City Banning The Wrong Smoke
Letter to the Editor
Ladysmith Chronicle.com - Letters
341 1st Avenue, Ladysmith, B.C., V9G 1A3
1-250-245-2277
Published: October 25, 2010
Editor:
It was no surprise when the annual Cowichan Valley light up started last Friday. Following a notice sent to my phone, I watched as the sky slowly filled to its familiar haze. In fact, one of my neighbours celebrates the first day of light up by lighting his wet leaf pile to share the smoke with my children gallivanting in their own back yard.
As I hustle my children indoors on the lovely autumn day, I am struck by the fact that Duncan council has spent so much energy on this politically correct bylaw to try and ban cigarette smoking downtown, but are seemingly oblivious to the billowing of wood smoke.
I very easily keep my children away from cigarette smoke; however, I find it rather difficult to shelter them from the smog that all the open burning creates over our lovely valley.
I am sure it is much more politically correct to try and ban smoking. I have born witness to the wall anti-open burning campaigners come up against with the city.
It is a shame that the easy way seems to be taken when it comes to banning the correct light up.
A. Richards
North Cowichan
Breathe At Your Own Risk!--Letter to the Editor
Friday, November 19, 2010
Breathe At Your Own Risk!
Letter to the Editor
London Free Press Website
369 York Street, P.O. Box 2280
London, Ontario N6A 4G1
Posted November 19, 2010
Breathe At Your Own Risk!
It surrounds us. It is a life necessity. We cannot survive without it. AIR! Yet, the message being sent by our Canadian Government is to Breathe at your own risk!
Small Particulate pollution (PM2.5) is destroying our health, quality of life and fragile environment. People suffer and die from the toxic effects of Woodsmoke Pollution. Canada is a burning Nation. Today a most needed bill C-311 was killed by the Harper Government. Once again the message being delivered by the Conservative Government is that the health and well being of Canadians falls into the abyss. Sadly, we become the canary in the cage being subjected to breathing more cancer causing chemicals each day.
The facts are alarming. The statistics shocking! In October, 2010, a statement was issued from environment ministers "Air Pollution has a huge impact on the environment, human health and the economy" said the Honourable Charlene Johnson, Newfoundland and Labrador's Minister of Environment and Conservation, and CCME president.
A study released in 2008 calculated that the costs of illness caused by air pollution (exceeded) $8 billion (annually in Canada). "CCMC is the primary minister-led intergovernmental forum for collective action on environmental issues of national and international concern." The development of the major elements will begin in 2011. Implementation to improve air quality standards will begin in 2013. Meanwhile we become ill, suffer and die from particulate pollution in Canada.
Woodburning stoves, Woodburning fireplaces, pellet stoves, pellet plants, Biomass plants, all Woodburning devices, and all outdoor open air burning contribute to the toxic polluted air Canadians are breathing. All Woodburning must be banned, if not we continue to breathe at our own risk.
Scientific and medical evidence support the claim that Particulate Pollution and Woodsmoke Pollution are causing grave harm to our health and environment.
According to pediatrician, Dr. William Sammons, USA, biomass burning emits the most toxic chemicals known to science, including deadly dioxin, mercury, fine particulate matter and others. "These emissions cause asthma, heart disease, diabetes and other illness in children as well as adults, and should never qualify as the "cleanest" technology under our Clean Air Act," Dr. Sammons said. Over 77,000 doctors, the American Lung Association, Massachusetts Medical Society, North Carolina Academy of Family Physicians and others oppose burning biomass on health grounds.
Renowned global scientists and medical doctors concur and support the fact that biomass burning is contributing to our global warming. Biomass burning is a leading contributor to millions dying from the toxic cancer causing chemicals found in Woodsmoke.
It is long overdue that the Canadian Government becomes fully accountable for the mass suffering of millions of deaths each year from Woodsmoke related diseases, due to air quality and particulate pollution. Sadly the lack of efforts in leading our country toward cleaner air has become as toxic as the air we breathe.
We in Canada should not have to.....Breathe At Our Own Risk.
Written by....Linda Baker Beaudin, Air Is Precious, Cornwall, Ontario K6J 4P8
Letter to the Editor
London Free Press Website
369 York Street, P.O. Box 2280
London, Ontario N6A 4G1
Posted November 19, 2010
Breathe At Your Own Risk!
It surrounds us. It is a life necessity. We cannot survive without it. AIR! Yet, the message being sent by our Canadian Government is to Breathe at your own risk!
Small Particulate pollution (PM2.5) is destroying our health, quality of life and fragile environment. People suffer and die from the toxic effects of Woodsmoke Pollution. Canada is a burning Nation. Today a most needed bill C-311 was killed by the Harper Government. Once again the message being delivered by the Conservative Government is that the health and well being of Canadians falls into the abyss. Sadly, we become the canary in the cage being subjected to breathing more cancer causing chemicals each day.
The facts are alarming. The statistics shocking! In October, 2010, a statement was issued from environment ministers "Air Pollution has a huge impact on the environment, human health and the economy" said the Honourable Charlene Johnson, Newfoundland and Labrador's Minister of Environment and Conservation, and CCME president.
A study released in 2008 calculated that the costs of illness caused by air pollution (exceeded) $8 billion (annually in Canada). "CCMC is the primary minister-led intergovernmental forum for collective action on environmental issues of national and international concern." The development of the major elements will begin in 2011. Implementation to improve air quality standards will begin in 2013. Meanwhile we become ill, suffer and die from particulate pollution in Canada.
Woodburning stoves, Woodburning fireplaces, pellet stoves, pellet plants, Biomass plants, all Woodburning devices, and all outdoor open air burning contribute to the toxic polluted air Canadians are breathing. All Woodburning must be banned, if not we continue to breathe at our own risk.
Scientific and medical evidence support the claim that Particulate Pollution and Woodsmoke Pollution are causing grave harm to our health and environment.
According to pediatrician, Dr. William Sammons, USA, biomass burning emits the most toxic chemicals known to science, including deadly dioxin, mercury, fine particulate matter and others. "These emissions cause asthma, heart disease, diabetes and other illness in children as well as adults, and should never qualify as the "cleanest" technology under our Clean Air Act," Dr. Sammons said. Over 77,000 doctors, the American Lung Association, Massachusetts Medical Society, North Carolina Academy of Family Physicians and others oppose burning biomass on health grounds.
Renowned global scientists and medical doctors concur and support the fact that biomass burning is contributing to our global warming. Biomass burning is a leading contributor to millions dying from the toxic cancer causing chemicals found in Woodsmoke.
It is long overdue that the Canadian Government becomes fully accountable for the mass suffering of millions of deaths each year from Woodsmoke related diseases, due to air quality and particulate pollution. Sadly the lack of efforts in leading our country toward cleaner air has become as toxic as the air we breathe.
We in Canada should not have to.....Breathe At Our Own Risk.
Written by....Linda Baker Beaudin, Air Is Precious, Cornwall, Ontario K6J 4P8
Press Release Source: Environment and Human Health, Inc.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Press Release Source: Environment and Human Health, Inc.
Monday October 25, 2010, 12:00 pm EDT
WOODBRIDGE, Conn., Oct. 25, 2010 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Environment and Human Health, Inc.'s (EHHI) newly released report, The Dangers from Outdoor Wood Furnaces, shows that current regulations for outdoor wood furnaces (OWFs) are not sufficient to protect human health.
Wood smoke contains many of the same toxic compounds that are found in cigarette smoke. Just a few of them include benzene, formaldehyde, and 1,3-butadiene, all three of which are carcinogenic.
Currently, some states have OWF "set-back" regulations of 100 feet, others have "set-backs" of 200 feet and some states have no regulations at all.
EHHI measured two particle sizes found by EPA to be contained in wood smoke and designated to be the most dangerous to human health. These particles are PM 2.5 and PM 0.5.
The study showed that a house 100 feet from an OWF had 14 times the levels of PM 2.5 as houses not near an outdoor wood furnace and 9 times the levels of the EPA air standards.
A house 120 feet from an OWF had over 8 times the levels of PM 2.5 as the houses not near an outdoor wood furnace, and 6 times the levels of the EPA air standards.
A house 240 feet from OWF had 12 times the levels of PM 2.5 as the houses not near an outdoor wood furnace and 8 times the levels of the EPA air standards.
And a house as far away as 850 feet from OWF had 6 times the levels of PM 2.5 as the houses not near an outdoor wood furnace and 4 times the levels of the EPA air standards.
High levels were present in every 24-hour period tested inside homes neighboring outdoor wood furnaces. All houses tested had particulate exposures well above the EPA ambient air quality standard. Levels of PM 2.5 that exceed the EPA standards are associated with asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) attacks and hospitalizations, and are also associated with increased risk of cardiac attacks.
Particles of wood smoke are so small that windows and doors cannot keep smoke out. A study by the University of Washington, Seattle, showed that 50 to 70 percent of outdoor wood smoke entered homes that were not burning wood.
Because wood smoke particles are so small, they are not filtered out by the nose or the upper respiratory system. Instead, these small particles end up deep in the lungs where they can cause structural damage and chemical changes. Carcinogenic chemicals and wood smoke irritants adhere to the small particles and enter the deep, sensitive regions of the lungs where toxic injury is high.
Public Health Toxicologist David Brown, Sc.D., an expert in wood smoke, says, "Some of the health effects reported to EHHI include awakening at night with coughing, headaches, inability to catch breath, continual sore throats, bronchitis and colds requiring children to stay home from school. In some cases the breathing difficulty has gone into asthma attacks requiring emergency-room treatment. Even episodes of short-term exposures to extreme levels of fine particulates from wood smoke and other sources, for periods as short as two hours, can produce significant adverse health effects."
Oncologist D. Barry Boyd, MD, says, "In addition to the fine particulate matter, wood smoke contains a number of organic compounds that are potential or recognized carcinogens. Exposure over time may raise the risk not only of chronic lung disease but also of lung cancer. As well, wood smoke interferes with normal lung development in infants and children. It increases children's risk of lower respiratory infections such as bronchitis and pneumonia. Wood smoke exposure can depress the immune system and damage the layer of cells in the lungs that protect and cleanse the airways."
Outdoor wood furnaces create emissions different from either fireplaces or indoor wood stoves. The Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management (NESCAUM) found that the average fine particle emissions from one OWF are equivalent to the emissions from 22 EPA-certified indoor wood stoves, 205 oil furnaces or as many as 8,000 natural gas furnaces.
The short-term health effects of wood smoke exposures are burning eyes and throat, sinusitis, bronchitis and pneumonia.
The long-term health effects are asthma, COPD, cancer, cardiovascular problems and carbon monoxide poisoning.
Dawn Mays-Hardy of the American Lung Association, New England, says, "Because wood smoke has many of the same components as cigarette smoke, and because wood smoke emissions from outdoor wood furnaces are so thick and pervasive for all those who live near them, American Lung sees them as dangerous to health."
President of Environment and Human Health, Inc. Nancy Alderman says, "EHHI has now shown that wood smoke from outdoor wood furnaces enters neighboring houses in high enough amounts to cause serious health impacts to these families. States can no longer ignore this science and should ban outdoor wood furnaces until safer technologies are found."
For seeing or downloading the full report go to http://ehhi.org
The Environment and Human Health, Inc. logo is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=7516
Monday October 25, 2010, 12:00 pm EDT
WOODBRIDGE, Conn., Oct. 25, 2010 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Environment and Human Health, Inc.'s (EHHI) newly released report, The Dangers from Outdoor Wood Furnaces, shows that current regulations for outdoor wood furnaces (OWFs) are not sufficient to protect human health.
Wood smoke contains many of the same toxic compounds that are found in cigarette smoke. Just a few of them include benzene, formaldehyde, and 1,3-butadiene, all three of which are carcinogenic.
Currently, some states have OWF "set-back" regulations of 100 feet, others have "set-backs" of 200 feet and some states have no regulations at all.
EHHI measured two particle sizes found by EPA to be contained in wood smoke and designated to be the most dangerous to human health. These particles are PM 2.5 and PM 0.5.
The study showed that a house 100 feet from an OWF had 14 times the levels of PM 2.5 as houses not near an outdoor wood furnace and 9 times the levels of the EPA air standards.
A house 120 feet from an OWF had over 8 times the levels of PM 2.5 as the houses not near an outdoor wood furnace, and 6 times the levels of the EPA air standards.
A house 240 feet from OWF had 12 times the levels of PM 2.5 as the houses not near an outdoor wood furnace and 8 times the levels of the EPA air standards.
And a house as far away as 850 feet from OWF had 6 times the levels of PM 2.5 as the houses not near an outdoor wood furnace and 4 times the levels of the EPA air standards.
High levels were present in every 24-hour period tested inside homes neighboring outdoor wood furnaces. All houses tested had particulate exposures well above the EPA ambient air quality standard. Levels of PM 2.5 that exceed the EPA standards are associated with asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) attacks and hospitalizations, and are also associated with increased risk of cardiac attacks.
Particles of wood smoke are so small that windows and doors cannot keep smoke out. A study by the University of Washington, Seattle, showed that 50 to 70 percent of outdoor wood smoke entered homes that were not burning wood.
Because wood smoke particles are so small, they are not filtered out by the nose or the upper respiratory system. Instead, these small particles end up deep in the lungs where they can cause structural damage and chemical changes. Carcinogenic chemicals and wood smoke irritants adhere to the small particles and enter the deep, sensitive regions of the lungs where toxic injury is high.
Public Health Toxicologist David Brown, Sc.D., an expert in wood smoke, says, "Some of the health effects reported to EHHI include awakening at night with coughing, headaches, inability to catch breath, continual sore throats, bronchitis and colds requiring children to stay home from school. In some cases the breathing difficulty has gone into asthma attacks requiring emergency-room treatment. Even episodes of short-term exposures to extreme levels of fine particulates from wood smoke and other sources, for periods as short as two hours, can produce significant adverse health effects."
Oncologist D. Barry Boyd, MD, says, "In addition to the fine particulate matter, wood smoke contains a number of organic compounds that are potential or recognized carcinogens. Exposure over time may raise the risk not only of chronic lung disease but also of lung cancer. As well, wood smoke interferes with normal lung development in infants and children. It increases children's risk of lower respiratory infections such as bronchitis and pneumonia. Wood smoke exposure can depress the immune system and damage the layer of cells in the lungs that protect and cleanse the airways."
Outdoor wood furnaces create emissions different from either fireplaces or indoor wood stoves. The Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management (NESCAUM) found that the average fine particle emissions from one OWF are equivalent to the emissions from 22 EPA-certified indoor wood stoves, 205 oil furnaces or as many as 8,000 natural gas furnaces.
The short-term health effects of wood smoke exposures are burning eyes and throat, sinusitis, bronchitis and pneumonia.
The long-term health effects are asthma, COPD, cancer, cardiovascular problems and carbon monoxide poisoning.
Dawn Mays-Hardy of the American Lung Association, New England, says, "Because wood smoke has many of the same components as cigarette smoke, and because wood smoke emissions from outdoor wood furnaces are so thick and pervasive for all those who live near them, American Lung sees them as dangerous to health."
President of Environment and Human Health, Inc. Nancy Alderman says, "EHHI has now shown that wood smoke from outdoor wood furnaces enters neighboring houses in high enough amounts to cause serious health impacts to these families. States can no longer ignore this science and should ban outdoor wood furnaces until safer technologies are found."
For seeing or downloading the full report go to http://ehhi.org
The Environment and Human Health, Inc. logo is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=7516
Stop Toxic Incineration in Springfield, MA.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Stop Toxic Incineration in Springfield is a grassroots organization dedicated to stopping a proposed biomass incinerator in Springfield MA.
http://www.springfieldincinerator.info/
The following groups have joined Stop Toxic Incineration in Springfield to oppose this incinerator: Massachusetts Medical Society, Hampden District Medical Society, American Lung Association, Massachusetts Breast Cancer Coalition, Pioneer Valley Asthma Coalition, Toxics Action Center, Arise for Social Justice, Greater Springfield chapter of the Massachusetts Senior Action Council, Western Massachusetts American Friends Service Committee, Connecticut River Watershed Council, Conservation Law Foundation, Massachusetts Environmental Energy Alliance, The McKnight Neighborhood Youth Council, East Forest Park Civic Association, Physicians for Social Responsibility/Pioneer Valley.
October 19 2010 - Stop Toxic Incineration in Springfield has just received notice that Epsilon Associates is planning to change its fuel from mostly construction and demolition debris to waste wood chips at its proposed Springfield facility! Although PRE's change is a testament to our hard work, this change requires immediate action on all of our parts at the state and local levels. Below is the link to the developer's Notice of Project Change document for your review:
http://www.springfieldincinerator.info/content_downloads/Submittal%209-30-2010%20Notice%20of%20Project%20Change.pdf
Our Position
No incineration in Springfield! Springfield does not need another polluting plant. The state and the city should abandon all incineration and support clean, safe alternatives and industry in order to protect public health. Springfield is an environmental justice community and a health-impaired community with asthma and respiratory illness rates nearly double those of the rest of the state. The switch to wood waste is still dirty and a danger to public health. Emissions from this incinerator will include the same amount of particulate matter 2.5 and 10, the same amount of VOC's, the same amount of SO2, same amount of NP3 and almost the same amount of HAPs. The plant will still emit arsenic, mercury and lead. There will be more truck trips - 140 per day - using heavier trucks to accomodate a larger amount of fuel - now 1,184 tons per day. No burning! Not this either!
We Need to Act Now
After giving Palmer unlimited time to craft their application to change fuel, the state gives the public only 20 days to comment on a more than 300 page document. We need more time to ensure that everyone’s voices are heard! Comment deadline is October 26. This project does not require a Beneficial Use Determination by the state, it does not require an Environmental Impact Report unless MEPA decides on this step, and it does not require a public hearing for an air permit from Department of Environmental Protection unless DEP decides on one. We need you and your members to comment on this proposal to ensure that an Environmental Impact Report for the region is required and to ensure that the DEP holds public hearings on this project. Without your comments by 10/26, we could lose our chance to stop this project.
Why The Rush? Can We Trust This Developer?
Epsilon openly states in its Notice of Change that is needs to start building by July 2011 to avoid new EPA clean air regulations:
3.1.2 Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD)
PSD review is a federally mandated program for review of new major sources of criteria pollutants or major modifications to existing sources. For PSD purposes, a biomass fired boiler facility is a major source if emissions of any regulated pollutant are greater than 250 tpy. The Facility will not emit greater than 250 tpy of the criteria pollutants NOx, SO2, VOC, CO, and PM10 and therefore is not subject to PSD review. According to the PSD and Title V Greenhouse Gas Tailoring Rule, issued May 13, 2010, PSD would apply to new construction projects emitting more than 100,000 tpy of GHG emissions started after July 1, 2011. PRE plans to begin construction before July 1, 2011, so PSD would not apply.
