and possibly fetal and infant deaths.
Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Weigh in
The opportunity to comment on the air board's proposed wood-burning restrictions ended Dec. 10, but people can e-mail suggestions to the air district's staff or board of directors at: sparetheair@baaqmd.gov.
E-mail Jane Kay at jkay@sfchronicle.com.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/20/MNGQUGD16.DTL
This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
We Have The Right To Breathe-Letter to the Editor
We Have The Right To Breathe
Paddock Publications
Arlington Heights, Illinois
Daily Herald Newspaper
January 21, 2008
To the editor: While burning wood is a choice, just as smoking cigarettes is choice, it is destructive to human lungs, the environment and our food and water supply. Wood smoke fine particulates do not break down, but accumulate in the environment and in our lungs -- and they contain many cancer-causing toxins. Nevertheless, it is a choice.
Breathing is not a choice, but is an inalienable right. You may choose to burn wood, or to smoke, but you did not choose to breathe. Wood burners do not have the right to contaminate the lungs of others without their permission. Anything that interferes with someone others' right to breathe can and must be regulated!
Outdoors, kids play sports, run, ride their bikes, skate and skateboard -- all done in a haze of harmful smoke in the air that they breathe. Please contact your city officials and ask what they would choose -- to burn or to breathe?
Julie Mellum, President
Take Back the Air
Paddock Publications
Arlington Heights, Illinois
Daily Herald Newspaper
January 21, 2008
To the editor: While burning wood is a choice, just as smoking cigarettes is choice, it is destructive to human lungs, the environment and our food and water supply. Wood smoke fine particulates do not break down, but accumulate in the environment and in our lungs -- and they contain many cancer-causing toxins. Nevertheless, it is a choice.
Breathing is not a choice, but is an inalienable right. You may choose to burn wood, or to smoke, but you did not choose to breathe. Wood burners do not have the right to contaminate the lungs of others without their permission. Anything that interferes with someone others' right to breathe can and must be regulated!
Outdoors, kids play sports, run, ride their bikes, skate and skateboard -- all done in a haze of harmful smoke in the air that they breathe. Please contact your city officials and ask what they would choose -- to burn or to breathe?
Julie Mellum, President
Take Back the Air
Freedom From Wood Smoke Plea-Connecticut
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Plea For Government Help From Wood Smoke!
Local and state agencies/officials do nothing in Connecticut
Environment and Human Health, Inc.
1191 Ridge Road
North Haven, CT 06473
I am writing Environment and Human Health, Inc. because I have not
been able to get help from either state or local agencies to end the
inundation of wood smoke that enters our property and our home from our neighbors' wood burning.
We moved to Terryville, CT in October 2003 and by early spring 2004
the wood smoke became a problem. As soon I recognized that wood
smoke was coming into my home whenever I opened a window, I would shut my windows immediately.
I have developed asthma and require an inhaler and emergency inhaler when all else fails to open my air ways. I have not yet been
hospitalized for breathing problems from the wood smoke. I did not
have these breathing problems before I moved to our current home. My son, who was born in March 2005, has now been prescribed a bronchial dilator when he wheezes in his sleep.
I cannot open the windows of our home at anytime of the year without fearing and knowing that wood smoke will infiltrate my home. I
attempt to open one window on the north side of my home about two
inches and the wood smoke bellows in almost every time I open my
window. I cannot open the windows of my home and cannot open windows in my sunroom, nor can we use our screened in porch on the lower level of our home, a raised ranch during any time of the year.
The wood smoke comes from our neighbors' chimneys and wood stoves as well as one neighbor's outdoor furnace. Three homes to the west of our home have active wood burning devices all winter long. The home with the outdoor wood furnace also burns all year long.
My closest neighbor to the west has huge outdoor campfires that they
burn for recreational pleasure. They often burn these "campfires"
all day and well into the night-sometimes at 4 am the smoke is still
so thick I cannot open the windows. Their wood smoke travels to our
home about 100 to 150 feet away. One evening when I left a window
open and went to bed I was awakened by the smell of wood smoke in my home. I believed my home was on fire. Upon evacuating my home and looking back the house was totally engulfed with smoke, no flames were visible. The smoke was thick and the responding fire fighter thought the dense smoke must be from a forest fire if my house was not on fire. The smoke was that thick. No forest fire was found and it was thought the neighbor's campfire all night had created the smoke that hung in the air.
