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
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
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