What they are saying here is, although EPA is going to start regulating CO2 as a pollutant, and even biogenic CO2, they are going to evade this because they plan on starting construction before the implementation date. Obviously Epsilon Associates needs to fast-track their incineration proposal to make it happen. Palmer has already proven they are untrustworthy; last month, the state fined them $27,000 for violating provisions in their air quality permits and hazardous waste management requirements at its paving operation. Palmer was also caught dumping waste water into the ground.
In addition, their proposal claims this incinerator will be carbon-neutral because it will use nonforest wood material. This woody biomass, however, is already claimed by other users. If they take away this woody biomass from current users, more trees will have to be cut to ensure the current supply. So how can this incinerator call itself carbon-neutral if it will harm our forest resources and landscape by ultimately requiring the cutting of forest land, as the Manomet Study has already made clear. And what happens when there is no longer enough woody biomass? Biomass plants in NH are now suing each other over dwindling wood reserves, and most "wood chip" biomass plants in Maine have converted to construction and demolition incinerators because of low fuel stock. Should we expect the same to happen in Springfield with another simple permit change?
================================
The Project: Palmer Renewable Energy proposes to build a 35-megawatt power-generating incinerator at 1000 Page Boulevard, Springfield. Each day, over 1000 tons of the wood will be burned, generating only 1/3 of 1% of Massachusetts' total power production.
Health Issues: In an unexpected and unusual move, The Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) has responded to a request by members of Stop Toxic Incineration in Springfield (STIS) and issued a letter of comment relating to the Springfield wood waste incinerator's Beneficial Use Determination (BUD) permit. This permit reclassifies the wood waste, declaring it suitable for fuel. The focus of the DPH letter is the lack of a health impact assessment (HIA), something the DPH feels is called for by the BUD regulations.
The Massachusetts Medical Society, an organization representing 20,000 Massachusetts physicians, has voiced their opposition to biomass incineration in general. In the first paragraph of their press release they state: "On the grounds that biomass power plants pose an unacceptable risk to the public's health by increasing air pollution, the Massachusetts Medical Society has adopted a policy opposing three currently proposed large-scale biomass power plants in Massachusetts and urging state government to adopt policies to minimize the approval and construction of new biomass plants."
The Hampden District Medical Society voted unanimously to formally oppose this plant because it presents "an unacceptable public health risk."
The Massachusetts Breast Cancer Coalition is also formally opposed to this plant as stated in their letter: "The Massachusetts Breast Cancer Coalition (MBCC) is the largest breast cancer organization in the state representing over 10,000 members. MBCC is dedicated to challenging all obstacles to the eradication of breast cancer. In particular, MBCC is concerned about the link between environmental toxins and the extremely high rate of breast cancer in the state and as a result, is in opposition to the burning of construction and demolition debris at the proposed Palmer Renewable Energy biomass plant."
The Physicians for Social Responsibility/Pioneer Valley oppose construction of incinerators in the valley. "It is the finding of the Physicians for Social Responsibility that the biomass power plants being proposed for several Pioneer Valley locations would contribute to particulate air pollution emissions in a region that already has pollution problems, and therefore we oppose the construction and operation of such plants."
Springfield air quality already receives a failing grade from the American Lung Association on many days of the year. American Lung Association of Massachusetts opposes this incinerator and explains why in a recent press release: "For years, the ALAMA has viewed biomass burning as a significant source of air pollution. We believe that the plants proposed in Massachusetts will create an unnecessary risk to both our state's health and air quality and are particularly concerned by inefficient and dirty sources of power located in communities that already suffer from poor air quality and high asthma rates."
Hampden County is already overburdened with lead pollution. According to the latest EPA figures, Hampden County sources emit 10,461 pounds of lead per year, which is 25% of the state's total.
EPA lead chart:
Effects on Our Children: The children of Hampden County are already suffering from this level of lead exposure with blood lead levels nearly double the state average. Lead can accumulate in bone and cause neurological impairment, developmental problems for children including loss of IQ, hearing impairment, delayed growth and behavior disorders. Researchers for the first time have linked air-pollution exposure before birth with lower IQ scores in childhood, bolstering evidence that smog may harm the developing brain.
The state asthma rate for children continues to climb and is now at 10%, but the Springfield rate is more than 16%! In addition to the emissions from the incinerator, there would be the added exhaust fumes from upwards of 140 truck trips a day. There are 55 schools within a five mile radius of the proposed toxic incinerator. A new study shows that children who breathe traffic-related air pollution at school are more likely to develop asthma, even after taking into account levels of air pollution at their homes.
Schools within a five mile radius of the proposed PRE incinerator
Fallout region with area schools-see website.
Environmental Issues: Burning wood releases 50% more carbon dioxide per unit of energy produced than a coal fired plant.
Carbon dioxide emissions from this incinerator are exempt from regulations.
"The science is clear: global warming is happening faster than ever and humans are responsible. Global warming is caused by releasing what are called greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The most common greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide. Many of the activities we do every day like turn the lights on, cook food, or heat or cool our homes rely on energy sources like coal and oil and that emit carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases. This is a major problem because global warming destabilizes the delicate balance that makes life on this planet possible. Just a few degrees in temperature can completely change the world as we know it, and threaten the lives of millions of people around the world."
Click here to view the source on 350.org and to learn more about how adding more corbon dioxide to the atmosphere could be disastrous!-see website
http://www.springfieldincinerator.info/
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Webmaster: Please go to the Stop Toxic Incineration in Springfield website for more details, charts, and graphs. Please support the effort by this organization.
http://www.springfieldincinerator.info/
The following groups have joined Stop Toxic Incineration in Springfield to oppose this incinerator: Massachusetts Medical Society, Hampden District Medical Society, American Lung Association, Massachusetts Breast Cancer Coalition, Pioneer Valley Asthma Coalition, Toxics Action Center, Arise for Social Justice, Greater Springfield chapter of the Massachusetts Senior Action Council, Western Massachusetts American Friends Service Committee, Connecticut River Watershed Council, Conservation Law Foundation, Massachusetts Environmental Energy Alliance, The McKnight Neighborhood Youth Council, East Forest Park Civic Association, Physicians for Social Responsibility/Pioneer Valley.
October 19 2010 - Stop Toxic Incineration in Springfield has just received notice that Epsilon Associates is planning to change its fuel from mostly construction and demolition debris to waste wood chips at its proposed Springfield facility! Although PRE's change is a testament to our hard work, this change requires immediate action on all of our parts at the state and local levels. Below is the link to the developer's Notice of Project Change document for your review:
http://www.springfieldincinerator.info/content_downloads/Submittal%209-30-2010%20Notice%20of%20Project%20Change.pdf
Our Position
No incineration in Springfield! Springfield does not need another polluting plant. The state and the city should abandon all incineration and support clean, safe alternatives and industry in order to protect public health. Springfield is an environmental justice community and a health-impaired community with asthma and respiratory illness rates nearly double those of the rest of the state. The switch to wood waste is still dirty and a danger to public health. Emissions from this incinerator will include the same amount of particulate matter 2.5 and 10, the same amount of VOC's, the same amount of SO2, same amount of NP3 and almost the same amount of HAPs. The plant will still emit arsenic, mercury and lead. There will be more truck trips - 140 per day - using heavier trucks to accomodate a larger amount of fuel - now 1,184 tons per day. No burning! Not this either!
We Need to Act Now
After giving Palmer unlimited time to craft their application to change fuel, the state gives the public only 20 days to comment on a more than 300 page document. We need more time to ensure that everyone’s voices are heard! Comment deadline is October 26. This project does not require a Beneficial Use Determination by the state, it does not require an Environmental Impact Report unless MEPA decides on this step, and it does not require a public hearing for an air permit from Department of Environmental Protection unless DEP decides on one. We need you and your members to comment on this proposal to ensure that an Environmental Impact Report for the region is required and to ensure that the DEP holds public hearings on this project. Without your comments by 10/26, we could lose our chance to stop this project.
Why The Rush? Can We Trust This Developer?
Epsilon openly states in its Notice of Change that is needs to start building by July 2011 to avoid new EPA clean air regulations:
3.1.2 Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD)
PSD review is a federally mandated program for review of new major sources of criteria pollutants or major modifications to existing sources. For PSD purposes, a biomass fired boiler facility is a major source if emissions of any regulated pollutant are greater than 250 tpy. The Facility will not emit greater than 250 tpy of the criteria pollutants NOx, SO2, VOC, CO, and PM10 and therefore is not subject to PSD review. According to the PSD and Title V Greenhouse Gas Tailoring Rule, issued May 13, 2010, PSD would apply to new construction projects emitting more than 100,000 tpy of GHG emissions started after July 1, 2011. PRE plans to begin construction before July 1, 2011, so PSD would not apply.
What they are saying here is, although EPA is going to start regulating CO2 as a pollutant, and even biogenic CO2, they are going to evade this because they plan on starting construction before the implementation date. Obviously Epsilon Associates needs to fast-track their incineration proposal to make it happen. Palmer has already proven they are untrustworthy; last month, the state fined them $27,000 for violating provisions in their air quality permits and hazardous waste management requirements at its paving operation. Palmer was also caught dumping waste water into the ground.
In addition, their proposal claims this incinerator will be carbon-neutral because it will use nonforest wood material. This woody biomass, however, is already claimed by other users. If they take away this woody biomass from current users, more trees will have to be cut to ensure the current supply. So how can this incinerator call itself carbon-neutral if it will harm our forest resources and landscape by ultimately requiring the cutting of forest land, as the Manomet Study has already made clear. And what happens when there is no longer enough woody biomass? Biomass plants in NH are now suing each other over dwindling wood reserves, and most "wood chip" biomass plants in Maine have converted to construction and demolition incinerators because of low fuel stock. Should we expect the same to happen in Springfield with another simple permit change?
================================
The Project: Palmer Renewable Energy proposes to build a 35-megawatt power-generating incinerator at 1000 Page Boulevard, Springfield. Each day, over 1000 tons of the wood will be burned, generating only 1/3 of 1% of Massachusetts' total power production.
Health Issues: In an unexpected and unusual move, The Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) has responded to a request by members of Stop Toxic Incineration in Springfield (STIS) and issued a letter of comment relating to the Springfield wood waste incinerator's Beneficial Use Determination (BUD) permit. This permit reclassifies the wood waste, declaring it suitable for fuel. The focus of the DPH letter is the lack of a health impact assessment (HIA), something the DPH feels is called for by the BUD regulations.
The Massachusetts Medical Society, an organization representing 20,000 Massachusetts physicians, has voiced their opposition to biomass incineration in general. In the first paragraph of their press release they state: "On the grounds that biomass power plants pose an unacceptable risk to the public's health by increasing air pollution, the Massachusetts Medical Society has adopted a policy opposing three currently proposed large-scale biomass power plants in Massachusetts and urging state government to adopt policies to minimize the approval and construction of new biomass plants."
The Hampden District Medical Society voted unanimously to formally oppose this plant because it presents "an unacceptable public health risk."
The Massachusetts Breast Cancer Coalition is also formally opposed to this plant as stated in their letter: "The Massachusetts Breast Cancer Coalition (MBCC) is the largest breast cancer organization in the state representing over 10,000 members. MBCC is dedicated to challenging all obstacles to the eradication of breast cancer. In particular, MBCC is concerned about the link between environmental toxins and the extremely high rate of breast cancer in the state and as a result, is in opposition to the burning of construction and demolition debris at the proposed Palmer Renewable Energy biomass plant."
The Physicians for Social Responsibility/Pioneer Valley oppose construction of incinerators in the valley. "It is the finding of the Physicians for Social Responsibility that the biomass power plants being proposed for several Pioneer Valley locations would contribute to particulate air pollution emissions in a region that already has pollution problems, and therefore we oppose the construction and operation of such plants."
Springfield air quality already receives a failing grade from the American Lung Association on many days of the year. American Lung Association of Massachusetts opposes this incinerator and explains why in a recent press release: "For years, the ALAMA has viewed biomass burning as a significant source of air pollution. We believe that the plants proposed in Massachusetts will create an unnecessary risk to both our state's health and air quality and are particularly concerned by inefficient and dirty sources of power located in communities that already suffer from poor air quality and high asthma rates."
Hampden County is already overburdened with lead pollution. According to the latest EPA figures, Hampden County sources emit 10,461 pounds of lead per year, which is 25% of the state's total.
EPA lead chart:
Effects on Our Children: The children of Hampden County are already suffering from this level of lead exposure with blood lead levels nearly double the state average. Lead can accumulate in bone and cause neurological impairment, developmental problems for children including loss of IQ, hearing impairment, delayed growth and behavior disorders. Researchers for the first time have linked air-pollution exposure before birth with lower IQ scores in childhood, bolstering evidence that smog may harm the developing brain.
The state asthma rate for children continues to climb and is now at 10%, but the Springfield rate is more than 16%! In addition to the emissions from the incinerator, there would be the added exhaust fumes from upwards of 140 truck trips a day. There are 55 schools within a five mile radius of the proposed toxic incinerator. A new study shows that children who breathe traffic-related air pollution at school are more likely to develop asthma, even after taking into account levels of air pollution at their homes.
Schools within a five mile radius of the proposed PRE incinerator
Fallout region with area schools-see website.
Environmental Issues: Burning wood releases 50% more carbon dioxide per unit of energy produced than a coal fired plant.
Carbon dioxide emissions from this incinerator are exempt from regulations.
"The science is clear: global warming is happening faster than ever and humans are responsible. Global warming is caused by releasing what are called greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The most common greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide. Many of the activities we do every day like turn the lights on, cook food, or heat or cool our homes rely on energy sources like coal and oil and that emit carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases. This is a major problem because global warming destabilizes the delicate balance that makes life on this planet possible. Just a few degrees in temperature can completely change the world as we know it, and threaten the lives of millions of people around the world."
Click here to view the source on 350.org and to learn more about how adding more corbon dioxide to the atmosphere could be disastrous!-see website
http://www.springfieldincinerator.info/
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Webmaster: Please go to the Stop Toxic Incineration in Springfield website for more details, charts, and graphs. Please support the effort by this organization.
An Innocent Victim of a Fire Pit--Remembering Aliaa
Saturday, September 25, 2010
An Innocent Victim of a Fire Pit
Remembering Aliaa
When we hear or read about a tragedy of a person violently dying, we are shocked and saddened. We ask why and how could this have happened. Could it have been prevented? Aliaa did not have to die so young, but, she did and did so horribly. Aliaa was the young girl that was so severely burned by her father’s action with an outdoor fire pit that she died.
When a child dies because of another person's habit to burn in a fire pit, we are left in absolute disbelief that this could even be possible. But, sadly it is possible because towns and elected officials have been apathetic, unwise, or indifferent not to Ban all outdoor open fires and Woodburning fire pits, fire pots, fireplaces and chimeneas, etc.
We must see this tragedy revealed for what it is—unneeded, unnecessary and preventable. This week in Lenox Township, Michigan, USA, a little 6 year old girl was seriously injured in a needless action with a fire pit. According to the Detroit newspapers, after suffering burns to 90 percent of her body, Aliaa Al-Shara died in the hospital.
This tragic death of Aliaa will be forever etched in our memory. What child should have to pay the price with their life because of being exposed to the grave dangers and use of fire pits, fire rings, bon fires, chimineas, outdoor fire places and all outdoor open air burning? Our cities must take immediate action to end all outdoor open air burning, no exceptions. Aliaa could be your daughter, granddaughter or a friend. The harsh reality is that people are reckless, and the need to burn overshadows the beauty and value of a human life.
Aliaa’s death should bring attention to the world that outdoor open air fires are not safe. They can be deadly weapons. They do grave harm to children. They do take life. They destroy entire families. Other children have suffered extensive and severe burns from fire pits and outdoor open air burning. Breathing Woodsmoke will harm and even kill you. Now is the time to demand that your city take action to BAN all outdoor open air burns. Your efforts will save many, many lives. Take action to make sure that never again will another child die from the use of a fire pit. Keep the memory of a 6 year old girl, Aliaa, alive.
Recently, in Boulder, Colorado, USA, the fire that destroyed 159 homes was started by an outdoor fire pit. How many more homes and lives must be destroyed by these and other outdoor Wood Burning devices of deaths before they are banned?
Aliaa’s life will not have been in vain if we Ban all Outdoor open burning in every city, community, village and town. We must all reach out and do everything possible to save the lives of other children. Do it for your children. Do it to honour and remember Aliaa.
By---Linda Baker Beaudin
Founder, Air is Precious
Cornwall, Ontario, Canada
Web master note---Aliaa Al-Shara's body was burned 90-100% per Macomb County Sheriff Mark Hackel. Aliaa died on Wednesday, September 22, 2010. This sad and unnecessary death happened in Lenox Township, Michigan, USA. Let's ban fire pits and all other outdoor wood burning. As stated in the letter above, let's do it to honour the memory of Aliaa.
Remembering Aliaa
When we hear or read about a tragedy of a person violently dying, we are shocked and saddened. We ask why and how could this have happened. Could it have been prevented? Aliaa did not have to die so young, but, she did and did so horribly. Aliaa was the young girl that was so severely burned by her father’s action with an outdoor fire pit that she died.
When a child dies because of another person's habit to burn in a fire pit, we are left in absolute disbelief that this could even be possible. But, sadly it is possible because towns and elected officials have been apathetic, unwise, or indifferent not to Ban all outdoor open fires and Woodburning fire pits, fire pots, fireplaces and chimeneas, etc.
We must see this tragedy revealed for what it is—unneeded, unnecessary and preventable. This week in Lenox Township, Michigan, USA, a little 6 year old girl was seriously injured in a needless action with a fire pit. According to the Detroit newspapers, after suffering burns to 90 percent of her body, Aliaa Al-Shara died in the hospital.
This tragic death of Aliaa will be forever etched in our memory. What child should have to pay the price with their life because of being exposed to the grave dangers and use of fire pits, fire rings, bon fires, chimineas, outdoor fire places and all outdoor open air burning? Our cities must take immediate action to end all outdoor open air burning, no exceptions. Aliaa could be your daughter, granddaughter or a friend. The harsh reality is that people are reckless, and the need to burn overshadows the beauty and value of a human life.
Aliaa’s death should bring attention to the world that outdoor open air fires are not safe. They can be deadly weapons. They do grave harm to children. They do take life. They destroy entire families. Other children have suffered extensive and severe burns from fire pits and outdoor open air burning. Breathing Woodsmoke will harm and even kill you. Now is the time to demand that your city take action to BAN all outdoor open air burns. Your efforts will save many, many lives. Take action to make sure that never again will another child die from the use of a fire pit. Keep the memory of a 6 year old girl, Aliaa, alive.