The farmer who owns the land directly north of our home frequently
burns brush without a burn permit-- huge piles of brush he
accumulates on his property. The smoke comes right to our home.
After my complaint he was issued a burn permit and burned a huge pile that was visible from my kitchen window and the smoke came into our home on the first nice day of the spring last year. This man chose the first beautiful days of the spring to burn bush without regard for anyone down wind from his fire. Later that night the people he had watching his fires returned to stoke the smoldering ashes after 8:30 PM. They started the burning again with flames rising taller than they stood. The people he hired were the people who live in the house directly west of my home who build the campfires.
In weather with fog, rain or low clouds the wood smoke stays even longer. Recently, building my son's first snowman resulting in me having to use my emergency inhaler. My child and I have been prisoners in our home from this wood smoke.
I write Environment and Human Health, Inc. for help in stopping the wood smoke. Please is there anything you can do? We have considered moving, but the housing market is so poor right now we cannot afford to lose so much of our home's value. I cannot afford to get lawyers to fight a case against the town or the neighbors. You are our last hope, unless of course I win the lottery and can then afford to move. Please anything you can do will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
SB & CM
Terryville, CT
Editor note....millions of people in America (and the world) are suffering like the above, and local and state officials remain silent. Sad, very sad!
Local and state agencies/officials do nothing in Connecticut
Environment and Human Health, Inc.
1191 Ridge Road
North Haven, CT 06473
I am writing Environment and Human Health, Inc. because I have not
been able to get help from either state or local agencies to end the
inundation of wood smoke that enters our property and our home from our neighbors' wood burning.
We moved to Terryville, CT in October 2003 and by early spring 2004
the wood smoke became a problem. As soon I recognized that wood
smoke was coming into my home whenever I opened a window, I would shut my windows immediately.
I have developed asthma and require an inhaler and emergency inhaler when all else fails to open my air ways. I have not yet been
hospitalized for breathing problems from the wood smoke. I did not
have these breathing problems before I moved to our current home. My son, who was born in March 2005, has now been prescribed a bronchial dilator when he wheezes in his sleep.
I cannot open the windows of our home at anytime of the year without fearing and knowing that wood smoke will infiltrate my home. I
attempt to open one window on the north side of my home about two
inches and the wood smoke bellows in almost every time I open my
window. I cannot open the windows of my home and cannot open windows in my sunroom, nor can we use our screened in porch on the lower level of our home, a raised ranch during any time of the year.
The wood smoke comes from our neighbors' chimneys and wood stoves as well as one neighbor's outdoor furnace. Three homes to the west of our home have active wood burning devices all winter long. The home with the outdoor wood furnace also burns all year long.
My closest neighbor to the west has huge outdoor campfires that they
burn for recreational pleasure. They often burn these "campfires"
all day and well into the night-sometimes at 4 am the smoke is still
so thick I cannot open the windows. Their wood smoke travels to our
home about 100 to 150 feet away. One evening when I left a window
open and went to bed I was awakened by the smell of wood smoke in my home. I believed my home was on fire. Upon evacuating my home and looking back the house was totally engulfed with smoke, no flames were visible. The smoke was thick and the responding fire fighter thought the dense smoke must be from a forest fire if my house was not on fire. The smoke was that thick. No forest fire was found and it was thought the neighbor's campfire all night had created the smoke that hung in the air.
The farmer who owns the land directly north of our home frequently
burns brush without a burn permit-- huge piles of brush he
accumulates on his property. The smoke comes right to our home.
After my complaint he was issued a burn permit and burned a huge pile that was visible from my kitchen window and the smoke came into our home on the first nice day of the spring last year. This man chose the first beautiful days of the spring to burn bush without regard for anyone down wind from his fire. Later that night the people he had watching his fires returned to stoke the smoldering ashes after 8:30 PM. They started the burning again with flames rising taller than they stood. The people he hired were the people who live in the house directly west of my home who build the campfires.
In weather with fog, rain or low clouds the wood smoke stays even longer. Recently, building my son's first snowman resulting in me having to use my emergency inhaler. My child and I have been prisoners in our home from this wood smoke.
I write Environment and Human Health, Inc. for help in stopping the wood smoke. Please is there anything you can do? We have considered moving, but the housing market is so poor right now we cannot afford to lose so much of our home's value. I cannot afford to get lawyers to fight a case against the town or the neighbors. You are our last hope, unless of course I win the lottery and can then afford to move. Please anything you can do will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
SB & CM
Terryville, CT
Editor note....millions of people in America (and the world) are suffering like the above, and local and state officials remain silent. Sad, very sad!
USA Today Story-Outside Wood Burning Boilers
USA TODAY
January 16, 2008
Outside Wood Burning Boilers
In the winter of 2006, Joel Laws and his new wife, Melissa, were living in the Albers, Ill., house where his mother was born. They hoped to start a family there. Then a neighbor began heating his home with an outdoor wood boiler.
Smoke seeping into the house, Laws says, gave them headaches and sore throats. Melissa's mother, who has asthma, refused to visit. Their clothes smelled of soot.
The couple sued but, impatient for their lawsuit to come to court and convinced that a smoky house was no place to conceive a child, they moved out last week. "We're sick of being sick," says Joel Laws, 27, a graduate student. "We would rather pay rent than have to live with this."
AIR-QUALITY DEBATE
The Laws are among a growing number who say they have been smoked out of their homes and watched their health and property values decline because of neighbors who use wood-burning boilers. They are using local ordinances, lawsuits and the Internet — the Laws have posted video of smoke plumes on MySpace — to restrict or ban the devices.
'Very different smell'
David Cole, 60, a Hanover, N.H., lawyer who says his farmhouse is enveloped by smoke from a neighbor's boiler, won a temporary injunction to shut it down. Last week, he testified to the Legislature in favor of a bill that would crack down on the devices, also known as outdoor wood furnaces or wood-fired hydronic heaters.
"It's a very different smell than the lovely wood smoke you might get a whiff of in the countryside in the winter," says Cole. "It's a thick, oily, acrid smell."
More rural and suburban homeowners across the country's northern tier are turning to boilers as a cheap way to heat homes, bath water, swimming pools and hot tubs.
"I put it in to lower my heating costs," says Brian Wuebbels, the Laws' neighbor. He used to pay $500 to $800 a month for gas heat. Now, using wood he says he cuts himself, his bill is $36. Wuebbels denies that smoke from his boiler poses a health hazard. "It's not any more than leaves burning," he says.
Neighborhood air pollution is, "not just wood smoke," says Deidre Darsa of the Hearth, Patio & Barbecue Association, an industry group. "There's car exhaust, indoor home cleaners. ... It's not just one particular source."
Government studies say wood smoke is a growing problem. A report issued in Connecticut in 2002, when there were fewer than half the boilers in use than in 2006, estimated that 38% of airborne particle emissions there came from wood burning, including stoves.
A 2006 report by state air quality agencies in the Northeast said one boiler can emit as much fine particulate matter as four diesel trucks. It also said it would take 205 oil furnaces or up to 8,000 gas furnaces to produce as much pollution as one wood boiler.
The agencies' group, the Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management (NESCAUM), said there could be 500,000 outdoor wood boilers emitting nearly 900,000 tons of fine particulate matter nationwide by 2010.
The NESCAUM report said the increased use of boilers "represents a potential public health problem" linked to wood smoke, including asthma, heart disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Boiler manufacturers recommend using only dry, seasoned wood. A 2005 report by the New York attorney general said, though, that even properly used boilers produce significant pollution because they "burn incompletely, or smolder, resulting in thick smoke and high particulate emissions."
Fireboxes are large enough that some owners burn tires, palettes, railroad ties, construction debris, plastic, trash and even telephone poles, releasing harmful chemicals. Those living nearby say it can be difficult to directly link health problems to boiler smoke.
When Brad Graham's asthmatic son Hunter, 8, had trouble breathing at school in Houlton, Maine, air ducts were cleaned, carpet removed and air intakes moved. Still, Hunter missed more than 60 days of school. "He would lose his ability to breathe," Graham says. One day, he and his wife, Lynn, noticed smoke wafting over the school playground. It came from a boiler near a private home 1,000 feet from the school. The owner of the boiler did not return USA TODAY's calls for comment.