Recently, in Boulder, Colorado, USA, the fire that destroyed 159 homes was started by an outdoor fire pit. How many more homes and lives must be destroyed by these and other outdoor Wood Burning devices of deaths before they are banned?
Aliaa’s life will not have been in vain if we Ban all Outdoor open burning in every city, community, village and town. We must all reach out and do everything possible to save the lives of other children. Do it for your children. Do it to honour and remember Aliaa.
By---Linda Baker Beaudin
Founder, Air is Precious
Cornwall, Ontario, Canada
Web master note---Aliaa Al-Shara's body was burned 90-100% per Macomb County Sheriff Mark Hackel. Aliaa died on Wednesday, September 22, 2010. This sad and unnecessary death happened in Lenox Township, Michigan, USA. Let's ban fire pits and all other outdoor wood burning. As stated in the letter above, let's do it to honour the memory of Aliaa.
Would energy council address smoke issue?----Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Would energy council address smoke issue?
Written by Cathy Baiton
Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada
Friday, August 27 2010
Regarding the energy-environmental council proposed in the Aug. 7 guest column, it may be helpful to have some concrete examples of specific issues and ideas the group would hope to advance for our community. As the column indicates, this council would desire complete independence in promoting its perspective, reinforced by what it would deem the best information.
If granted the privilege and public trust of a council like this, would it be fully receptive to information and suggestions from all citizens? As I’ve written before, one problem deserving attention is air pollution from the use of wood for heating and cooking, and wood-burning fire pit emissions. What sort of position or advocacy might the proposed council seek to provide on this issue?
Internationally, a movement supported by concerned citizens as well as environmentalists, researchers, scientists and physicians is opposing biomass burning on an industrial scale, and the use of wood as a residential energy source. Some experts are challenging the claim that wood burning is carbon-neutral, and science confirms what a lot of people have discovered through experience: the combustion of wood — even in new, “certified” wood stoves — is considerably more polluting, and far less kind to human lungs, than cleaner energy alternatives.
At times my children have coughed in their beds at night, while toxic second-hand wood smoke, from which our current bylaws offer no protection, seeped into their rooms. Should people really have to tolerate any needless wood smoke in our urban environment, where everyone is sharing the air? I think cleaner and more socially compassionate energy options can and should be encouraged, with the most polluting and harmful practices best left behind. Would the existence of an energy-environmental council help to ensure clean, smoke-free air for better community health?
Perhaps our local officials may become willing to provide informed and caring leadership on the wood smoke problem. It may help if more residents voice concerns about the importance of fresh, clean air.
Whether or not a council like the one proposed will be formed over the long term, wood smoke pollution is affecting parts of our city now. With outdoor wood burning occurring often in some neighbourhoods, and another season of harmful wood stove and wood fireplace emissions on the way, I’m sure many share my hope that positive change on this specific energy and environmental issue can come soon.
Cathy Baiton
Lethbridge
From:Lethbridge Herald
Box 670 T1J 3Z7
504 - 7th Street South
Lethbridge, Alberta
Canada
Written by Cathy Baiton
Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada
Friday, August 27 2010
Regarding the energy-environmental council proposed in the Aug. 7 guest column, it may be helpful to have some concrete examples of specific issues and ideas the group would hope to advance for our community. As the column indicates, this council would desire complete independence in promoting its perspective, reinforced by what it would deem the best information.
If granted the privilege and public trust of a council like this, would it be fully receptive to information and suggestions from all citizens? As I’ve written before, one problem deserving attention is air pollution from the use of wood for heating and cooking, and wood-burning fire pit emissions. What sort of position or advocacy might the proposed council seek to provide on this issue?
Internationally, a movement supported by concerned citizens as well as environmentalists, researchers, scientists and physicians is opposing biomass burning on an industrial scale, and the use of wood as a residential energy source. Some experts are challenging the claim that wood burning is carbon-neutral, and science confirms what a lot of people have discovered through experience: the combustion of wood — even in new, “certified” wood stoves — is considerably more polluting, and far less kind to human lungs, than cleaner energy alternatives.
At times my children have coughed in their beds at night, while toxic second-hand wood smoke, from which our current bylaws offer no protection, seeped into their rooms. Should people really have to tolerate any needless wood smoke in our urban environment, where everyone is sharing the air? I think cleaner and more socially compassionate energy options can and should be encouraged, with the most polluting and harmful practices best left behind. Would the existence of an energy-environmental council help to ensure clean, smoke-free air for better community health?
Perhaps our local officials may become willing to provide informed and caring leadership on the wood smoke problem. It may help if more residents voice concerns about the importance of fresh, clean air.
Whether or not a council like the one proposed will be formed over the long term, wood smoke pollution is affecting parts of our city now. With outdoor wood burning occurring often in some neighbourhoods, and another season of harmful wood stove and wood fireplace emissions on the way, I’m sure many share my hope that positive change on this specific energy and environmental issue can come soon.
Cathy Baiton
Lethbridge
From:Lethbridge Herald
Box 670 T1J 3Z7
504 - 7th Street South
Lethbridge, Alberta
Canada
Ban Wood Burning Fire Pits! Calgary, Alberta
Friday, August 27, 2010
Firepits writ large
By Heather Berestiansky, Calgary Herald August 27, 2010
Re: "B. C. wildfire haze stirs health fears in Alberta," Aug. 20.
The smoke from the B.C. fires has shown to all Calgarians why those of us who are sensitive to wood smoke want to see firepits outlawed. With healthy people feeling the effects of the smoke, imagine what it is like if you suffer from asthma, or other respiratory conditions. We live in a dense urban environment and wood-burning firepits should not be allowed, especially when clean burning alternatives such as propane or natural gas fire pits exist.
Heather Berestiansky, Calgary
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
By Heather Berestiansky, Calgary Herald August 27, 2010
Re: "B. C. wildfire haze stirs health fears in Alberta," Aug. 20.
The smoke from the B.C. fires has shown to all Calgarians why those of us who are sensitive to wood smoke want to see firepits outlawed. With healthy people feeling the effects of the smoke, imagine what it is like if you suffer from asthma, or other respiratory conditions. We live in a dense urban environment and wood-burning firepits should not be allowed, especially when clean burning alternatives such as propane or natural gas fire pits exist.
Heather Berestiansky, Calgary
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
Coalition Against Wood Burning
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Coalition Against Wood Burning
(***This site is a work in progress as there is so much more to add!***)
New organization helping us to fight woodsmoke.
The International Coalition Against Wood Burning
Some excerpts from this new website are:
A site dedicated to ending wood burning and the health and environmental effects it causes.
------
THE ONLY WISE BURNING IS NO BURNING
Much has been published by wood burning appliance makers and forestry that might lead one to believe that wood burning is safe. Not so!
There is no such thing as 'good' smoke. All smoke carries particulate matter that can be drawn deep into the lungs to cause severe damage. If you can smell smoke then you are inhaling these particulates and the damage has begun. You cannot escape the wood smoke that makes its way into your home through ventilation systems and even minute spaces in doors and windows. No air cleaner will clear the air and make it safe to breathe.
We all need to work on this important issue and we need to do it now!
------
Wood smoke pollution and your health
For those that think that doctors are lax in speaking out on the wood smoke issue and its harmful effects on our health and environment, here are 3 prominent doctors who tell it like it is.
Please pass this on to your municipalities and governmental agencies, many of which have no idea of the seriousness of living next to someone who burns and releases the toxins into our air.
With gratitude to:
Dr. Jim Markos, medical lung specialist (Australian Lung Foundation)
Dr. Sverre Vedal of the University of Washington
Dr. Michael Aizen from the Australian Medical Association
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaxSgglRpLY
------
Effects of Wood Smoke
Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons are produced in abundance when you burn wood.
"They are primarily formed by incomplete combustion of carbon-containing fuels such as wood, coal, diesel, fat, or tobacco. Tar also contains PAHs. Since human civilization relies so heavily on combustion, PAHs are inevitably linked to our energy production. In this sense, PAH can be thought of as marker molecules as their abundance can be directly proportional to combustion processes in the region and therefore directly related to air quality. Different types of combustion yield different distributions of PAHs."� Wikipedia�
The EPA estimates that the lifetime cancer risk from wood stove smoke is twelve times greater than that from an equal volume of second hand tobacco smoke. (The Health Effects of Wood Smoke, Washington State Department of Ecology)
"Burning two cords of wood produces the same amount of mutagenic particles as: Driving 13 gasoline powered cars 10,000 miles each at 20 miles/gallon. These figures indicate that the worst contribution that an individual is likely to make to the mutagenicity of the air is using a wood stove for heating, followed by driving a diesel car." ( Dr. Joellen Lewtas, Contribution of Source Emissions of the Mutagenicity of Ambient Urban Air Particles, U.S. EPA, #91-131.6, 1991 )
-----
This site is a gathering place for people around the world to come together to help clear our planet of wood smoke pollution.
To join us, send a comment or suggestion, please send an email to Shirley.
E-mail---s.brandie@sympatico.ca---for more information.
http://CoalitionAgainstWoodBurning.com
-----
Webmaster comment: Congrats on your new website and we welcome your organization.
(***This site is a work in progress as there is so much more to add!***)
New organization helping us to fight woodsmoke.
The International Coalition Against Wood Burning
Some excerpts from this new website are:
A site dedicated to ending wood burning and the health and environmental effects it causes.
------
THE ONLY WISE BURNING IS NO BURNING
Much has been published by wood burning appliance makers and forestry that might lead one to believe that wood burning is safe. Not so!
There is no such thing as 'good' smoke. All smoke carries particulate matter that can be drawn deep into the lungs to cause severe damage. If you can smell smoke then you are inhaling these particulates and the damage has begun. You cannot escape the wood smoke that makes its way into your home through ventilation systems and even minute spaces in doors and windows. No air cleaner will clear the air and make it safe to breathe.
We all need to work on this important issue and we need to do it now!
------
Wood smoke pollution and your health
For those that think that doctors are lax in speaking out on the wood smoke issue and its harmful effects on our health and environment, here are 3 prominent doctors who tell it like it is.
Please pass this on to your municipalities and governmental agencies, many of which have no idea of the seriousness of living next to someone who burns and releases the toxins into our air.
With gratitude to:
Dr. Jim Markos, medical lung specialist (Australian Lung Foundation)
Dr. Sverre Vedal of the University of Washington
Dr. Michael Aizen from the Australian Medical Association
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaxSgglRpLY
------
Effects of Wood Smoke
Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons are produced in abundance when you burn wood.
"They are primarily formed by incomplete combustion of carbon-containing fuels such as wood, coal, diesel, fat, or tobacco. Tar also contains PAHs. Since human civilization relies so heavily on combustion, PAHs are inevitably linked to our energy production. In this sense, PAH can be thought of as marker molecules as their abundance can be directly proportional to combustion processes in the region and therefore directly related to air quality. Different types of combustion yield different distributions of PAHs."� Wikipedia�
The EPA estimates that the lifetime cancer risk from wood stove smoke is twelve times greater than that from an equal volume of second hand tobacco smoke. (The Health Effects of Wood Smoke, Washington State Department of Ecology)
"Burning two cords of wood produces the same amount of mutagenic particles as: Driving 13 gasoline powered cars 10,000 miles each at 20 miles/gallon. These figures indicate that the worst contribution that an individual is likely to make to the mutagenicity of the air is using a wood stove for heating, followed by driving a diesel car." ( Dr. Joellen Lewtas, Contribution of Source Emissions of the Mutagenicity of Ambient Urban Air Particles, U.S. EPA, #91-131.6, 1991 )
-----
This site is a gathering place for people around the world to come together to help clear our planet of wood smoke pollution.
To join us, send a comment or suggestion, please send an email to Shirley.
E-mail---s.brandie@sympatico.ca---for more information.
http://CoalitionAgainstWoodBurning.com
-----
Webmaster comment: Congrats on your new website and we welcome your organization.
No room for apathy this summer--Canada
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Letter to the Editor
July 28, 2010
Philly.com website
CottageCountryNow.ca 1 week ago
No room for apathy this summer
Victims of woodsmoke pollution continue being assaulted from the toxic acrid woodsmoke filled air that permeates many communities.
Outdoor open-air burns are still permitted in urban areas in our nation. People continue becoming ill and thousands die each year in Canada from woodsmoke related illness. Asthma, COPD, cardiovascular, cardiopulmonary, cancer and other diseases have been linked with woodsmoke pollution.
Woodsmoke is a deadly silent killer. There is no longer room for apathy.
There is no longer room for the disregard and disrespect that is shown to the victims of woodsmoke pollution. Our health units, mayors, fire departments, council members and elected leaders are not acknowledging the pleas and petitions for help.
Woodsmoke pollution is a Canadian crisis that is affecting the life and health of every person in each city. Outdoor open-air burns must be banned in all Canadian urban areas. Our government is neglecting this ongoing, life threatening health crisis.
No longer is there room for apathy. This toxic woodsmoke pollution issue must be addressed in each community. We become sicker each day from being assaulted by outdoor open-air burns.
Fine particulate matter (PM2.5) from woodstoves, woodburning fireplaces and outdoor woodboilers when inhaled goes deeply into the lungs causing irreparable damage.
People are suffering. Our children live daily using asthma inhalers that provide them with easier breathing, while our officials and leaders show blatant disrespect and disregard to those demanding a ban on all outdoor open air burns.
The time has come and it is long overdue. We must see changes take place in our communities. We must see a ban on all outdoor open-air burns. Our health boards, elected leaders and governments must become accountable for their lack of action. In each Canadian province the outcry from the victims of woodsmoke pollution remains the same. Ban woodsmoke.
Ban it before we become even sicker and our families suffer even more.
People are dying in Canada from woodsmoke-related illness. People are dying worldwide from woodsmoke pollution.
Do not sit back apathetic and allow woodsmoke to destroy your life and health any longer. Demand change in your community. Do not accept woodburning as something you must live with. Our leaders can take action and ban all woodsmoke.
There no longer is room for apathy, but there is room for action. Take action in your community. Make becoming informed about woodsmoke your number one priority.
Your life and breath depend on it.
See the following Esteemed Websites for further information: Breathe healthy air http://breathehealthyair.blogspot.com Clean Air Revival http://burningissues.org/ Canadian Clean Air Alliance http://www.canadiancleanairalliance.ca Freedom of Air http://www.myspace.com/freedomofair
There is no room for apathy.
Linda Baker Beaudin
Cornwall
Webmaster: All Canadians should raise their voices and hearts and join others that want a ban on woodsmoke in Canada. Contacting this writer is a great way to begin.
Linda Baker Beaudin, Founder
Air is Precious
P O Box 22049
1236 Brookdale Avenue
Cornwall, Ontario, Canada
K6J 4P8
airisprecious@gmail.com
July 28, 2010
Philly.com website
CottageCountryNow.ca 1 week ago
No room for apathy this summer
Victims of woodsmoke pollution continue being assaulted from the toxic acrid woodsmoke filled air that permeates many communities.
Outdoor open-air burns are still permitted in urban areas in our nation. People continue becoming ill and thousands die each year in Canada from woodsmoke related illness. Asthma, COPD, cardiovascular, cardiopulmonary, cancer and other diseases have been linked with woodsmoke pollution.
Woodsmoke is a deadly silent killer. There is no longer room for apathy.
There is no longer room for the disregard and disrespect that is shown to the victims of woodsmoke pollution. Our health units, mayors, fire departments, council members and elected leaders are not acknowledging the pleas and petitions for help.
Woodsmoke pollution is a Canadian crisis that is affecting the life and health of every person in each city. Outdoor open-air burns must be banned in all Canadian urban areas. Our government is neglecting this ongoing, life threatening health crisis.
No longer is there room for apathy. This toxic woodsmoke pollution issue must be addressed in each community. We become sicker each day from being assaulted by outdoor open-air burns.
Fine particulate matter (PM2.5) from woodstoves, woodburning fireplaces and outdoor woodboilers when inhaled goes deeply into the lungs causing irreparable damage.
People are suffering. Our children live daily using asthma inhalers that provide them with easier breathing, while our officials and leaders show blatant disrespect and disregard to those demanding a ban on all outdoor open air burns.
The time has come and it is long overdue. We must see changes take place in our communities. We must see a ban on all outdoor open-air burns. Our health boards, elected leaders and governments must become accountable for their lack of action. In each Canadian province the outcry from the victims of woodsmoke pollution remains the same. Ban woodsmoke.
Ban it before we become even sicker and our families suffer even more.
People are dying in Canada from woodsmoke-related illness. People are dying worldwide from woodsmoke pollution.
Do not sit back apathetic and allow woodsmoke to destroy your life and health any longer. Demand change in your community. Do not accept woodburning as something you must live with. Our leaders can take action and ban all woodsmoke.
There no longer is room for apathy, but there is room for action. Take action in your community. Make becoming informed about woodsmoke your number one priority.
Your life and breath depend on it.
See the following Esteemed Websites for further information: Breathe healthy air http://breathehealthyair.blogspot.com Clean Air Revival http://burningissues.org/ Canadian Clean Air Alliance http://www.canadiancleanairalliance.ca Freedom of Air http://www.myspace.com/freedomofair
There is no room for apathy.
Linda Baker Beaudin
Cornwall
Webmaster: All Canadians should raise their voices and hearts and join others that want a ban on woodsmoke in Canada. Contacting this writer is a great way to begin.
Linda Baker Beaudin, Founder
Air is Precious
P O Box 22049
1236 Brookdale Avenue
Cornwall, Ontario, Canada
K6J 4P8
airisprecious@gmail.com
Woodsmoke victims caught in bureaucratic nightmare-Canada
Woodsmoke victims caught in bureaucratic nightmare
Published on August 4th, 2010 in The Western Star
A Province on the East Coast of Canada
Dear editor: Trapped in clouds of heavy plumes of tainted acrid smelling woodsmoke and in a bureaucratic system wrapped in red tape and apathy, the Victims of Woodsmoke Pollution are left to cope with a nightmare in their lives all alone and with no help in sight.
While millions of Canadians are suffering from woodsmoke health-related issues, the Canadian government, elected leaders and municipalities have rebuffed their pleas for immediate or any action to ban woodsmoke.
Woodsmoke pollution has become a Canadian crisis of monumental proportion. The victims of woodsmoke are physically suffering from asthma, COPD, cardiovascular, cardiopulmonary, cancer and other woodsmoke-related diseases. Their quality of life has been diminished. They are receiving no help from their government.
Government has been informed and alerted by victims across the entire nation about this woodsmoke crisis and have done nothing.
Ongoing communication with many levels of government only send the suffering Victims of Woodsmoke Pollution in a circle of desperation without one single iota of help or hope.