Lobbying for change
The Grahams lobbied for a year for a town ordinance to force owners to modify existing boilers to reduce emissions. It passed in June 2006. This year, Hunter has been sick just one school day. "It doesn't do any good to confront your neighbors," Graham says. "You have to go through legal channels. It's a long, hard battle."
Beth Thomas, whose daughter was teased on the school bus because she smelled of smoke from a nearby boiler, moved after a Bowdoinham, Maine, town hall meeting voted against regulations. "People were confusing it with wood burning rights when it was an emissions control issue," she says.
Some boiler owners say they are trying to be good neighbors. Anita French, whose switch from propane has saved her and husband Donald $3,000 a year in heating costs, admits that when they installed a boiler in their Stratham, N.H., house in 2006, "there was a little more smoke than we anticipated."
Town building inspector Terry Barnes says the Frenches raised the device's chimney and switched to drier wood to reduce smoke. French, 48, says she doesn't use the boiler in summer and called complaints "unfair and unfounded."
Still, 15 neighbors complained to the town complaining that the smoke is so bad that it set off one resident's indoor smoke alarm. "The stench and odor are disgusting," says neighbor Lewis Ruffner, whose children often come in coughing from the backyard. "They say it's too smoky."
January 16, 2008
Outside Wood Burning Boilers
In the winter of 2006, Joel Laws and his new wife, Melissa, were living in the Albers, Ill., house where his mother was born. They hoped to start a family there. Then a neighbor began heating his home with an outdoor wood boiler.
Smoke seeping into the house, Laws says, gave them headaches and sore throats. Melissa's mother, who has asthma, refused to visit. Their clothes smelled of soot.
The couple sued but, impatient for their lawsuit to come to court and convinced that a smoky house was no place to conceive a child, they moved out last week. "We're sick of being sick," says Joel Laws, 27, a graduate student. "We would rather pay rent than have to live with this."
AIR-QUALITY DEBATE
The Laws are among a growing number who say they have been smoked out of their homes and watched their health and property values decline because of neighbors who use wood-burning boilers. They are using local ordinances, lawsuits and the Internet — the Laws have posted video of smoke plumes on MySpace — to restrict or ban the devices.
'Very different smell'
David Cole, 60, a Hanover, N.H., lawyer who says his farmhouse is enveloped by smoke from a neighbor's boiler, won a temporary injunction to shut it down. Last week, he testified to the Legislature in favor of a bill that would crack down on the devices, also known as outdoor wood furnaces or wood-fired hydronic heaters.
"It's a very different smell than the lovely wood smoke you might get a whiff of in the countryside in the winter," says Cole. "It's a thick, oily, acrid smell."
More rural and suburban homeowners across the country's northern tier are turning to boilers as a cheap way to heat homes, bath water, swimming pools and hot tubs.
"I put it in to lower my heating costs," says Brian Wuebbels, the Laws' neighbor. He used to pay $500 to $800 a month for gas heat. Now, using wood he says he cuts himself, his bill is $36. Wuebbels denies that smoke from his boiler poses a health hazard. "It's not any more than leaves burning," he says.
Neighborhood air pollution is, "not just wood smoke," says Deidre Darsa of the Hearth, Patio & Barbecue Association, an industry group. "There's car exhaust, indoor home cleaners. ... It's not just one particular source."
Government studies say wood smoke is a growing problem. A report issued in Connecticut in 2002, when there were fewer than half the boilers in use than in 2006, estimated that 38% of airborne particle emissions there came from wood burning, including stoves.
A 2006 report by state air quality agencies in the Northeast said one boiler can emit as much fine particulate matter as four diesel trucks. It also said it would take 205 oil furnaces or up to 8,000 gas furnaces to produce as much pollution as one wood boiler.
The agencies' group, the Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management (NESCAUM), said there could be 500,000 outdoor wood boilers emitting nearly 900,000 tons of fine particulate matter nationwide by 2010.