They are left with weakened immune systems and an ongoing assault of health concerns and thoughts of their impending demise. One by one the Victims of Woodsmoke Pollution topple into the abyss, neglected by their government.
Too many continue to suffer health-related issues from breathing the toxic chemicals in woodsmoke. Woodsmoke victims will remain vigilant and determined to see that one day the citizens of Canada will have the right and common decency to breathe healthy air, woodsmoke-free. Urban areas must be protected from all woodsmoke pollution. We are protected from tobacco smoke, yet woodsmoke is even worse for our health than tobacco smoke. Both cause suffering, illness and death.
The proximity of our homes and lungs are in the direct line of woodsmoke from neighbours’ woodsmoke. Woodsmoke pollution comes from woodburning fire places, woodburning stoves, and all outdoor open air burns. There no longer exists a need to pollute, saturate, and smother lives in toxic woodsmoke, hazed-filled clouds. Many cleaner methods of heating are available within urban areas.
Our bureaucratic process has failed us. Our life hangs on the balance of impending doom and more continued suffering until our government takes action to ban all outdoor open air burns across our nation and until regulations are implemented to phase out the use of woodburning stoves and woodburning fireplaces in all urban areas. No exceptions.
Will the Victims of Woodsmoke Pollution continue to be lost and forgotten in this bureaucratic nightmare wrapped in red tape or will our government awaken to the suffering and needs of our nation and ban all outdoor open air burns?
Linda Baker Beaudin, Cornwall, Ont.
Webmaster comment: To All Canadians
Please contact and join with this dynamic writer and supporter of wood burning bans in Canada.
Linda Baker Beaudin
Founder, Air is Precious
P O Box 22049
1236 Brookdale Avenue
Cornwall, Ontario, Canada
K6J 4P8
airisprecious@gmail.com
Published on August 4th, 2010 in The Western Star
A Province on the East Coast of Canada
Dear editor: Trapped in clouds of heavy plumes of tainted acrid smelling woodsmoke and in a bureaucratic system wrapped in red tape and apathy, the Victims of Woodsmoke Pollution are left to cope with a nightmare in their lives all alone and with no help in sight.
While millions of Canadians are suffering from woodsmoke health-related issues, the Canadian government, elected leaders and municipalities have rebuffed their pleas for immediate or any action to ban woodsmoke.
Woodsmoke pollution has become a Canadian crisis of monumental proportion. The victims of woodsmoke are physically suffering from asthma, COPD, cardiovascular, cardiopulmonary, cancer and other woodsmoke-related diseases. Their quality of life has been diminished. They are receiving no help from their government.
Government has been informed and alerted by victims across the entire nation about this woodsmoke crisis and have done nothing.
Ongoing communication with many levels of government only send the suffering Victims of Woodsmoke Pollution in a circle of desperation without one single iota of help or hope.
They are left with weakened immune systems and an ongoing assault of health concerns and thoughts of their impending demise. One by one the Victims of Woodsmoke Pollution topple into the abyss, neglected by their government.
Too many continue to suffer health-related issues from breathing the toxic chemicals in woodsmoke. Woodsmoke victims will remain vigilant and determined to see that one day the citizens of Canada will have the right and common decency to breathe healthy air, woodsmoke-free. Urban areas must be protected from all woodsmoke pollution. We are protected from tobacco smoke, yet woodsmoke is even worse for our health than tobacco smoke. Both cause suffering, illness and death.
The proximity of our homes and lungs are in the direct line of woodsmoke from neighbours’ woodsmoke. Woodsmoke pollution comes from woodburning fire places, woodburning stoves, and all outdoor open air burns. There no longer exists a need to pollute, saturate, and smother lives in toxic woodsmoke, hazed-filled clouds. Many cleaner methods of heating are available within urban areas.
Our bureaucratic process has failed us. Our life hangs on the balance of impending doom and more continued suffering until our government takes action to ban all outdoor open air burns across our nation and until regulations are implemented to phase out the use of woodburning stoves and woodburning fireplaces in all urban areas. No exceptions.
Will the Victims of Woodsmoke Pollution continue to be lost and forgotten in this bureaucratic nightmare wrapped in red tape or will our government awaken to the suffering and needs of our nation and ban all outdoor open air burns?
Linda Baker Beaudin, Cornwall, Ont.
Webmaster comment: To All Canadians
Please contact and join with this dynamic writer and supporter of wood burning bans in Canada.
Linda Baker Beaudin
Founder, Air is Precious
P O Box 22049
1236 Brookdale Avenue
Cornwall, Ontario, Canada
K6J 4P8
airisprecious@gmail.com
Wood smoke violates the property rights-Letter
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Ubiquitous
By Julie Mellum,
The Calgary Herald July 24, 2010
Re: "Where there's smoke -- there should be a ban," Naomi Lakritz, Opinion, July 21.
Naomi Lakritz's column exemplifies the plight our cities are in because of wood smoke. It is everywhere. Wood smoke violates the property rights of other taxpayers by preventing them from using and enjoying their property when it is infused with smoke's caustic and deadly fumes. If people have a "right" to burn, shouldn't others who understand the severe health hazards of wood smoke have the "right" to clean air on their property? Wood smoke violates most nuisance ordinances, but enforcement is not supported by government. I urge Calgary citizens to rise up and refuse to pay property taxes on a per diem pro-rated basis for every day that wood smoke interferes with your enjoyment of your property outdoors and inside. Your and your family's health are at stake, as is the environment. Demand a ban. See www.canadiancleanairalliance.cato learn more.
Julie Mellum, Minneapolis, Minn. Julie Mellum is president of Take Back the Air.
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
By Julie Mellum,
The Calgary Herald July 24, 2010
Re: "Where there's smoke -- there should be a ban," Naomi Lakritz, Opinion, July 21.
Naomi Lakritz's column exemplifies the plight our cities are in because of wood smoke. It is everywhere. Wood smoke violates the property rights of other taxpayers by preventing them from using and enjoying their property when it is infused with smoke's caustic and deadly fumes. If people have a "right" to burn, shouldn't others who understand the severe health hazards of wood smoke have the "right" to clean air on their property? Wood smoke violates most nuisance ordinances, but enforcement is not supported by government. I urge Calgary citizens to rise up and refuse to pay property taxes on a per diem pro-rated basis for every day that wood smoke interferes with your enjoyment of your property outdoors and inside. Your and your family's health are at stake, as is the environment. Demand a ban. See www.canadiancleanairalliance.cato learn more.
Julie Mellum, Minneapolis, Minn. Julie Mellum is president of Take Back the Air.
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
Where there's smoke -- there should be a ban
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Summertime, and the breathin' ain't easy.
By Naomi Lakritz, Calgary Herald July 21, 2010 8:02 AM
At least, it's not easy for Calgarians like Janey Kinnley, who must spend her summer days and evenings closed up in her house whenever someone within a two-block radius is using a backyard firepit. Kinnley, 64, was diagnosed with asthma 10 years ago, and smoke from neighbouring firepits makes her ill.
"People think that you're just a crazy old lady who doesn't like the smell of the smoke. It's not like that. It's literally killing me," Kinnley says.
Her southeast Calgary home has two decks and a flower garden, but she can only enjoy them from behind closed windows when firepits are lit in her area.
"I have to come in, close my doors and windows, put on the furnace fan, and exist in here. My throat gets very raw and sore, I get short of breath, and if it's really bad, I can get dizzy and my heart pounds. I had that (Sunday) night; (Saturday and Sunday) nights they were burning. Thank God, it was only four, five or six hours. They started at 6 p.m. and by 12:30 a.m., it was pretty well clear. Smoke interferes with heart rhythms and my heart was still pounding when I got up (Monday) morning," she says.
A non-smoker, Kinnley used to love firepits and campfires, but since her diagnosis, she knows how people feel on both sides of the issue: "I used to enjoy the firepits. I can understand why people enjoy them, but if it was killing my neighbour, I wouldn't be burning one."
This is a city of one million people, living on mainly small lots. Firepits have no place on those lots. Besides asthma, people have smoke allergies and debilitative conditions such as chronic pulmonary obstructive disease.
Some letter writers to the Herald recently insisted upon their right to a fire in their backyards. They claimed it was a property rights issue and they don't want anyone dictating what they can do in their yard. One argued that fond memories are created sitting around summer evening fires out back.
A fire is hardly essential to creating fond memories of backyard get-togethers. As for property rights, what about the right of a neighbour to enjoy his or her property without being made ill? Since when is having a fire some sort of human right?
Kinnley, who has formed the group Fresh Air Calgary, part of the national Canadian Clean Air Alliance, says her lung function has dropped by 10 per cent in just two years: "I'm fighting for my life literally. Every day, my lungs are getting more and more sensitive to what's going on." Kinnley is grateful that her immediate next-door neighbour stopped using a firepit when she explained about her health problems, but smoke from other firepits in the area still gets to her.
If only more people would be considerate of others, instead of taking a bellicose stance on being dictated to about permissible activities in one's yard. There are plenty of things you can't do in your yard, such as collect rusted-out hulks of junked cars, or raise goats. Backyard firepits have been banned in Maple Ridge, Chilliwack, Langley and Abbotsford, B.C. -- and these smelly nuisances should be banned in Calgary.
Bill Bruce, director of animal and bylaw services, says a handful of complaints come in each year about health concerns. He and fire Chief Bruce Burrell both have the power to shut down a firepit that's affecting someone's health -- and there's a $5,000 fine for non-compliance. He can't speak directly to Kinnley's case, but says, "If the link is to a firepit next door, it's a piece of cake." Firepits within a two-block radius are dicier because they fall into a grey area which depend on wind direction and climate conditions. He'd also need to see a doctor's note from the suffering individual before taking action.
According to the Canadian Lung Association, "wood smoke exposure can disrupt the cellular membranes, depress immune system activity, damage the layer of cells that protect and cleanse the airways, and disrupt enzyme levels. The health effects of wood smoke exposure include increased respiratory symptoms, increased hospital admissions for lower respiratory infections, exacerbation of asthma, and decreased breathing ability."
Wood smoke gives off particulate matter, which the Environmental Protection Act says can lead "to serious respiratory problems, including excess mortality, especially among those with pre-existing cardiopulmonary illness."
Other ingredients in wood smoke include carbon monoxide, oxides of nitrogen which "can cause shortness of breath . . . in people with lung diseases," hydrocarbons, volatile organic compounds, formaldehyde, which "can cause coughing, headaches, and eye irritation and act as a trigger for people with asthma," polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons -- a suspected carcinogen -- cancer-causing dioxins, and acrolein, which irritates the eyes and respiratory tract.
Healthy or ill, who wants to breathe in any of this junk wafting over from the neighbour's yard? If you want to sit around a fire, go camping, far away from the city.
By Naomi Lakritz, Calgary Herald July 21, 2010 8:02 AM
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald (Canada)
The Provence
By Naomi Lakritz, Calgary Herald July 21, 2010 8:02 AM
At least, it's not easy for Calgarians like Janey Kinnley, who must spend her summer days and evenings closed up in her house whenever someone within a two-block radius is using a backyard firepit. Kinnley, 64, was diagnosed with asthma 10 years ago, and smoke from neighbouring firepits makes her ill.
"People think that you're just a crazy old lady who doesn't like the smell of the smoke. It's not like that. It's literally killing me," Kinnley says.
Her southeast Calgary home has two decks and a flower garden, but she can only enjoy them from behind closed windows when firepits are lit in her area.
"I have to come in, close my doors and windows, put on the furnace fan, and exist in here. My throat gets very raw and sore, I get short of breath, and if it's really bad, I can get dizzy and my heart pounds. I had that (Sunday) night; (Saturday and Sunday) nights they were burning. Thank God, it was only four, five or six hours. They started at 6 p.m. and by 12:30 a.m., it was pretty well clear. Smoke interferes with heart rhythms and my heart was still pounding when I got up (Monday) morning," she says.
A non-smoker, Kinnley used to love firepits and campfires, but since her diagnosis, she knows how people feel on both sides of the issue: "I used to enjoy the firepits. I can understand why people enjoy them, but if it was killing my neighbour, I wouldn't be burning one."
This is a city of one million people, living on mainly small lots. Firepits have no place on those lots. Besides asthma, people have smoke allergies and debilitative conditions such as chronic pulmonary obstructive disease.
Some letter writers to the Herald recently insisted upon their right to a fire in their backyards. They claimed it was a property rights issue and they don't want anyone dictating what they can do in their yard. One argued that fond memories are created sitting around summer evening fires out back.
A fire is hardly essential to creating fond memories of backyard get-togethers. As for property rights, what about the right of a neighbour to enjoy his or her property without being made ill? Since when is having a fire some sort of human right?
Kinnley, who has formed the group Fresh Air Calgary, part of the national Canadian Clean Air Alliance, says her lung function has dropped by 10 per cent in just two years: "I'm fighting for my life literally. Every day, my lungs are getting more and more sensitive to what's going on." Kinnley is grateful that her immediate next-door neighbour stopped using a firepit when she explained about her health problems, but smoke from other firepits in the area still gets to her.
If only more people would be considerate of others, instead of taking a bellicose stance on being dictated to about permissible activities in one's yard. There are plenty of things you can't do in your yard, such as collect rusted-out hulks of junked cars, or raise goats. Backyard firepits have been banned in Maple Ridge, Chilliwack, Langley and Abbotsford, B.C. -- and these smelly nuisances should be banned in Calgary.
Bill Bruce, director of animal and bylaw services, says a handful of complaints come in each year about health concerns. He and fire Chief Bruce Burrell both have the power to shut down a firepit that's affecting someone's health -- and there's a $5,000 fine for non-compliance. He can't speak directly to Kinnley's case, but says, "If the link is to a firepit next door, it's a piece of cake." Firepits within a two-block radius are dicier because they fall into a grey area which depend on wind direction and climate conditions. He'd also need to see a doctor's note from the suffering individual before taking action.
According to the Canadian Lung Association, "wood smoke exposure can disrupt the cellular membranes, depress immune system activity, damage the layer of cells that protect and cleanse the airways, and disrupt enzyme levels. The health effects of wood smoke exposure include increased respiratory symptoms, increased hospital admissions for lower respiratory infections, exacerbation of asthma, and decreased breathing ability."
Wood smoke gives off particulate matter, which the Environmental Protection Act says can lead "to serious respiratory problems, including excess mortality, especially among those with pre-existing cardiopulmonary illness."
Other ingredients in wood smoke include carbon monoxide, oxides of nitrogen which "can cause shortness of breath . . . in people with lung diseases," hydrocarbons, volatile organic compounds, formaldehyde, which "can cause coughing, headaches, and eye irritation and act as a trigger for people with asthma," polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons -- a suspected carcinogen -- cancer-causing dioxins, and acrolein, which irritates the eyes and respiratory tract.
Healthy or ill, who wants to breathe in any of this junk wafting over from the neighbour's yard? If you want to sit around a fire, go camping, far away from the city.
By Naomi Lakritz, Calgary Herald July 21, 2010 8:02 AM
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald (Canada)
The Provence
Clear the air! Calgary Herald, Canada
Friday, July 16, 2010
Clear the air!
By Anne Day
Letter to the Calgary Herald
Calgary Herald July 10, 2010
I am in total agreement with this letter. At the back of my villa are two single family dwellings that both have firepits. They are in use in summer, when everyone likes to have their windows open to enjoy the fresh spring and summer air. However, the smoke drifts into my place, affecting my chronic cough, and I have to close things up. My right to enjoy fresh air is equal to theirs.
I have written twice to my Ald. Ric McIver, and last year, contacted bylaw control. They checked it out but said these were nice people. Nothing was done. I don't know what being "nice" has to do with anything.
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald Canada
By Anne Day
Letter to the Calgary Herald
Calgary Herald July 10, 2010
I am in total agreement with this letter. At the back of my villa are two single family dwellings that both have firepits. They are in use in summer, when everyone likes to have their windows open to enjoy the fresh spring and summer air. However, the smoke drifts into my place, affecting my chronic cough, and I have to close things up. My right to enjoy fresh air is equal to theirs.
I have written twice to my Ald. Ric McIver, and last year, contacted bylaw control. They checked it out but said these were nice people. Nothing was done. I don't know what being "nice" has to do with anything.
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald Canada
Smoke signals-Canada
Monday, July 12, 2010
Smoke signals
By Cathy Baiton, Calgary Herald July 11, 2010
Re: "Backyard burning. Ban firepits!," Letter, July 8.
It was good to see the recent letter supporting the wisdom of banning urban firepits. A growing number of communities in Canada -- and elsewhere -- have already banned wood-burning firepits, to prevent the unnecessary fire risk, and to help protect the air and residents' health. More people now recognize that wood smoke just doesn't belong in residential areas, where everyone is sharing the air.
There is simply no way to burn wood without creating pollution and smoke. Even the burning of clean, dry, seasoned hardwood, emits a considerable amount of pollution.
In cities across Alberta, people now have much more protection from secondhand cigarette smoke, but no protection from unwanted second-hand wood smoke, which is no less hazardous to health. If Calgary were to successfully pass a bylaw banning wood burning firepits, it would relieve the needless suffering from firepit smoke that many people are now having to endure in their homes, yards, and neighbourhoods. It would also set an excellent example of concern for public health and environmental stewardship that other Alberta communities would hopefully be encouraged to follow, for the good of their own air quality and community health.
Cathy Baiton, Lethbridge
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
By Cathy Baiton, Calgary Herald July 11, 2010
Re: "Backyard burning. Ban firepits!," Letter, July 8.
It was good to see the recent letter supporting the wisdom of banning urban firepits. A growing number of communities in Canada -- and elsewhere -- have already banned wood-burning firepits, to prevent the unnecessary fire risk, and to help protect the air and residents' health. More people now recognize that wood smoke just doesn't belong in residential areas, where everyone is sharing the air.
There is simply no way to burn wood without creating pollution and smoke. Even the burning of clean, dry, seasoned hardwood, emits a considerable amount of pollution.
In cities across Alberta, people now have much more protection from secondhand cigarette smoke, but no protection from unwanted second-hand wood smoke, which is no less hazardous to health. If Calgary were to successfully pass a bylaw banning wood burning firepits, it would relieve the needless suffering from firepit smoke that many people are now having to endure in their homes, yards, and neighbourhoods. It would also set an excellent example of concern for public health and environmental stewardship that other Alberta communities would hopefully be encouraged to follow, for the good of their own air quality and community health.
Cathy Baiton, Lethbridge
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
Backyard burning. Ban firepits! (Canada)
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Backyard burning. Ban firepits!