The NESCAUM report said the increased use of boilers "represents a potential public health problem" linked to wood smoke, including asthma, heart disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Boiler manufacturers recommend using only dry, seasoned wood. A 2005 report by the New York attorney general said, though, that even properly used boilers produce significant pollution because they "burn incompletely, or smolder, resulting in thick smoke and high particulate emissions."
Fireboxes are large enough that some owners burn tires, palettes, railroad ties, construction debris, plastic, trash and even telephone poles, releasing harmful chemicals. Those living nearby say it can be difficult to directly link health problems to boiler smoke.
When Brad Graham's asthmatic son Hunter, 8, had trouble breathing at school in Houlton, Maine, air ducts were cleaned, carpet removed and air intakes moved. Still, Hunter missed more than 60 days of school. "He would lose his ability to breathe," Graham says. One day, he and his wife, Lynn, noticed smoke wafting over the school playground. It came from a boiler near a private home 1,000 feet from the school. The owner of the boiler did not return USA TODAY's calls for comment.
Lobbying for change
The Grahams lobbied for a year for a town ordinance to force owners to modify existing boilers to reduce emissions. It passed in June 2006. This year, Hunter has been sick just one school day. "It doesn't do any good to confront your neighbors," Graham says. "You have to go through legal channels. It's a long, hard battle."
Beth Thomas, whose daughter was teased on the school bus because she smelled of smoke from a nearby boiler, moved after a Bowdoinham, Maine, town hall meeting voted against regulations. "People were confusing it with wood burning rights when it was an emissions control issue," she says.
Some boiler owners say they are trying to be good neighbors. Anita French, whose switch from propane has saved her and husband Donald $3,000 a year in heating costs, admits that when they installed a boiler in their Stratham, N.H., house in 2006, "there was a little more smoke than we anticipated."
Town building inspector Terry Barnes says the Frenches raised the device's chimney and switched to drier wood to reduce smoke. French, 48, says she doesn't use the boiler in summer and called complaints "unfair and unfounded."
Still, 15 neighbors complained to the town complaining that the smoke is so bad that it set off one resident's indoor smoke alarm. "The stench and odor are disgusting," says neighbor Lewis Ruffner, whose children often come in coughing from the backyard. "They say it's too smoky."
To Burn or To Breathe?--Chicago Tribune Letter
Monday, January 14, 2008
To Burn or To Breathe?
Voice of the People
Letter to the Editor
Online version
Chicago Tribune Newspaper
January 14, 2008
While burning wood is a choice, just as smoking cigarettes is a choice, it is destructive to human lungs, the environment and our food and water supply. Wood smoke's fine particulates do not break down, but accumulate in the environment and in our lungs--and they contain many cancer-causing toxins. Nevertheless, it is a choice.
Breathing is not a choice, but is an inalienable right. You may choose to burn wood, or to smoke, but you did not choose to breathe. Wood burners do not have the right to contaminate the lungs of others without their permission. Anything that interferes with others' right to breathe can and must be regulated.
Julie Mellum
President, Take Back the Air
Midwestern Director, Clean Air Revival
Minneapolis, Minn.
Voice of the People
Letter to the Editor
Online version
Chicago Tribune Newspaper
January 14, 2008
While burning wood is a choice, just as smoking cigarettes is a choice, it is destructive to human lungs, the environment and our food and water supply. Wood smoke's fine particulates do not break down, but accumulate in the environment and in our lungs--and they contain many cancer-causing toxins. Nevertheless, it is a choice.
Breathing is not a choice, but is an inalienable right. You may choose to burn wood, or to smoke, but you did not choose to breathe. Wood burners do not have the right to contaminate the lungs of others without their permission. Anything that interferes with others' right to breathe can and must be regulated.
Julie Mellum
President, Take Back the Air
Midwestern Director, Clean Air Revival
Minneapolis, Minn.
Wood Smoke Harms The Air We Breathe--Letter To The Editor
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Letter to the Editor
Fence Post
Paddock Publications
Daily Herald Newspaper
Published: 1/10/2008
Wood smoke harms the air we breathe
We had to wait until 2008, but thank you, Illinois, for going smoke free.
What a pleasure it will be to go into any restaurant and enjoy a meal without inhaling that dreadful and harmful secondhand smoke.