July 8, 2010
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald (Canada)
I believe it's time to reconsider the wisdom of allowing backyard firepits. It's approaching 11 p.m., on a weeknight, as I sit at my kitchen table and write.
The air is not too pleasant, either inside or outside my home on this night. You see, since around noon, I have been subjected to the incessant smoke from a neighbour's firepit, just one lot away from my own.
Surely it's not possible for this homeowner to be unaware of the impact such backyard activity creates in the neighbourhood. The relentless plumes of smoke wafting away from their property would suggest otherwise.
The smoke is both a nuisance and an obstruction to the enjoyment of my own backyard space.
This same smoke also means that I am compelled to close windows or permit something other than fresh air inside. The city of Calgary is congested and continuing to grow, which means we place our homes very close to one another.
Firepits are more suited to campground settings or acreages, where such an activity is expected and accepted in these more appropriate locales.
I don't have the monitoring equipment to measure the air quality around my property, but my nose can certainly conclude that almost 12 hours of backyard burning is too much for the neighbours and the neighbourhood.
Since common sense and community-minded attitudes cannot be realized, even with our existing, reasonable firepit bylaw; then I see a ban as the only clear solution.
Louise M. Stinson, Calgary
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
Webmaster----Yes. Ban all outdoor open air buns and all wood burning.
July 8, 2010
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald (Canada)
I believe it's time to reconsider the wisdom of allowing backyard firepits. It's approaching 11 p.m., on a weeknight, as I sit at my kitchen table and write.
The air is not too pleasant, either inside or outside my home on this night. You see, since around noon, I have been subjected to the incessant smoke from a neighbour's firepit, just one lot away from my own.
Surely it's not possible for this homeowner to be unaware of the impact such backyard activity creates in the neighbourhood. The relentless plumes of smoke wafting away from their property would suggest otherwise.
The smoke is both a nuisance and an obstruction to the enjoyment of my own backyard space.
This same smoke also means that I am compelled to close windows or permit something other than fresh air inside. The city of Calgary is congested and continuing to grow, which means we place our homes very close to one another.
Firepits are more suited to campground settings or acreages, where such an activity is expected and accepted in these more appropriate locales.
I don't have the monitoring equipment to measure the air quality around my property, but my nose can certainly conclude that almost 12 hours of backyard burning is too much for the neighbours and the neighbourhood.
Since common sense and community-minded attitudes cannot be realized, even with our existing, reasonable firepit bylaw; then I see a ban as the only clear solution.
Louise M. Stinson, Calgary
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
Webmaster----Yes. Ban all outdoor open air buns and all wood burning.
Burning is an option.... Breathing is not!
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Burning is an option.... Breathing is not!
By Shirley Brandie (Canada)
With all the information that is now available to everyone, via the press and the Internet, regarding the health and environmental effects of wood burning in residential areas, one has to wonder when the powers that be will step in and create the laws needed to end this nightmare that so many are living through.
Municipalities rarely step in to help when a complaint is sent to them and prefer to regard it as a 'civil matter' in an attempt to avoid dealing with the problem, for reasons known only to them. There is no reason why a bylaw cannot be created and enforced so that those that are having their homes and properties deluged in smoke from a neighbor's wood burning can finally breathe in their own homes.
I would think that the municipalities would want to keep their residents safe and not put this on the back burner... pun intended.
I have a web site at: http://WoodBurnerSmoke.net and also publish monthly newsletters regarding wood smoke. I no longer worry about wood smoke as I did take the legal route to obtain an injunction. But, what about those that do not have the monies to do the same? My web site was created in an attempt to give some guidance, suggestions and most of all empathy for those who so badly need it. I receive emails daily from people all over the US and Canada with stories and photos that would break your heart. What are they to do when there is no help, not matter where they turn?
It is the usual case that, when the neighbor is told that the smoke is getting into their house, the burner increases the burning. This leads to further distress and the burner knows that the only recourse for the victim is to seek lengthy and expensive legal help. This is just not right!
Breathing wood smoke is a very real danger and one that the victims cannot escape. They try everything they can to attempt to keep out the smoke but nothing works as the particles are so very tiny that they seep in through any minute space available. Headaches, nausea, heart rhythm problems, sinus infections, nosebleeds and other physical symptoms are what these people are forced to live with.
Burners, on the other hand, carry on with the burning and tell them that it is their 'right' to burn. What about the rights of the neighbors to breathe clean air in their own homes?
Burners will not stop burning unless forced to. For those that have never experienced living next door to a burner, imagine yourself in your house with smoke so thick that you can see it. What would you do? Who would you turn to? And, believe me, it could happen to you almost overnight as it did to us!
We need municipalities to pull up their socks and get bylaws created for the sake of all that are suffering with wood smoke invasion. We also need governmental agencies to help to put some pressure on all municipalities to get this issue moving before another winter begins and the wood burning increases even more than it is at present.
Shirley Brandie
Amherstburg, Ontario, Canada
Burning is an option....Breathing is not!
See---http://WoodBurnerSmoke.net
By Shirley Brandie (Canada)
With all the information that is now available to everyone, via the press and the Internet, regarding the health and environmental effects of wood burning in residential areas, one has to wonder when the powers that be will step in and create the laws needed to end this nightmare that so many are living through.
Municipalities rarely step in to help when a complaint is sent to them and prefer to regard it as a 'civil matter' in an attempt to avoid dealing with the problem, for reasons known only to them. There is no reason why a bylaw cannot be created and enforced so that those that are having their homes and properties deluged in smoke from a neighbor's wood burning can finally breathe in their own homes.
I would think that the municipalities would want to keep their residents safe and not put this on the back burner... pun intended.
I have a web site at: http://WoodBurnerSmoke.net and also publish monthly newsletters regarding wood smoke. I no longer worry about wood smoke as I did take the legal route to obtain an injunction. But, what about those that do not have the monies to do the same? My web site was created in an attempt to give some guidance, suggestions and most of all empathy for those who so badly need it. I receive emails daily from people all over the US and Canada with stories and photos that would break your heart. What are they to do when there is no help, not matter where they turn?
It is the usual case that, when the neighbor is told that the smoke is getting into their house, the burner increases the burning. This leads to further distress and the burner knows that the only recourse for the victim is to seek lengthy and expensive legal help. This is just not right!
Breathing wood smoke is a very real danger and one that the victims cannot escape. They try everything they can to attempt to keep out the smoke but nothing works as the particles are so very tiny that they seep in through any minute space available. Headaches, nausea, heart rhythm problems, sinus infections, nosebleeds and other physical symptoms are what these people are forced to live with.
Burners, on the other hand, carry on with the burning and tell them that it is their 'right' to burn. What about the rights of the neighbors to breathe clean air in their own homes?
Burners will not stop burning unless forced to. For those that have never experienced living next door to a burner, imagine yourself in your house with smoke so thick that you can see it. What would you do? Who would you turn to? And, believe me, it could happen to you almost overnight as it did to us!
We need municipalities to pull up their socks and get bylaws created for the sake of all that are suffering with wood smoke invasion. We also need governmental agencies to help to put some pressure on all municipalities to get this issue moving before another winter begins and the wood burning increases even more than it is at present.
Shirley Brandie
Amherstburg, Ontario, Canada
Burning is an option....Breathing is not!
See---http://WoodBurnerSmoke.net
Natural, Yes, But Wood Smoke is Toxic, Too
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Natural, Yes, But Wood Smoke is Toxic, Too
By Deborah Schoch on June 14, 2010
Science is swiftly turning upside down the common notion that a fire built with wood is kinder to humans’ well-being than gas and other modern fuels.
From California to Sweden and China, researchers are reporting that wood smoke contains large amounts of harmful pollutants, including some of the same toxic chemicals found in cigarette smoke.
Those reports seem counter-intuitive. After all, wood is a natural substance, a heat source since prehistoric times and a seemingly safe alternative to dirty fossil fuels.
But natural does not necessarily mean harmless, and a growing number of published studies are associating wood smoke with asthma, other lung problems and heart disease — some of the same illnesses associated with smoking and with heavy exposure to car and truck pollution.
“Is it as toxic as something coming out of the tailpipe? We’re not sure yet,” said Robert Devlin, senior scientist in the environmental public health division of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, D.C.
But the new consciousness of wood smoke’s dangers is spurring scientific inquiries in communities across the West where wood heat is popular: in California, Montana, Idaho, Seattle and British Columbia.
Wood consists largely of two relatively harmless ingredients, cellulose and a strengthening substance called lignin.
If the wood burned completely, it would turn into simple water and carbon dioxide. But instead it forms what scientists call “products of incomplete combustion” — thousands of chemicals, including certain toxic and carcinogenic substances.
Many of the same chemicals form during the burning of other organic matter — whether waste from orchards and rice fields or tobacco leaves wrapped up in cigarettes.
That is why some scientists compare wood smoke to second-hand smoke and cigarette smoke.
“It’s not the nicotine in cigarette smoke that kills you. It’s the other stuff,” said Kirk R. Smith, a professor of global environmental health at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health who has studied smoke’s health effects around the world.
“The worst thing that you can do with this stuff is stick it in your mouth,” Smith said. “The next worst thing is to have it in your house. The next worst thing is to have it in your neighbor’s house.”
Researchers can rattle off long lists of dangers in wood smoke.
They often focus on the tiny particles — a mere fraction of the width of a human hair — that can lodge in tissue and blood vessels and disrupt lung and heart functions. Some are so small that they can pass right through the walls of blood vessels. Wood smoke also contains well-known cancer-causing chemicals such as benzene and formaldehyde.
Scientists have published dozens of studies on the human health effects of wood smoke. In 2007, a 40-page review of those studies in the journal Inhalation Toxicology concluded, “It is now well established … that wood-burning stoves and fireplaces as well as wildland and agricultural fires emit significant quantities of known health-damaging pollutants, including several carcinogenic compounds.”
Today, most U.S. regulators focus largely on the fine particles in wood smoke to measure its potential for harm, rather focusing on its cancer-causing ingredients as they did with tobacco smoke a generation ago.
The same is true in California.
“The main issue is that it has particulate matter. When it comes to particles, we treat all particles the same. We feel that all particulate matter is bad for you,” said Linda Smith, head of the health impacts section at the state Air Resources Board.
International public health officials have gone further. In 2006, wood smoke was labeled “probably carcinogenic in humans” by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the World Health Organization.
But the 2007 journal review concluded that it was too early to formally link wood smoke and cancer, and that more research is needed.
An American Cancer Society advisory group recommended several years ago that the society not take a position on the issue, deciding “that the evidence linking wood burning smoke to cancer was much weaker than that for heart and lung disease,” the society’s statistics director, Kenneth M. Portier, wrote in an e-mail note.
Some activists believe California should act more aggressively and treat wood smoke just as it does second-hand smoke or fumes from diesel-burning trucks. The state has classified both “toxic air contaminants.”
Wood smoke deserves the same label, said Jenny Bard, regional air quality director for the American Lung Association in California.
“We’re going after tobacco smoke in all sorts of ways,” Bard said. “We’ve banned it from workplaces and restaurants. And the exposures to wood stove pollution can be so much more concentrated in localized situations.”
This story is a result of a partnership between the Center for Health Reporting and the Chico Enterprise-Record.
Posted in Airborne Hazards, Environmental Safety and Health
Credit to: Fair Warning wesite
http://www.fairwarning.org/2010/06/natural-yes-but-wood-smoke-is-toxic-too/
By Deborah Schoch on June 14, 2010
Science is swiftly turning upside down the common notion that a fire built with wood is kinder to humans’ well-being than gas and other modern fuels.
From California to Sweden and China, researchers are reporting that wood smoke contains large amounts of harmful pollutants, including some of the same toxic chemicals found in cigarette smoke.
Those reports seem counter-intuitive. After all, wood is a natural substance, a heat source since prehistoric times and a seemingly safe alternative to dirty fossil fuels.
But natural does not necessarily mean harmless, and a growing number of published studies are associating wood smoke with asthma, other lung problems and heart disease — some of the same illnesses associated with smoking and with heavy exposure to car and truck pollution.
“Is it as toxic as something coming out of the tailpipe? We’re not sure yet,” said Robert Devlin, senior scientist in the environmental public health division of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, D.C.
But the new consciousness of wood smoke’s dangers is spurring scientific inquiries in communities across the West where wood heat is popular: in California, Montana, Idaho, Seattle and British Columbia.
Wood consists largely of two relatively harmless ingredients, cellulose and a strengthening substance called lignin.
If the wood burned completely, it would turn into simple water and carbon dioxide. But instead it forms what scientists call “products of incomplete combustion” — thousands of chemicals, including certain toxic and carcinogenic substances.
Many of the same chemicals form during the burning of other organic matter — whether waste from orchards and rice fields or tobacco leaves wrapped up in cigarettes.
That is why some scientists compare wood smoke to second-hand smoke and cigarette smoke.
“It’s not the nicotine in cigarette smoke that kills you. It’s the other stuff,” said Kirk R. Smith, a professor of global environmental health at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health who has studied smoke’s health effects around the world.
“The worst thing that you can do with this stuff is stick it in your mouth,” Smith said. “The next worst thing is to have it in your house. The next worst thing is to have it in your neighbor’s house.”
Researchers can rattle off long lists of dangers in wood smoke.
They often focus on the tiny particles — a mere fraction of the width of a human hair — that can lodge in tissue and blood vessels and disrupt lung and heart functions. Some are so small that they can pass right through the walls of blood vessels. Wood smoke also contains well-known cancer-causing chemicals such as benzene and formaldehyde.
Scientists have published dozens of studies on the human health effects of wood smoke. In 2007, a 40-page review of those studies in the journal Inhalation Toxicology concluded, “It is now well established … that wood-burning stoves and fireplaces as well as wildland and agricultural fires emit significant quantities of known health-damaging pollutants, including several carcinogenic compounds.”
Today, most U.S. regulators focus largely on the fine particles in wood smoke to measure its potential for harm, rather focusing on its cancer-causing ingredients as they did with tobacco smoke a generation ago.
The same is true in California.
“The main issue is that it has particulate matter. When it comes to particles, we treat all particles the same. We feel that all particulate matter is bad for you,” said Linda Smith, head of the health impacts section at the state Air Resources Board.
International public health officials have gone further. In 2006, wood smoke was labeled “probably carcinogenic in humans” by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the World Health Organization.
But the 2007 journal review concluded that it was too early to formally link wood smoke and cancer, and that more research is needed.
An American Cancer Society advisory group recommended several years ago that the society not take a position on the issue, deciding “that the evidence linking wood burning smoke to cancer was much weaker than that for heart and lung disease,” the society’s statistics director, Kenneth M. Portier, wrote in an e-mail note.
Some activists believe California should act more aggressively and treat wood smoke just as it does second-hand smoke or fumes from diesel-burning trucks. The state has classified both “toxic air contaminants.”
Wood smoke deserves the same label, said Jenny Bard, regional air quality director for the American Lung Association in California.
“We’re going after tobacco smoke in all sorts of ways,” Bard said. “We’ve banned it from workplaces and restaurants. And the exposures to wood stove pollution can be so much more concentrated in localized situations.”
This story is a result of a partnership between the Center for Health Reporting and the Chico Enterprise-Record.
Posted in Airborne Hazards, Environmental Safety and Health
Credit to: Fair Warning wesite
http://www.fairwarning.org/2010/06/natural-yes-but-wood-smoke-is-toxic-too/
Neglecting air pollution could cripple health care-Canada
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Neglecting air pollution could cripple health care
May 19, 2010
Alberta, Canada
The neglect of air quality in our cities and the consequent cost of treating pollution-related diseases could cripple our already strained health care system.
In a health and environmentally-conscious world it is unusual to find cities, such as those in Alberta, that have not adopted a single effective clean air initiative.
Remarkably, in Alberta urban air quality monitoring does not identify the source of air pollutants and several studies have shown that residents are most concerned about industrial pollution. In reality, the most dangerous sources of pollution are closer to home - the fumes from vehicles or a neighbour’s wood burning stove or fireplace.
Indoor air quality studies in the U.S. and Europe have also identified high levels of cancer-causing compounds in homes with a wood burning stove or fireplace.
To date, the most dangerously polluted places in the province are campgrounds where smoke levels have been monitored at levels that can cause pollution-related sickness severe enough to require hospitalization or even cause death from smoke inhalation.
To create a healthier society, the Europeans have adopted a variety of measures to reduce vehicle pollution. The most significant are emission testing programs to ensure that emission-reduction features are actually working. When these tests were done in Red Deer, enough vehicles had the emission reduction features removed or neglected to double the level of vehicle pollution. This neglect impacts public health, placing an unnecessary burden on the health care system.
In Britain, deaths caused by fireplace smoke, particularly the deaths of 4,000 Londoners in only five days in 1952, were the catalyst for their smoke-free cities program. However, politicians were also aware that the cost of treating the diseases caused by wood and coal smoke would severely strain their recently-introduced “free” health care system. Paying homeowners to convert from burning dirty fuels to clean natural gas was expensive but the costs were soon recovered in terms of reduced health care costs.
In the United States, with Universal Health Care on the horizon, the cost of treating the smoke diseases has come into sharper focus. In the San Francisco Bay area alone, with only 10% of the homes burning wood, to some degree, the cost of treating the smoke diseases is estimated at one billion dollars annually. Breaking down the statistics even further, one fireplace burning wood for one evening costs the health care system $40.
There are similar concerns, around the world. Taking Christchurch, New Zealand as an example, each low emission wood or coal burning appliance is estimated to cost the health care system $2,700 annually.
It is essential to be pro-active, as once fouled by wood smoke no North American city has cleaned up the air and it will take a future generation that cares for the environment for these cities to become healthy places in which to live. Unfortunately, with researchers crying wolf over finding traces of toxic and carcinogenic chemicals almost everywhere, concerns about wood smoke, the oldest known cause of cancer, lung and heart disease, are often regarded as just another baseless health scare. Wood, like tobacco, is a cellulose based plant material and for an overview of the health implications of breathing wood smoke one only has to read the health warnings on cigarette packages, or log on to www.burningissues.com.
For a healthier urban environment that will reduce the strain on the health care system, all Alberta’s cities have ever needed to do is to borrow ideas from the world’s more environmentally conscious urban centres. Addressing pollution caused by vehicles and residential wood-burning needs to be a priority.
The worst route any city can take is to rely on Canada’s new Urban Environment Health Index, which measures only a few simple chemicals in widely separated locations........ but that is another issue.
Alan Smith
Red Deer
Alan Smith is a former member of the Urban Environment Study Group of the Environment Council of Alberta, Canada.
Credit to..Red Deer Express website
http://www.reddeerexpress.com/article/20100519/EXP0904/305199994/-1/EXP/neglecting-air-pollution-could-cripple-health-care
May 19, 2010
Alberta, Canada
The neglect of air quality in our cities and the consequent cost of treating pollution-related diseases could cripple our already strained health care system.