Now, if only local communities and Illinois would stop another noxious and deadly source of secondhand emission that involuntarily enters our yards, homes and lungs. Outdoor wood burning fireplaces and fire pits and indoor wood burning fireplaces.
Scientific evidence and studies confirm that exposure to wood smoke emission particulates -- PM2.5 -- will trigger or aggravate respiratory and cardiovascular problems.
Symptoms include eye and nose irritation, breathing difficulty, wheezing, coughing, and headaches. People with asthma, emphysema, chronic bronchitis and other respiratory diseases are vulnerable.
Smoke from outdoor fireplaces and fire pits can be especially harmful to pregnant women, babies, children and the elderly. Chronic exposure to this smoke can cause long-term health effects such as asthma, heart and lung disease and cancer.
Wood smoke from neighbors' fires will enter your home even with windows and doors closed. The pollution levels inside your closed home can be up to 70 percent of the levels outdoors. Do your nearby friends and neighbors' health mean anything to you?
This is an extremely serious health and air pollution issue for all of Illinois.
Please people, have a heart and stop thinking just about yourselves. Think about others, their children and families, their health and the air we all have to breathe.
Elk Grove Village, Illinois
Fence Post
Paddock Publications
Daily Herald Newspaper
Published: 1/10/2008
Wood smoke harms the air we breathe
We had to wait until 2008, but thank you, Illinois, for going smoke free.
What a pleasure it will be to go into any restaurant and enjoy a meal without inhaling that dreadful and harmful secondhand smoke.
Now, if only local communities and Illinois would stop another noxious and deadly source of secondhand emission that involuntarily enters our yards, homes and lungs. Outdoor wood burning fireplaces and fire pits and indoor wood burning fireplaces.
Scientific evidence and studies confirm that exposure to wood smoke emission particulates -- PM2.5 -- will trigger or aggravate respiratory and cardiovascular problems.
Symptoms include eye and nose irritation, breathing difficulty, wheezing, coughing, and headaches. People with asthma, emphysema, chronic bronchitis and other respiratory diseases are vulnerable.
Smoke from outdoor fireplaces and fire pits can be especially harmful to pregnant women, babies, children and the elderly. Chronic exposure to this smoke can cause long-term health effects such as asthma, heart and lung disease and cancer.
Wood smoke from neighbors' fires will enter your home even with windows and doors closed. The pollution levels inside your closed home can be up to 70 percent of the levels outdoors. Do your nearby friends and neighbors' health mean anything to you?
This is an extremely serious health and air pollution issue for all of Illinois.
Please people, have a heart and stop thinking just about yourselves. Think about others, their children and families, their health and the air we all have to breathe.
Elk Grove Village, Illinois
Need To Legislate End To Wood Smoke-Letter to the Editor
Monday, January 7, 2008
Paddock Publications
Daily Herald Newspaper
Letters to the Editor
Neighborhood-Fence Post
Published: 1/7/2008
Need To Legislate End To Wood Smoke
To the editor: The legend goes that Nero played his lyre as the Great Fire of Rome burned.
Sadly, our local and state leaders are acting like Nero, without the lyre, when it comes to wood smoke emissions -- ignoring the scientific fact that wood smoke is not only harmful to all who involuntarily breathe it but deadly to more than 30,000 Americans each year.
America and Illinois are being overwhelmed by wood smoke particulates. An EPA report states that sources of particulate pollution (national average) are residential wood burning, 35 percent; forest fires, 13 percent; autos and trucks, 21 percent; other residential fuels, 1 percent and other sources, 30 percent.
Legislation must stop the unneeded and unnecessary destruction of our environment and ensure all residents have the right to breathe healthy air, by banning outdoor, wood burning fireplaces, fire pits, outside wood boilers, chimineas and burn barrels.
Local and state government should support, with grants, the voluntary conversion of all inside residential wood burning fireplaces to natural gas or electric.
Wood smoke from neighbors' fires will enter your home even with windows and doors closed. The pollution levels inside your closed home can be up to 70 percent of the levels outdoors.
Children, the elderly, pregnant women and people with respiratory ailments are especially susceptible. Health impacts are premature death, respiratory-related hospital admissions, aggravated asthma, acute respiratory symptoms including aggravated coughing and difficult breathing, chronic bronchitis and decreased lung function.