In a health and environmentally-conscious world it is unusual to find cities, such as those in Alberta, that have not adopted a single effective clean air initiative.
Remarkably, in Alberta urban air quality monitoring does not identify the source of air pollutants and several studies have shown that residents are most concerned about industrial pollution. In reality, the most dangerous sources of pollution are closer to home - the fumes from vehicles or a neighbour’s wood burning stove or fireplace.
Indoor air quality studies in the U.S. and Europe have also identified high levels of cancer-causing compounds in homes with a wood burning stove or fireplace.
To date, the most dangerously polluted places in the province are campgrounds where smoke levels have been monitored at levels that can cause pollution-related sickness severe enough to require hospitalization or even cause death from smoke inhalation.
To create a healthier society, the Europeans have adopted a variety of measures to reduce vehicle pollution. The most significant are emission testing programs to ensure that emission-reduction features are actually working. When these tests were done in Red Deer, enough vehicles had the emission reduction features removed or neglected to double the level of vehicle pollution. This neglect impacts public health, placing an unnecessary burden on the health care system.
In Britain, deaths caused by fireplace smoke, particularly the deaths of 4,000 Londoners in only five days in 1952, were the catalyst for their smoke-free cities program. However, politicians were also aware that the cost of treating the diseases caused by wood and coal smoke would severely strain their recently-introduced “free” health care system. Paying homeowners to convert from burning dirty fuels to clean natural gas was expensive but the costs were soon recovered in terms of reduced health care costs.
In the United States, with Universal Health Care on the horizon, the cost of treating the smoke diseases has come into sharper focus. In the San Francisco Bay area alone, with only 10% of the homes burning wood, to some degree, the cost of treating the smoke diseases is estimated at one billion dollars annually. Breaking down the statistics even further, one fireplace burning wood for one evening costs the health care system $40.
There are similar concerns, around the world. Taking Christchurch, New Zealand as an example, each low emission wood or coal burning appliance is estimated to cost the health care system $2,700 annually.
It is essential to be pro-active, as once fouled by wood smoke no North American city has cleaned up the air and it will take a future generation that cares for the environment for these cities to become healthy places in which to live. Unfortunately, with researchers crying wolf over finding traces of toxic and carcinogenic chemicals almost everywhere, concerns about wood smoke, the oldest known cause of cancer, lung and heart disease, are often regarded as just another baseless health scare. Wood, like tobacco, is a cellulose based plant material and for an overview of the health implications of breathing wood smoke one only has to read the health warnings on cigarette packages, or log on to www.burningissues.com.
For a healthier urban environment that will reduce the strain on the health care system, all Alberta’s cities have ever needed to do is to borrow ideas from the world’s more environmentally conscious urban centres. Addressing pollution caused by vehicles and residential wood-burning needs to be a priority.
The worst route any city can take is to rely on Canada’s new Urban Environment Health Index, which measures only a few simple chemicals in widely separated locations........ but that is another issue.
Alan Smith
Red Deer
Alan Smith is a former member of the Urban Environment Study Group of the Environment Council of Alberta, Canada.
Credit to..Red Deer Express website
http://www.reddeerexpress.com/article/20100519/EXP0904/305199994/-1/EXP/neglecting-air-pollution-could-cripple-health-care
Biomass Busters-Newsletter
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Biomass Busters
June 2010
From the Editors:
Meg Sheehan & Josh Schlossberg
The ground has been shifting under the biomass industry since the publication of our first issue of Biomass Busters last month! A few significant developments include: the EPA’s decision not to exempt biomass emissions from its greenhouse gas regulations; a letter from ninety scientists to Congress urging our Legislature to close the “biomass loophole;” and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s suspension of the Biomass Crop Assistance Program, following pressure from forest advocates.
Scientists and medical doctors continue to be galvanized by the public health and climate change threats from biomass incinerators, communities across the country keep fighting against incinerators proposed for their towns, and a national grassroots campaign is bringing together biomass opponents from sea to shining sea. Read on to find out more!
For submissions and feedback contact us at stopspewingcarbon@gmail.com.
Biomass Busters is a project of the Biomass Accountability Project, Inc., Energy Justice Network, Biofuelwatch, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, and Save America’s Forests.
From: http://www.mce3.org/BiomassBustersJune2010.pdf
Biomass Busters
June 2010-Newsletter
More from newsletter below...
American Lung Association vs. Biomass
The American Lung Association is a leading voice on the health impacts of biomass incineration. In 2009, the Association wrote to Congress: The Lung Association urges that the legislation not promote the combustion of biomass. Burning biomass could lead to significant increases in emissions of nitrogen oxides, particulate matter and sulfur dioxide and have severe impacts on the health of children, older adults, and people with lung diseases.
Doctor’s Orders
The Massachusetts Medical Society, publisher of the New England Journal of Medicine, insists that “biomass power plants pose an unacceptable risk to the public’s health by increasing air pollution.” Jefferson Dickey, M.D., internist at the Community Health Center of Franklin County, states that air pollution from biomass is associated with an increased risk of a broad range of medical problems, from asthma attacks and decreased lung growth in children to increased lung disease exacerbations, emergency room use, hospitalization rates, heart attacks, and death rates in adults.
Check out...http://www.mce3.org/BiomassBustersJune2010.pdf
June 2010
From the Editors:
Meg Sheehan & Josh Schlossberg
The ground has been shifting under the biomass industry since the publication of our first issue of Biomass Busters last month! A few significant developments include: the EPA’s decision not to exempt biomass emissions from its greenhouse gas regulations; a letter from ninety scientists to Congress urging our Legislature to close the “biomass loophole;” and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s suspension of the Biomass Crop Assistance Program, following pressure from forest advocates.
Scientists and medical doctors continue to be galvanized by the public health and climate change threats from biomass incinerators, communities across the country keep fighting against incinerators proposed for their towns, and a national grassroots campaign is bringing together biomass opponents from sea to shining sea. Read on to find out more!
For submissions and feedback contact us at stopspewingcarbon@gmail.com.
Biomass Busters is a project of the Biomass Accountability Project, Inc., Energy Justice Network, Biofuelwatch, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, and Save America’s Forests.
From: http://www.mce3.org/BiomassBustersJune2010.pdf
Biomass Busters
June 2010-Newsletter
More from newsletter below...
American Lung Association vs. Biomass
The American Lung Association is a leading voice on the health impacts of biomass incineration. In 2009, the Association wrote to Congress: The Lung Association urges that the legislation not promote the combustion of biomass. Burning biomass could lead to significant increases in emissions of nitrogen oxides, particulate matter and sulfur dioxide and have severe impacts on the health of children, older adults, and people with lung diseases.
Doctor’s Orders
The Massachusetts Medical Society, publisher of the New England Journal of Medicine, insists that “biomass power plants pose an unacceptable risk to the public’s health by increasing air pollution.” Jefferson Dickey, M.D., internist at the Community Health Center of Franklin County, states that air pollution from biomass is associated with an increased risk of a broad range of medical problems, from asthma attacks and decreased lung growth in children to increased lung disease exacerbations, emergency room use, hospitalization rates, heart attacks, and death rates in adults.
Check out...http://www.mce3.org/BiomassBustersJune2010.pdf
The impact of wood smoke on children, neighborhoods
Sunday, May 30, 2010
The impact of wood smoke on children, neighborhoods
By David Pepper Excerpted from: Napa Valley Register (California, USA)
Posted: 05/30/2010
Though the recent freezing weather may seem like the worst time to call a wood-burning ban, the scientific evidence documenting the harm caused by wood smoke pollution justifies such restrictions.
As a physician, I know all too well the health impacts caused by toxic smoke. Breathing these particles can literally shorten life and send our most vulnerable residents to the emergency room. Wood smoke contains harmful microscopic particles that, when inhaled, enter directly into the lung and bloodstream. Once there, they damage cells, exacerbate asthma and cause lung and heart disease. For asthmatic children, breathing wood smoke can lead to immediate harm, including asthma attacks and respiratory distress.
A recent study by the California Air Resources Board reported that wood smoke can cause a 10 percent increase of hospital admissions for respiratory problems among children, who are at most risk since their lungs are still developing. Exposure to wood smoke may also reduce lung function and reduce the blood’s ability to clot properly. And it doesn’t take much; one fireplace or wood-burning stove can produce levels of smoke in a neighborhood that exceed federal air quality standards and affect all the neighbors. According to the California Air Resources Board, up to 70 percent of smoke from chimneys can re-enter neighboring residences, exposing neighbors to toxic smoke. While we have effectively banned tobacco smoke from most indoor places, there is no way to avoid an equally damaging smoke right at home. Unfortunately, without a stronger wood-burning regulation, community health suffers.
It is important to note that the current regulation allows an exemption for wood burning when no other source of heat is available.
While some may not see it this way, in actuality it is the wood smoke, not the wood burning regulation, that is invasive. There are an estimated 935,000 residents in the Bay Area who suffer from asthma, including 200,000 children and an additional 300,000 who struggle to breathe from emphysema, lung cancer and other respiratory illnesses. When these people have to breathe wood smoke pollution, they struggle even more.
The American Lung Association routinely receives calls from citizens all around the Bay Area who simply cannot get away from clouds of pollution in their own neighborhoods. Many have young children with asthma who need medical treatment due to this exposure. Some of these families have sold their houses and moved to areas with less wood smoke pollution.
Are these health impacts really worth the ambiance of a fire? Fireplaces are inefficient heaters, often taking out more warm air than they produce. Cleaner burning alternatives are available to enjoy the warmth and glow without the smoke, including gas, electric and pellet stoves, which are now designed to look just like their wood-burning brethren.
The American Lung Association repeatedly has given failing grades for air quality to several counties in the Bay Area due to high levels of particle pollution, of which wood smoke is a primary source. We know we can do better. Indeed, air districts such as Sacramento that have adopted wood-burning prohibitions have experienced a reduction in these harmful particles.
Hopefully, after understanding the harm caused by wood smoke pollution, local residents will think twice before lighting their fireplaces and wood stoves. Many already have. By choosing to hold off and use cleaner alternatives to heat our homes, we make it easier for our smallest and most vulnerable residents to breathe.
We’re trying to make our neighborhoods healthier and prevent disease. Won’t you help us?
Dr. Pepper is a family practice physician and American Lung Association volunteer who teaches family medicine
Credit to:
The Wood Smoke Activist
June 2010 Newsletter
Educating the world about the health and climate impacts of wood smoke and combustion aerosols.
Editor: Shirley Brandie
Ontario Director of Canadian Clean Air Alliance http://canadiancleanairalliance.ca
Web site: http://WoodBurnerSmoke.net
By David Pepper Excerpted from: Napa Valley Register (California, USA)
Posted: 05/30/2010
Though the recent freezing weather may seem like the worst time to call a wood-burning ban, the scientific evidence documenting the harm caused by wood smoke pollution justifies such restrictions.
As a physician, I know all too well the health impacts caused by toxic smoke. Breathing these particles can literally shorten life and send our most vulnerable residents to the emergency room. Wood smoke contains harmful microscopic particles that, when inhaled, enter directly into the lung and bloodstream. Once there, they damage cells, exacerbate asthma and cause lung and heart disease. For asthmatic children, breathing wood smoke can lead to immediate harm, including asthma attacks and respiratory distress.
A recent study by the California Air Resources Board reported that wood smoke can cause a 10 percent increase of hospital admissions for respiratory problems among children, who are at most risk since their lungs are still developing. Exposure to wood smoke may also reduce lung function and reduce the blood’s ability to clot properly. And it doesn’t take much; one fireplace or wood-burning stove can produce levels of smoke in a neighborhood that exceed federal air quality standards and affect all the neighbors. According to the California Air Resources Board, up to 70 percent of smoke from chimneys can re-enter neighboring residences, exposing neighbors to toxic smoke. While we have effectively banned tobacco smoke from most indoor places, there is no way to avoid an equally damaging smoke right at home. Unfortunately, without a stronger wood-burning regulation, community health suffers.
It is important to note that the current regulation allows an exemption for wood burning when no other source of heat is available.
While some may not see it this way, in actuality it is the wood smoke, not the wood burning regulation, that is invasive. There are an estimated 935,000 residents in the Bay Area who suffer from asthma, including 200,000 children and an additional 300,000 who struggle to breathe from emphysema, lung cancer and other respiratory illnesses. When these people have to breathe wood smoke pollution, they struggle even more.
The American Lung Association routinely receives calls from citizens all around the Bay Area who simply cannot get away from clouds of pollution in their own neighborhoods. Many have young children with asthma who need medical treatment due to this exposure. Some of these families have sold their houses and moved to areas with less wood smoke pollution.
Are these health impacts really worth the ambiance of a fire? Fireplaces are inefficient heaters, often taking out more warm air than they produce. Cleaner burning alternatives are available to enjoy the warmth and glow without the smoke, including gas, electric and pellet stoves, which are now designed to look just like their wood-burning brethren.
The American Lung Association repeatedly has given failing grades for air quality to several counties in the Bay Area due to high levels of particle pollution, of which wood smoke is a primary source. We know we can do better. Indeed, air districts such as Sacramento that have adopted wood-burning prohibitions have experienced a reduction in these harmful particles.
Hopefully, after understanding the harm caused by wood smoke pollution, local residents will think twice before lighting their fireplaces and wood stoves. Many already have. By choosing to hold off and use cleaner alternatives to heat our homes, we make it easier for our smallest and most vulnerable residents to breathe.
We’re trying to make our neighborhoods healthier and prevent disease. Won’t you help us?
Dr. Pepper is a family practice physician and American Lung Association volunteer who teaches family medicine
Credit to:
The Wood Smoke Activist
June 2010 Newsletter
Educating the world about the health and climate impacts of wood smoke and combustion aerosols.
Editor: Shirley Brandie
Ontario Director of Canadian Clean Air Alliance http://canadiancleanairalliance.ca
Web site: http://WoodBurnerSmoke.net
Let’s speak up for right to breathe clean air-Canada
Friday, May 21, 2010
Let’s speak up for right to breathe clean air
Written by Cathy Baiton
"Lethbridge Herald" web site
Lethbridge, Alberta Canada
Thursday, 20 May 2010
Discussion about second-hand smoke in Alberta has been renewed amid a proposal to make shared outdoor spaces smoke-free, and a new local bylaw would ban smoking in or near city parks. But while it’s good that smoking has declined overall, smoke from residential wood burning has unfortunately become more common.
No less harmful than cigarette smoke, it’s also a form of air pollution that our city and province both need to start restricting. No jurisdiction can become mainly smoke-free if it allows non-essential wood-burning to go on, putting the health of those on the receiving end of drifting smoke at risk.
Recently, I heard from someone whose household has suffered from unwelcome wood smoke in the air, especially when frequent conditions like fog or cool, still air hold the pollution closer to the ground. They’ve had ongoing allergic responses and even episodes of respiratory distress because of the smoke that often comes into their own house.
To help preserve air quality and protect people from second-hand wood smoke, some places have made wood-burning fire pits illegal within municipal limits and also placed restrictions or bans on wood-burning appliances.
In our own city, although most public areas are now tobacco smoke-free, people in wood-burning neighbourhoods cannot avoid wood smoke right at home, if it’s travelling into their backyard or children’s outdoor play spaces, or seeping inside through furnace vents and even closed windows.
I’m sure many residents would consider the removal of unnecessary wood smoke pollution an essential part of helping to create a cleaner and greener Lethbridge — for the present and for future generations. Hopefully, we can look forward to living in a city and perhaps even a province where residents won’t have to breathe unwanted residential wood smoke, wherever they live, work, or are active outside.
It’s possible that if enough concerned citizens speak up for the right to breathe smoke-free air, it could help make a difference, for our health and for the air that belongs to all of us.
From: http://www.lethbridgeherald.com/content/view/194340/150/
Written by Cathy Baiton
"Lethbridge Herald" web site
Lethbridge, Alberta Canada
Thursday, 20 May 2010
Discussion about second-hand smoke in Alberta has been renewed amid a proposal to make shared outdoor spaces smoke-free, and a new local bylaw would ban smoking in or near city parks. But while it’s good that smoking has declined overall, smoke from residential wood burning has unfortunately become more common.
No less harmful than cigarette smoke, it’s also a form of air pollution that our city and province both need to start restricting. No jurisdiction can become mainly smoke-free if it allows non-essential wood-burning to go on, putting the health of those on the receiving end of drifting smoke at risk.
Recently, I heard from someone whose household has suffered from unwelcome wood smoke in the air, especially when frequent conditions like fog or cool, still air hold the pollution closer to the ground. They’ve had ongoing allergic responses and even episodes of respiratory distress because of the smoke that often comes into their own house.
To help preserve air quality and protect people from second-hand wood smoke, some places have made wood-burning fire pits illegal within municipal limits and also placed restrictions or bans on wood-burning appliances.
In our own city, although most public areas are now tobacco smoke-free, people in wood-burning neighbourhoods cannot avoid wood smoke right at home, if it’s travelling into their backyard or children’s outdoor play spaces, or seeping inside through furnace vents and even closed windows.
I’m sure many residents would consider the removal of unnecessary wood smoke pollution an essential part of helping to create a cleaner and greener Lethbridge — for the present and for future generations. Hopefully, we can look forward to living in a city and perhaps even a province where residents won’t have to breathe unwanted residential wood smoke, wherever they live, work, or are active outside.
It’s possible that if enough concerned citizens speak up for the right to breathe smoke-free air, it could help make a difference, for our health and for the air that belongs to all of us.
From: http://www.lethbridgeherald.com/content/view/194340/150/
World Asthma Day, May 4th--Canada Needs To Take Action...Now!
Thursday, April 29, 2010
World Asthma Day, May 4th
World Asthma day will happen on May 4th. Around the globe we will become more aware of those who suffer with Asthma.
One confirmed and definite known trigger of Asthma is Woodsmoke Pollution. Exposure to the toxic emissions from Woodsmoke can worsen or even cause a life threatening reaction. Over 5,900 Canadians die each year due to air pollution. Six million Canadians will experience some form of lung disease. One Canadian dies every 20 minutes due to lung disease. Childhood asthma rates continue to soar world-wide. Millions depend of the use of their puffers (or inhaled medications) which enables them to breathe freely. These statistics are alarming and soaring.
Sadly, even with scientific evidence available, documented research that validates the claims that Woodsmoke is a deadly silent killer, Woodsmoke pollution still continues in many urban areas to destroy health and the quality of life of millions.