If your mom, grandpa or sister lived near you and they were getting sick from the emissions from your wood fireplace, would you tell them to be quiet or move? I'll bet you wouldn't. You would stop burning. Does your neighbors' health mean less to you?
Some have suggested when illness occurs to people due to wood smoke, the locally elected officials and the wood burner should be called. Why? So they can help take you or your child to the doctor/hospital for medical treatment, and to pay the bill.
Breathe healthy air free of wood smoke in 2008? Speak up ... or hold your breath! Your choice.
Elk Grove Village, Illinois
Daily Herald Newspaper
Letters to the Editor
Neighborhood-Fence Post
Published: 1/7/2008
Need To Legislate End To Wood Smoke
To the editor: The legend goes that Nero played his lyre as the Great Fire of Rome burned.
Sadly, our local and state leaders are acting like Nero, without the lyre, when it comes to wood smoke emissions -- ignoring the scientific fact that wood smoke is not only harmful to all who involuntarily breathe it but deadly to more than 30,000 Americans each year.
America and Illinois are being overwhelmed by wood smoke particulates. An EPA report states that sources of particulate pollution (national average) are residential wood burning, 35 percent; forest fires, 13 percent; autos and trucks, 21 percent; other residential fuels, 1 percent and other sources, 30 percent.
Legislation must stop the unneeded and unnecessary destruction of our environment and ensure all residents have the right to breathe healthy air, by banning outdoor, wood burning fireplaces, fire pits, outside wood boilers, chimineas and burn barrels.
Local and state government should support, with grants, the voluntary conversion of all inside residential wood burning fireplaces to natural gas or electric.
Wood smoke from neighbors' fires will enter your home even with windows and doors closed. The pollution levels inside your closed home can be up to 70 percent of the levels outdoors.
Children, the elderly, pregnant women and people with respiratory ailments are especially susceptible. Health impacts are premature death, respiratory-related hospital admissions, aggravated asthma, acute respiratory symptoms including aggravated coughing and difficult breathing, chronic bronchitis and decreased lung function.
If your mom, grandpa or sister lived near you and they were getting sick from the emissions from your wood fireplace, would you tell them to be quiet or move? I'll bet you wouldn't. You would stop burning. Does your neighbors' health mean less to you?
Some have suggested when illness occurs to people due to wood smoke, the locally elected officials and the wood burner should be called. Why? So they can help take you or your child to the doctor/hospital for medical treatment, and to pay the bill.
Breathe healthy air free of wood smoke in 2008? Speak up ... or hold your breath! Your choice.
Elk Grove Village, Illinois
Fireplace smoke damaging to health
Thursday, January 3, 2008
ContraCostaTimes.com
Fireplace smoke damaging to health
By Denis Cuff
STAFF WRITER
Article Launched: 12/03/2007 03:02:59 AM PST
Because wood fires in homes are a common tradition, it can be hard to believe fireplace and stove smoke is harmful.
But a growing body of scientific and medical evidence in recent decades suggests smoke and other particles are harmful at lower levels than commonly believed.
The studies linked particle pollution to asthma, bronchitis, stroke, heart attacks and weakened immune systems.
The elderly are most vulnerable, but particle pollution can stunt children's lung development, researchers in Southern California have found.
"There is so much evidence, it's hard to see how a reasonable person could conclude there is no health effect," said Dr. Anthony Gerber, an assistant processor of medicine at UC San Francisco.
Researchers examined death rates in several urban areas and found higher rates in highly polluted areas.
In experiments, researchers found that breathing fine particles harmed animals.
Alarmed by these studies, the federal Environmental Protection Agency last year tightened the public health standard for particulate pollution called PM 2.5.
"Even the Bush administration, which doesn't believe in global warming, determined that the public needed greater protection from particulates," said Mark Ross, chairman of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and a supporter of a proposed rule to restrict wood fires on nights when air quality is low.
The Bay Area violated the new standard nearly 30 days last year after not violating the old,weaker, standard for several years.
Fine particles in the air from wood smoke, vehicle exhaust, construction dust and other sources accounts for about as many premature deaths in California as secondhand tobacco smoke or automobile crashes, the state Air Resources Board said in a 2004 report.