A few Canadian cities are becoming informed and taking action to end all outdoor open air burns and Woodsmoke in their community. Most cities have done absolutely nothing to help those with Asthma. These cities and communities sit idly by and silent instead of taking action to end outdoor open air burns and Woodsmoke. These elected officials are neglecting the health and safety of all their residents. One outdoor open air burn can affect an entire neighbourhood and contribute to the suffering and severity of Asthma patients and those with other respiratory disease.
The Canadian Lung Association states: “Do your part to reduce air pollution and encourage others to keep the air clean” Now, if only our political leaders, City Mayors and Members of council would follow the wise words of our Lung Association, many would be able to breathe the fresh unadulterated air so needed in order to stay healthy.
The American Lung Association goes further in their advice stating: “Avoid burning wood. Avoid use of wood burning in indoor and outdoor fireplaces. Just like tobacco smoke, wood smoke pollution is harmful to your health. Wood burning comprises 33 percent of particle pollution during the winter in some areas. Cleaner burning alternatives such as natural gas and electric fireplaces are available for the glow without the smoke!”
Take the steps needed to end Woodsmoke Pollution in your community. Taking action will help those who suffer daily trying to breathe. We all deserve the right and common decency to breathe healthy air—woodsmoke-free. Become Informed about Asthma and Woodsmoke Pollution!
Make ending Woodsmoke Pollution Your Number One Priority! Your life and breath depend on it. Whether you have Asthma or not, we all need to breathe air that is not polluted with woodsmoke emissions. To take action to end Woodsmoke will be the best way to recognize and support World Asthma Day! Don’t sit idly by and silent like too many of our local and national leaders in Canada are doing right now. Tell them to Ban Outdoor Open Air Burns and Woodsmoke....Now!
Submitted by:
Linda Baker Beaudin
Founder, Air Is Precious
975 Brookdale Avenue
P.O. Box 22049
Cornwall, Ontario
Canada
K6J 4P5
e-mail airisprecious@gmail.com
World Asthma day will happen on May 4th. Around the globe we will become more aware of those who suffer with Asthma.
One confirmed and definite known trigger of Asthma is Woodsmoke Pollution. Exposure to the toxic emissions from Woodsmoke can worsen or even cause a life threatening reaction. Over 5,900 Canadians die each year due to air pollution. Six million Canadians will experience some form of lung disease. One Canadian dies every 20 minutes due to lung disease. Childhood asthma rates continue to soar world-wide. Millions depend of the use of their puffers (or inhaled medications) which enables them to breathe freely. These statistics are alarming and soaring.
Sadly, even with scientific evidence available, documented research that validates the claims that Woodsmoke is a deadly silent killer, Woodsmoke pollution still continues in many urban areas to destroy health and the quality of life of millions.
A few Canadian cities are becoming informed and taking action to end all outdoor open air burns and Woodsmoke in their community. Most cities have done absolutely nothing to help those with Asthma. These cities and communities sit idly by and silent instead of taking action to end outdoor open air burns and Woodsmoke. These elected officials are neglecting the health and safety of all their residents. One outdoor open air burn can affect an entire neighbourhood and contribute to the suffering and severity of Asthma patients and those with other respiratory disease.
The Canadian Lung Association states: “Do your part to reduce air pollution and encourage others to keep the air clean” Now, if only our political leaders, City Mayors and Members of council would follow the wise words of our Lung Association, many would be able to breathe the fresh unadulterated air so needed in order to stay healthy.
The American Lung Association goes further in their advice stating: “Avoid burning wood. Avoid use of wood burning in indoor and outdoor fireplaces. Just like tobacco smoke, wood smoke pollution is harmful to your health. Wood burning comprises 33 percent of particle pollution during the winter in some areas. Cleaner burning alternatives such as natural gas and electric fireplaces are available for the glow without the smoke!”
Take the steps needed to end Woodsmoke Pollution in your community. Taking action will help those who suffer daily trying to breathe. We all deserve the right and common decency to breathe healthy air—woodsmoke-free. Become Informed about Asthma and Woodsmoke Pollution!
Make ending Woodsmoke Pollution Your Number One Priority! Your life and breath depend on it. Whether you have Asthma or not, we all need to breathe air that is not polluted with woodsmoke emissions. To take action to end Woodsmoke will be the best way to recognize and support World Asthma Day! Don’t sit idly by and silent like too many of our local and national leaders in Canada are doing right now. Tell them to Ban Outdoor Open Air Burns and Woodsmoke....Now!
Submitted by:
Linda Baker Beaudin
Founder, Air Is Precious
975 Brookdale Avenue
P.O. Box 22049
Cornwall, Ontario
Canada
K6J 4P5
e-mail airisprecious@gmail.com
BARRIE CITY COUNCIL SAYS NO BAN-BUT PEOPLE SAY WE WANT BAN!
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Note...The city of Barrie, Ontario, Canada, recently said NO to banning outdoor open air burns. Mostly these outdoor open air burns were fueled by wood. Woodsmoke saturated air aimlessly drifts over all the residents of Barrie everyday. But, many Barrie residents are saying...enough is enough. Ban ALL outdoor open air burns..NOW!
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
From the Barrie Examiner:
April 15, 2010
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Fires not fun for neighbours
Posted By
Posted 8 hours ago
(Re: "Shut your windows," in the April 10 edition of the Examiner)
Chimineas should have been banned two years ago when the first debate in council was held.
I lobbied my Ward 7 councillor (John Brassard) in this regard, to no avail.
Thank you to Alex Harvey and Jennifer Mills for their common sense approach to this nuisance and health concern.
Coun. Lynn Strachan, thank you for your concerns, as well. Keep it going.
What mentality needs to light a fire when the humidex is in the high 30s to 40s, the air quality is dangerously high and we are asked to keep our air conditioners at a minimum due to hydro consumption at a peak.
Not to mention sparks flying on top of neighbouring roofs.
To Sue Watson I say: "I may have to keep my windows closed, but I will never shut my mouth (as suggested by you in your letter) as long as my taxes are paid and the Canadian flag flies in my country."
If you want to pollute the air and cause your neighbours distress, then by all means move to the bush.
People living on 30-and 40- foot lots should not be allowed to light fires for any reason. Cook your hot dogs on the stove in your kitchen.
To Daryl Bradshaw, I am so thankful that I live in a city knowing there are firefighters at the ready if I need them. I have lived in Barrie for 48 years and have never seen fire trucks driving around aimlessly.
Hopefully, city councillors can make a decision for a change and ban these health hazards once and for all.
Why it has to go on for another two years is extremely poor judgment.
Doris Falkeisen Barrie
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
Looking for relief from the smoke
Posted By
Posted 8 hours ago
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
(Re: "Chiminea group fighting for freedom," in the April 8 edition of the Examiner)
We have been all through this with cigarette smoking -- freedom to poison the air of others.
My wife and I, in our seventies, have spent many evenings the last three years unable to enjoy our backyard due to heavy smoke pollution from neighbours enjoying their campfires.
On the hottest, stillest nights, we have been forced to keep our windows shut, overheated from the day's sunshine, and still the smoke penetrates into our home.
My wife is on medication and puffers for lung congestion, and after spending eight hours from eight o'clock in the evening, to three o'clock in the morning breathing in the toxic fumes, she spends the next several days with a terrible cough and throat congestion.
The smoke bothers me as well, as both of us must use unscented soaps and cleaning fluids.
The provincial and federal governments have information related to wood-burning smoke that details particulates and cancer-causing chemicals released in the smoke. As well, burning wood produces tons of carbon dioxide that the experts tell us is causing global warming.
Breathing in this smoke is extremely unhealthy for yourselves, your children, and your neighbours.
This city has banned burning leaves in the fall due to pollution, banned smoking around others for health reasons, and should not allow wood smoke to be forced into our lungs.
We require the freedom to enjoy clean air, to be able to enjoy our backyard every summer night, and to be able to sleep comfortably at night with our windows wide open for clean, fresh air.
There is a better way to enjoy a backyard fire.
There are gas outdoor fire places available that do not harm the health of others, and are safe for all to use.
Gary Taylor Barrie Barrie
+++++++++++++++++
City should ban chimineas right now
Posted By
Posted 5 days ago
Letter to the Editor
(Re: "Chiminea ban the last straw" in April 3 edition of the Examiner)
Regarding Steve Chapman's letter concerning the ban of chiminea backyard appliances.
I just want to say that I wish the City of Barrie would ban them immediately instead of making me suffer two more seasons with those smelly, smoking firepits, until 2012. I wrote a previous letter concerning these backyard fire contraptions and the health issues associated with burning wood. Not only did I mention the health aspect, but also the cost to the taxpayers of Barrie to attend all the false fire calls. The City of Barrie issued 4,500 permits for these devices and every night in the spring, summer, or fall I have to suffer breathing thick smoke in my townhouse, or I have to shut every window in my house.
I am upset these chimineas were allowed to be used in Barrie in the first place.
At least towns like Newmarket were smart enough to ban them before the problem started.
If the people in Barrie want backyard cookouts over a wood fire, let them go rent a campsite and let us breathe clean air.
Alex Harvey Barrie
++++++++++++++++++
No chiminea ban means gas masks
Posted By
Posted 42 mins ago
April 16, 2010
I am very disappointed that Barrie City Council decided not to ban chimineas totally and forever. If my councillor voted to keep these smelly backyard chimineas, he will never get my vote again.
You reported that there were 202 calls for fire assistance for these chimineas in 2009 and that 10% of the calls were to the same address. Well, that makes at least 20 calls to the same address at $450 a visit. I would charge the homeowner of this property the $9,000 he owes the taxpayers of Barrie or put it on his next municipal tax bill. The fire chief of Barrie should stand up and demand that these chimineas be banned, now. Look at what these chimineas have done to our neighbourhood.
Now we have neighbours yelling and fighting with each other. With chimineas come the alcohol, loud music, cigarette and pot smoke, and loud voices. I'm moving to Newmarket if Barrie does not ban chimineas . The mayor of Barrie does not get my support either. Does anybody know where I can buy a good respirator or gas mask? I'm going to need one now that chimineas are not banned.
Margaret Swanson Barrie
Webmaster comment to above letter by Ms. Swanson. In addition to chimineas, you also want all outdoor open air burns banned. This includes outdoor wood boilers (OWB), wood burning fire pits, fireplaces, fire pots, fire rings, etc.
++++++++++++++
Webmaster---The City of Barrie needs to hear these pleas. It is time to ban all outdoor open air burns...NOW!
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
From the Barrie Examiner:
April 15, 2010
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Fires not fun for neighbours
Posted By
Posted 8 hours ago
(Re: "Shut your windows," in the April 10 edition of the Examiner)
Chimineas should have been banned two years ago when the first debate in council was held.
I lobbied my Ward 7 councillor (John Brassard) in this regard, to no avail.
Thank you to Alex Harvey and Jennifer Mills for their common sense approach to this nuisance and health concern.
Coun. Lynn Strachan, thank you for your concerns, as well. Keep it going.
What mentality needs to light a fire when the humidex is in the high 30s to 40s, the air quality is dangerously high and we are asked to keep our air conditioners at a minimum due to hydro consumption at a peak.
Not to mention sparks flying on top of neighbouring roofs.
To Sue Watson I say: "I may have to keep my windows closed, but I will never shut my mouth (as suggested by you in your letter) as long as my taxes are paid and the Canadian flag flies in my country."
If you want to pollute the air and cause your neighbours distress, then by all means move to the bush.
People living on 30-and 40- foot lots should not be allowed to light fires for any reason. Cook your hot dogs on the stove in your kitchen.
To Daryl Bradshaw, I am so thankful that I live in a city knowing there are firefighters at the ready if I need them. I have lived in Barrie for 48 years and have never seen fire trucks driving around aimlessly.
Hopefully, city councillors can make a decision for a change and ban these health hazards once and for all.
Why it has to go on for another two years is extremely poor judgment.
Doris Falkeisen Barrie
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
Looking for relief from the smoke
Posted By
Posted 8 hours ago
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
(Re: "Chiminea group fighting for freedom," in the April 8 edition of the Examiner)
We have been all through this with cigarette smoking -- freedom to poison the air of others.
My wife and I, in our seventies, have spent many evenings the last three years unable to enjoy our backyard due to heavy smoke pollution from neighbours enjoying their campfires.
On the hottest, stillest nights, we have been forced to keep our windows shut, overheated from the day's sunshine, and still the smoke penetrates into our home.
My wife is on medication and puffers for lung congestion, and after spending eight hours from eight o'clock in the evening, to three o'clock in the morning breathing in the toxic fumes, she spends the next several days with a terrible cough and throat congestion.
The smoke bothers me as well, as both of us must use unscented soaps and cleaning fluids.
The provincial and federal governments have information related to wood-burning smoke that details particulates and cancer-causing chemicals released in the smoke. As well, burning wood produces tons of carbon dioxide that the experts tell us is causing global warming.
Breathing in this smoke is extremely unhealthy for yourselves, your children, and your neighbours.
This city has banned burning leaves in the fall due to pollution, banned smoking around others for health reasons, and should not allow wood smoke to be forced into our lungs.
We require the freedom to enjoy clean air, to be able to enjoy our backyard every summer night, and to be able to sleep comfortably at night with our windows wide open for clean, fresh air.
There is a better way to enjoy a backyard fire.
There are gas outdoor fire places available that do not harm the health of others, and are safe for all to use.
Gary Taylor Barrie Barrie
+++++++++++++++++
City should ban chimineas right now
Posted By
Posted 5 days ago
Letter to the Editor
(Re: "Chiminea ban the last straw" in April 3 edition of the Examiner)
Regarding Steve Chapman's letter concerning the ban of chiminea backyard appliances.
I just want to say that I wish the City of Barrie would ban them immediately instead of making me suffer two more seasons with those smelly, smoking firepits, until 2012. I wrote a previous letter concerning these backyard fire contraptions and the health issues associated with burning wood. Not only did I mention the health aspect, but also the cost to the taxpayers of Barrie to attend all the false fire calls. The City of Barrie issued 4,500 permits for these devices and every night in the spring, summer, or fall I have to suffer breathing thick smoke in my townhouse, or I have to shut every window in my house.
I am upset these chimineas were allowed to be used in Barrie in the first place.
At least towns like Newmarket were smart enough to ban them before the problem started.
If the people in Barrie want backyard cookouts over a wood fire, let them go rent a campsite and let us breathe clean air.
Alex Harvey Barrie
++++++++++++++++++
No chiminea ban means gas masks
Posted By
Posted 42 mins ago
April 16, 2010
I am very disappointed that Barrie City Council decided not to ban chimineas totally and forever. If my councillor voted to keep these smelly backyard chimineas, he will never get my vote again.
You reported that there were 202 calls for fire assistance for these chimineas in 2009 and that 10% of the calls were to the same address. Well, that makes at least 20 calls to the same address at $450 a visit. I would charge the homeowner of this property the $9,000 he owes the taxpayers of Barrie or put it on his next municipal tax bill. The fire chief of Barrie should stand up and demand that these chimineas be banned, now. Look at what these chimineas have done to our neighbourhood.
Now we have neighbours yelling and fighting with each other. With chimineas come the alcohol, loud music, cigarette and pot smoke, and loud voices. I'm moving to Newmarket if Barrie does not ban chimineas . The mayor of Barrie does not get my support either. Does anybody know where I can buy a good respirator or gas mask? I'm going to need one now that chimineas are not banned.
Margaret Swanson Barrie
Webmaster comment to above letter by Ms. Swanson. In addition to chimineas, you also want all outdoor open air burns banned. This includes outdoor wood boilers (OWB), wood burning fire pits, fireplaces, fire pots, fire rings, etc.
++++++++++++++
Webmaster---The City of Barrie needs to hear these pleas. It is time to ban all outdoor open air burns...NOW!
Air Quality Monitoring Is A Charade-Canada
Friday, April 9, 2010
Air quality monitoring is a charade
Red Deer Advocate
By Advocate news services
Published: April 07, 2010 8:49 AM
No sophisticated air quality studies are needed to realize that Red Deer has a serious air pollution problem.
The air stinks of toxic and carcinogenic chemicals in acres of the city where residents are burning wood in their stoves and fireplaces.
The smoke and fumes are a threat to the health and lives of neighbours but dissipate before reaching an air quality monitor.
Even if emissions reach a monitoring unit, only a few simple chemicals are being monitored and the complex toxins and carcinogens produced by burning wood are not detected.
Surprisingly, only Toronto, which also relies on basic, Alberta-style monitoring, has checked to see if the Air Quality Index (AQI) is an effective indicator of the health impact of air pollution.
It is no surprise that 92 per cent of the pollution related illnesses and deaths are on days when, according to the air quality data, the air quality is “good” to “very good.”
Similarly about 12 years ago, the Suzuki Foundation identified the obvious: neglect of the Big Three sources of urban air pollution — domestic wood burning, automobiles and commercial trucks, was resulting in pollution-related deaths in Edmonton and Calgary (Red Deer was not included.)
Instead of seeing these findings as a need to start addressing urban air quality issues, the findings were rejected as there was no correlation between the AQI and the number of pollution-related deaths.
It is puzzling that so many people are prepared to believe that monitoring a few simple chemicals in a few locations will identify the health implications of urban air pollution.
Monitoring is even too basic to identify the source of pollutants and, in the absence of normal environmental data, several studies have shown that Albertans are most concerned about industrial pollution.
In reality, for urban residents, it is the pollution sources a few metres from your home that are the greatest threat to your family’s health — a busy road or a neighbour’s wood burning stove or fireplace.
The level of toxins and chemicals that cause cancer and birth defects was increasing rapidly in wood-burning areas.
There is nothing surprising about these findings as the emissions from wood or coal burning stoves and fireplaces are a world-wide concern and have been since historical times.
Unfortunately, most cities in the U.S. and Canada use basic Alberta-style monitoring which provides no protection from the most dangerous source of urban pollution — wood burning stoves and fireplaces.
In the seventies, when families found their health affected by the smoke and chemicals from a neighbour’s fireplace, politicians would point out that the data from the monitoring unit, possibly a kilometer away, “proved,” that the city had clean air.
Then as the number of wood burning appliances increased and finally air quality standards were being exceeded, politicians invariably decided that so many residents (voters) were burning wood, that it was now too political to do anything.
Several hundred North American urban centres have already followed this path and there are more every year.
Once fouled by woodsmoke, no city as been able to correct this situation and it will take a future generation that cares for the urban environment for cities to, once again, be healthy places in which to live.
Hopefully, city politicians will institute burning bans along the lines of U.S. cities when calm conditions are forecast and smoke is not expected to disperse.
In addition, the city needs to ban further installation of wood burning appliances and borrowing an idea from the British, all levels of government should cover the cost of converting existing dirty-fuel appliances to burn natural gas.
Allan Smith is a former member of the Urban Environmental Study Group of the Environmental Council of Alberta
From: Red Deer Advocate website
By Advocate news services
Published: April 07, 2010
Red Deer Advocate
By Advocate news services
Published: April 07, 2010 8:49 AM
No sophisticated air quality studies are needed to realize that Red Deer has a serious air pollution problem.
The air stinks of toxic and carcinogenic chemicals in acres of the city where residents are burning wood in their stoves and fireplaces.
The smoke and fumes are a threat to the health and lives of neighbours but dissipate before reaching an air quality monitor.
Even if emissions reach a monitoring unit, only a few simple chemicals are being monitored and the complex toxins and carcinogens produced by burning wood are not detected.
Surprisingly, only Toronto, which also relies on basic, Alberta-style monitoring, has checked to see if the Air Quality Index (AQI) is an effective indicator of the health impact of air pollution.
It is no surprise that 92 per cent of the pollution related illnesses and deaths are on days when, according to the air quality data, the air quality is “good” to “very good.”
Similarly about 12 years ago, the Suzuki Foundation identified the obvious: neglect of the Big Three sources of urban air pollution — domestic wood burning, automobiles and commercial trucks, was resulting in pollution-related deaths in Edmonton and Calgary (Red Deer was not included.)
Instead of seeing these findings as a need to start addressing urban air quality issues, the findings were rejected as there was no correlation between the AQI and the number of pollution-related deaths.
It is puzzling that so many people are prepared to believe that monitoring a few simple chemicals in a few locations will identify the health implications of urban air pollution.
Monitoring is even too basic to identify the source of pollutants and, in the absence of normal environmental data, several studies have shown that Albertans are most concerned about industrial pollution.
In reality, for urban residents, it is the pollution sources a few metres from your home that are the greatest threat to your family’s health — a busy road or a neighbour’s wood burning stove or fireplace.
The level of toxins and chemicals that cause cancer and birth defects was increasing rapidly in wood-burning areas.
There is nothing surprising about these findings as the emissions from wood or coal burning stoves and fireplaces are a world-wide concern and have been since historical times.
Unfortunately, most cities in the U.S. and Canada use basic Alberta-style monitoring which provides no protection from the most dangerous source of urban pollution — wood burning stoves and fireplaces.
In the seventies, when families found their health affected by the smoke and chemicals from a neighbour’s fireplace, politicians would point out that the data from the monitoring unit, possibly a kilometer away, “proved,” that the city had clean air.
Then as the number of wood burning appliances increased and finally air quality standards were being exceeded, politicians invariably decided that so many residents (voters) were burning wood, that it was now too political to do anything.
Several hundred North American urban centres have already followed this path and there are more every year.
Once fouled by woodsmoke, no city as been able to correct this situation and it will take a future generation that cares for the urban environment for cities to, once again, be healthy places in which to live.
Hopefully, city politicians will institute burning bans along the lines of U.S. cities when calm conditions are forecast and smoke is not expected to disperse.
In addition, the city needs to ban further installation of wood burning appliances and borrowing an idea from the British, all levels of government should cover the cost of converting existing dirty-fuel appliances to burn natural gas.
Allan Smith is a former member of the Urban Environmental Study Group of the Environmental Council of Alberta
From: Red Deer Advocate website
By Advocate news services
Published: April 07, 2010
North St. Paul, MN - The Most Polluted City In The World
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Recreational Fires Must Be Eliminated
WELCOME TO HELL ON EARTH
http://northsaintpaulresident.blogspot.com/
The air is smoky from burning wood in North St. Paul, MN, all the time. It is a nightmare. What used to be a nice place to live has become a living hell.
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.
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 support wood smoke. 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.
Tell others about this blog!
http://northsaintpaulresident.blogspot.com/
Webmaster comment----Visit this great blogsite. Day after day woodsmoke terror is faced by these residents.
WELCOME TO HELL ON EARTH
http://northsaintpaulresident.blogspot.com/
The air is smoky from burning wood in North St. Paul, MN, all the time. It is a nightmare. What used to be a nice place to live has become a living hell.
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.
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 support wood smoke. 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.
Tell others about this blog!
http://northsaintpaulresident.blogspot.com/
Webmaster comment----Visit this great blogsite. Day after day woodsmoke terror is faced by these residents.
Clean Air Matters...In Alberta, Canada
Saturday, April 3, 2010
From: Clean Air Matters! In Alberta
Date: February 21, 2010 9:46:49 AM MST (CA)
To: enviroinfo@ec.gc.ca
Subject: Environment Canada Public Education Materials: Wood Smoke Needs to be a Major Focus
Hello,
It's good to see the increased focus on clean air for Canadians. However, it's concerning that residential wood burning, a growing cause of indoor and outdoor air pollution, is not directly addressed on the Clean Air Act brochure, and not more strongly discouraged on other pages of the Environment Canada web site.
Wood burning is becoming a problem in many Canadian communities, as wood smoke releases much more fine particle pollution than heating with cleaner burning, non-solid fuels like natural gas and propane. Wood smoke in our neighbourhood has affected the health of my children and me - smoke from outdoor burning this past spring, and neighbourhood wood smoke pollution over this past fall and winter, caused health issues for us that were at times quite serious.
"The time for talk is over. The time for action is now." This statement at the end of the Clean Air Act brochure is so true, but Canadians visiting the Clean Air Act brochure web page and other Environment Canada and government links need to see that it's time to take action immediately toward the elimination of wood smoke emissions in all residential areas where less polluting fuels are available. Many communities are already taking action through public education efforts, regulations and bans, to prevent wood smoke pollution, and protect residents from toxic wood smoke emissions.
Environment Canada needs to show strong leadership and direction in this area. In some US states, air quality has been so harmed by wood burning emissions that major efforts are now needed to turn the tide and actively encourage people to switch to cleaner burning fuels. The American Lung Association has officially stated that people need to choose cleaner burning fuels instead of wood whenever possible. In places like California, even the fireplace industry is making the shift toward gas burning fireplaces in response to the movement away from unnecessary residential wood burning.
The disproportionate emphasis on vehicle and fossil fuels emissions in recent years has obscured the increasingly urgent problem of wood burning emissions, which produce pollution in great amounts that directly impact entire neighbourhoods, and the air quality of whole communities. Environment Canada needs to step in and make a clear distinction between the relatively miniscule emissions from heating with natural gas, propane, or even fuel oil, compared with wood burning, which can produce hundreds of times more particle pollution. In all regions of Canada where cleaner burning fuels are available, Environment Canada should strongly encourage people to use those cleaner burning fuels instead of wood.
In all areas where protective local bylaws are not yet in place to restrict or eliminate wood burning, the need to make people see that burning wood is very harmful for the environment and for community health is urgent. I hope that Environment Canada will consider making wood smoke a major focus of its website, links, and publications. Thank you very much for your consideration of increased attention to this important environment and health issue.
Sincerely,
Cathy Baiton
Lethbridge, Alberta
Date: February 21, 2010 9:46:49 AM MST (CA)
To: enviroinfo@ec.gc.ca
Subject: Environment Canada Public Education Materials: Wood Smoke Needs to be a Major Focus
Hello,
It's good to see the increased focus on clean air for Canadians. However, it's concerning that residential wood burning, a growing cause of indoor and outdoor air pollution, is not directly addressed on the Clean Air Act brochure, and not more strongly discouraged on other pages of the Environment Canada web site.
Wood burning is becoming a problem in many Canadian communities, as wood smoke releases much more fine particle pollution than heating with cleaner burning, non-solid fuels like natural gas and propane. Wood smoke in our neighbourhood has affected the health of my children and me - smoke from outdoor burning this past spring, and neighbourhood wood smoke pollution over this past fall and winter, caused health issues for us that were at times quite serious.
"The time for talk is over. The time for action is now." This statement at the end of the Clean Air Act brochure is so true, but Canadians visiting the Clean Air Act brochure web page and other Environment Canada and government links need to see that it's time to take action immediately toward the elimination of wood smoke emissions in all residential areas where less polluting fuels are available. Many communities are already taking action through public education efforts, regulations and bans, to prevent wood smoke pollution, and protect residents from toxic wood smoke emissions.
Environment Canada needs to show strong leadership and direction in this area. In some US states, air quality has been so harmed by wood burning emissions that major efforts are now needed to turn the tide and actively encourage people to switch to cleaner burning fuels. The American Lung Association has officially stated that people need to choose cleaner burning fuels instead of wood whenever possible. In places like California, even the fireplace industry is making the shift toward gas burning fireplaces in response to the movement away from unnecessary residential wood burning.
The disproportionate emphasis on vehicle and fossil fuels emissions in recent years has obscured the increasingly urgent problem of wood burning emissions, which produce pollution in great amounts that directly impact entire neighbourhoods, and the air quality of whole communities. Environment Canada needs to step in and make a clear distinction between the relatively miniscule emissions from heating with natural gas, propane, or even fuel oil, compared with wood burning, which can produce hundreds of times more particle pollution. In all regions of Canada where cleaner burning fuels are available, Environment Canada should strongly encourage people to use those cleaner burning fuels instead of wood.
In all areas where protective local bylaws are not yet in place to restrict or eliminate wood burning, the need to make people see that burning wood is very harmful for the environment and for community health is urgent. I hope that Environment Canada will consider making wood smoke a major focus of its website, links, and publications. Thank you very much for your consideration of increased attention to this important environment and health issue.
Sincerely,
Cathy Baiton
Lethbridge, Alberta
WOOD BURNING BIOMASS ENERGY-BAD!!!!
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
WOOD BURNING BIOMASS ENERGY
The biggest carbon Dioxide Emitter
Wood fueled biomass energy worse for carbon dioxide emissions than fossil fuels. Massachusetts Forest Watch released a report today (www.maforests.org/MFWCarb.pdf) stating that contrary to the belief that wood fueled biomass burning would help lower carbon dioxide emissions, it would instead dramatically increase them.
According to the group, wood fueled biomass burning is typically touted as a carbon neutral fuel by biomass proponents, but the key assumption about carbon neutrality is unsubstantiated and impossible when using existing forests as fuel.
In the report, wood fueled biomass power plants are shown to be worse than all fossil fuel power plants, including coal, for carbon dioxide emissions per unit of energy produced. Calculations provided show wood fueled biomass power plants emit about 50% more CO2 per MWh than existing coal plants, 150% more than existing natural gas plants and 330% more than new power plants.
Forest Watch spokesperson Chris Matera said, “It really is crazy. Hundreds of millions of dollars in public so-called “green” energy subsidies are being wasted on dirty wood biomass burning of forests instead of going to genuinely clean energy sources such as solar, geothermal, appropriate wind and hydro and importantly conservation and efficiency. At a time when budgets are being slashed, we are throwing away scarce taxpayer money on a caveman technology that will worsen our problems, not help solve them.”
Last Wednesday, a hearing was held in Boston by the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy on House Bill 4458 that would create into law the citizen‟s referendum that recently collected over 78,000 certified signatures, which is enough to put the measure on the ballot in November. The ballot measure would put a limit on carbon dioxide emissions in order for renewable energy sources to be eligible to receive taxpayer subsidies and other benefits and would effectively ban taxpayer subsidies from being directed toward wood fueled biomass plants since their carbon dioxide emissions are so high.
"We find that people are willing to support truly clean energy but do not want to pay extra on their electricity bills and tax bills to build these dirty biomass incinerators," said Jana Chicoine of the Concerned Citizens of Russell, "Everyone knows that the proposed biomass incinerators would add to air pollution and make carbon emissions worse, yet the Patrick administration is still forcing us to pay for it. It's a tragic situation, but we have a chance to fix it in the legislature over the next couple of weeks."
Meg Sheehan, chair of the Stop Spewing Carbon ballot question committee commenting about the hearing added, “last week the Massachusetts legislature received un-rebutted testimony from medical professionals that particulate emissions from wood burning biomass plants increase human mortality. A broad coalition of medical and citizen groups are urging our elected officials to support House Bill 4458 to address this public health threat. Action is needed now," she added.
Contact:
Chris Matera
Massachusetts Forest Watch
christoforest@maforests.org
www.maforests.org
413-341-3878
CREDIT TO---The Wood Smoke Activist
April 2010 Newsletter
http://WoodBurnerSmoke.net
The biggest carbon Dioxide Emitter
Wood fueled biomass energy worse for carbon dioxide emissions than fossil fuels. Massachusetts Forest Watch released a report today (www.maforests.org/MFWCarb.pdf) stating that contrary to the belief that wood fueled biomass burning would help lower carbon dioxide emissions, it would instead dramatically increase them.
According to the group, wood fueled biomass burning is typically touted as a carbon neutral fuel by biomass proponents, but the key assumption about carbon neutrality is unsubstantiated and impossible when using existing forests as fuel.
In the report, wood fueled biomass power plants are shown to be worse than all fossil fuel power plants, including coal, for carbon dioxide emissions per unit of energy produced. Calculations provided show wood fueled biomass power plants emit about 50% more CO2 per MWh than existing coal plants, 150% more than existing natural gas plants and 330% more than new power plants.
Forest Watch spokesperson Chris Matera said, “It really is crazy. Hundreds of millions of dollars in public so-called “green” energy subsidies are being wasted on dirty wood biomass burning of forests instead of going to genuinely clean energy sources such as solar, geothermal, appropriate wind and hydro and importantly conservation and efficiency. At a time when budgets are being slashed, we are throwing away scarce taxpayer money on a caveman technology that will worsen our problems, not help solve them.”
Last Wednesday, a hearing was held in Boston by the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy on House Bill 4458 that would create into law the citizen‟s referendum that recently collected over 78,000 certified signatures, which is enough to put the measure on the ballot in November. The ballot measure would put a limit on carbon dioxide emissions in order for renewable energy sources to be eligible to receive taxpayer subsidies and other benefits and would effectively ban taxpayer subsidies from being directed toward wood fueled biomass plants since their carbon dioxide emissions are so high.
"We find that people are willing to support truly clean energy but do not want to pay extra on their electricity bills and tax bills to build these dirty biomass incinerators," said Jana Chicoine of the Concerned Citizens of Russell, "Everyone knows that the proposed biomass incinerators would add to air pollution and make carbon emissions worse, yet the Patrick administration is still forcing us to pay for it. It's a tragic situation, but we have a chance to fix it in the legislature over the next couple of weeks."
Meg Sheehan, chair of the Stop Spewing Carbon ballot question committee commenting about the hearing added, “last week the Massachusetts legislature received un-rebutted testimony from medical professionals that particulate emissions from wood burning biomass plants increase human mortality. A broad coalition of medical and citizen groups are urging our elected officials to support House Bill 4458 to address this public health threat. Action is needed now," she added.
Contact:
Chris Matera
Massachusetts Forest Watch
christoforest@maforests.org
www.maforests.org
413-341-3878
CREDIT TO---The Wood Smoke Activist
April 2010 Newsletter
http://WoodBurnerSmoke.net
Woodsmoke is toxic and harmful
Posted in the Lethbridge Herald
Written by Cathy Baiton
Monday, 08 February 2010
The adverse effects of cigarette smoke are well-known, but another source of second-hand smoke has become noticeable in parts of our city, as more chimneys are releasing wood smoke into the air. In Canada and elsewhere, a movement away from residential wood burning is beginning to emerge, in light of ongoing research about its harmful effects.
Wood smoke actually contains many toxins similar to those found in cigarette smoke, and components of both types of smoke are carcinogenic. The extremely fine particles in wood smoke can penetrate deep into the lungs, and remain active in the body up to 40 times longer than tobacco smoke. Even short exposures can trigger or aggravate allergy, asthma or other health issues, and research shows that children in wood-burning neighbourhoods have more lung and breathing problems. Because the particulate matter is so fine, up to 70 per cent of outdoor levels of smoke can enter homes nearby, as U.S. studies have shown.
Residential wood-burning emissions are also a main cause of fine particle pollution in many cities — in some areas, even more than emissions from industry or vehicles. More information on the air quality and health effects of residential wood burning can be found at the excellent Burning Issues website, at http://burningissues.org . A number of places, such as Montreal and Hampstead, Que., have brought in public awareness efforts, regulations and bans to help local air quality and protect residents from exposure to wood smoke. Wood burning can be an option in the country where homes are widely spaced and the smoke can dissipate, but it’s very different on residential streets where neighbours often bear the brunt of smoke or fumes produced by chimneys or fire pits nearby.
We’re fortunate to live in a region where cleaner-burning fuels are available, which the American Lung Association recommends using in place of wood whenever possible. As the Lung Association of Quebec says in an article about residential wood heating on its website: ―It is time to care about the air that we pollute because it is the air that we breathe. As a parent, I also hope people will consider the potential costs for the environment and health before burning wood in residential areas, to help the air stay healthier for everyone, in all seasons.
From----The Wood Smoke Activist
April 2010 Newsletter
http://WoodBurnerSmoke.net
Written by Cathy Baiton
Monday, 08 February 2010
The adverse effects of cigarette smoke are well-known, but another source of second-hand smoke has become noticeable in parts of our city, as more chimneys are releasing wood smoke into the air. In Canada and elsewhere, a movement away from residential wood burning is beginning to emerge, in light of ongoing research about its harmful effects.
Wood smoke actually contains many toxins similar to those found in cigarette smoke, and components of both types of smoke are carcinogenic. The extremely fine particles in wood smoke can penetrate deep into the lungs, and remain active in the body up to 40 times longer than tobacco smoke. Even short exposures can trigger or aggravate allergy, asthma or other health issues, and research shows that children in wood-burning neighbourhoods have more lung and breathing problems. Because the particulate matter is so fine, up to 70 per cent of outdoor levels of smoke can enter homes nearby, as U.S. studies have shown.
Residential wood-burning emissions are also a main cause of fine particle pollution in many cities — in some areas, even more than emissions from industry or vehicles. More information on the air quality and health effects of residential wood burning can be found at the excellent Burning Issues website, at http://burningissues.org . A number of places, such as Montreal and Hampstead, Que., have brought in public awareness efforts, regulations and bans to help local air quality and protect residents from exposure to wood smoke. Wood burning can be an option in the country where homes are widely spaced and the smoke can dissipate, but it’s very different on residential streets where neighbours often bear the brunt of smoke or fumes produced by chimneys or fire pits nearby.
We’re fortunate to live in a region where cleaner-burning fuels are available, which the American Lung Association recommends using in place of wood whenever possible. As the Lung Association of Quebec says in an article about residential wood heating on its website: ―It is time to care about the air that we pollute because it is the air that we breathe. As a parent, I also hope people will consider the potential costs for the environment and health before burning wood in residential areas, to help the air stay healthier for everyone, in all seasons.
From----The Wood Smoke Activist
April 2010 Newsletter
http://WoodBurnerSmoke.net
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