"Fireplaces may seem innocuous, but they're just part of the particulates from many sources that are a serious health problem," said Dimitri Stanich, a spokesman for the state air board.
His agency estimated that fine particle pollution accounted for 6,500 premature deaths in California in 2002.
In comparison, car crashes killed 3,200 people in California in 2002, and secondhand tobacco smoke accounted for 4,200 to 7,000 premature deaths in 2000, the state agency said.
Fine particle pollution has other effects on people, too: sicknesses, hospitalizations, and many missed days of work and school, the report said.
Much finer than the width of a human hair, fine particles can slip past the body's natural defenses and lodge deep into lungs. They also cross over into the blood as it absorbs oxygen, medical experts say.
Fireplace smoke damaging to health
By Denis Cuff
STAFF WRITER
Article Launched: 12/03/2007 03:02:59 AM PST
Because wood fires in homes are a common tradition, it can be hard to believe fireplace and stove smoke is harmful.
But a growing body of scientific and medical evidence in recent decades suggests smoke and other particles are harmful at lower levels than commonly believed.
The studies linked particle pollution to asthma, bronchitis, stroke, heart attacks and weakened immune systems.
The elderly are most vulnerable, but particle pollution can stunt children's lung development, researchers in Southern California have found.
"There is so much evidence, it's hard to see how a reasonable person could conclude there is no health effect," said Dr. Anthony Gerber, an assistant processor of medicine at UC San Francisco.
Researchers examined death rates in several urban areas and found higher rates in highly polluted areas.
In experiments, researchers found that breathing fine particles harmed animals.
Alarmed by these studies, the federal Environmental Protection Agency last year tightened the public health standard for particulate pollution called PM 2.5.
"Even the Bush administration, which doesn't believe in global warming, determined that the public needed greater protection from particulates," said Mark Ross, chairman of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District and a supporter of a proposed rule to restrict wood fires on nights when air quality is low.
The Bay Area violated the new standard nearly 30 days last year after not violating the old,weaker, standard for several years.
Fine particles in the air from wood smoke, vehicle exhaust, construction dust and other sources accounts for about as many premature deaths in California as secondhand tobacco smoke or automobile crashes, the state Air Resources Board said in a 2004 report.
"Fireplaces may seem innocuous, but they're just part of the particulates from many sources that are a serious health problem," said Dimitri Stanich, a spokesman for the state air board.
His agency estimated that fine particle pollution accounted for 6,500 premature deaths in California in 2002.
In comparison, car crashes killed 3,200 people in California in 2002, and secondhand tobacco smoke accounted for 4,200 to 7,000 premature deaths in 2000, the state agency said.
Fine particle pollution has other effects on people, too: sicknesses, hospitalizations, and many missed days of work and school, the report said.
Much finer than the width of a human hair, fine particles can slip past the body's natural defenses and lodge deep into lungs. They also cross over into the blood as it absorbs oxygen, medical experts say.
Burning Danger--Letter to the Editor
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Newsday.com
December 8, 2007
Letter to the Editor
Burning danger
"Hidden dangers at home" [News, Dec. 2] was very informative. But the list of common household dangers should have included smoke from fireplaces and wood-burning devices. According to the EPA, lifetime cancer risk from wood smoke is 12 times more carcinogenic than a lifetime equal amount of cigarette smoke. Up to 70 percent of the carcinogenic fine-particle pollution that leaves your chimney and your neighbor's can re-enter your home. The solution is to refrain from burning wood. Fireplaces can be converted to use clean-burning gas. Many area restaurants do so.
Robert James
Huntington Station
December 8, 2007
Letter to the Editor
Burning danger
"Hidden dangers at home" [News, Dec. 2] was very informative. But the list of common household dangers should have included smoke from fireplaces and wood-burning devices. According to the EPA, lifetime cancer risk from wood smoke is 12 times more carcinogenic than a lifetime equal amount of cigarette smoke. Up to 70 percent of the carcinogenic fine-particle pollution that leaves your chimney and your neighbor's can re-enter your home. The solution is to refrain from burning wood. Fireplaces can be converted to use clean-burning gas. Many area restaurants do so.
Robert James
Huntington Station
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