Wood Smoke and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
Wood smoke pollution is blanketing our nation with its caustic fumes, depriving citizens of their property rights to use and enjoy their property smoke-free. And it is not just a nuisance--it is a severe public health hazard. Asthma is epidemic and is the number one reason for school absenteeism. How can it be that while tobacco smoke is now banished from most bars and restaurants, nothing is being done about wood smoke? It is chemically similar to tobacco smoke, but is far more concentrated and travels farther. Yet despite indoor smoking bans, our public officials are not protecting public health. They are "selling out" to lobbyists from the wood burning industry, rather than upholding our basic right to breathe clean air.
Wood smoke is implicated not only in asthma attacks and heart attacks, but in premature death in people of all ages. It is especially harmful to children and those with heart or lung disease and other disabilities such as autism and diabetes. Wood smoke, in fact, when it interferes with the ability of citizens with disabilities to use public spaces, may violate the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). This civil rights legislation guarantees people with disabilities, such as asthma, "access" to public spaces, including city parks, streets and sidewalks. An Iowa District Court in 2003, in fact, ordered the town of Mallard to stop allowing wood burning, because wood smoke presented a "physical barrier" to a small child with severe asthma that prevented her from using public spaces.
Therefore it is up to us, who are the most bothered by wood smoke, to begin a bold new campaign based on why wood smoke violates ADA Guidelines. We must talk it up at every opportunity and let our city governments, mayors, state and national legislators, schools and local health departments know that:
1. Wood smoke presents a physical barrier to people with disabilities like asthma, because it prevents access to public spaces like city streets, parks and sidewalks.
2. That residential wood smoke from outdoor recreational fires, indoor fireplaces and restaurant wood grills are a substantial source of fine particle pollution, which is a health hazard for all citizens.
3. With increasing disabilities, especially in children, it is paramount that cities adopt ADA guidelines that remove wood smoke as a barrier to the use of public spaces by all citizens.
In addition, email the national "Access Board" about the need for eradicating wood smoke barriers for those with disabilities: http://www.access-board.gov/transit/)>http://www.access-board.gov/tran.
To join with others toward this goal, please contact info@takebacktheair.com.
Julie Mellum
President, Take Back the Air www.takebacktheair.com
Minneapolis, MN
Source: The Wood Smoke Activist
January 2011 Newsletter
web site: http://WoodBurnerSmoke.net
Showing posts with label law. Show all posts
Showing posts with label law. Show all posts
City Banning The Wrong Smoke
Sunday, November 21, 2010
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
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
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.
Ban sought on outdoor wood furnaces
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
New Haven Register---Connecticut
Published: Wednesday, January 6, 2010
By Randall Beach, Register Staff
The president of a local environmental group is pressing state legislators to support her organization’s call for a law banning outdoor wood-burning furnaces and adding the words “wood smoke” to the state Public Health Nuisance Code.
Nancy Alderman of North Haven, who heads Environment and Human Health Inc., is optimistic both proposals will win passage during the legislative session that begins next month.
Alderman said adding “wood smoke” to the nuisance code would protect any residents receiving wood smoke in their homes from neighbors.
The sources would include outdoor pits or burners, indoor stoves or even outdoor brush-burning.
“It would cover anything that enters somebody’s house from a neighbor on a continual basis,” she said.
If such a law existed, she noted, local health departments could order the offending neighbor to stop burning.
Last April this legislative proposal passed the Public Health Committee by a large margin but was defeated in the Environment Committee.
Alderman said it failed because state health officials mistakenly believed a case in the Trumbull-Monroe health district made the proposed law unnecessary.
A health officer there had issued a cease and desist order against a burner and the order was upheld by the state Department of Public Health. But Alderman said state officials later learned the new legal precedent merely meant local health officials “may” issue such orders but don’t have to do so.
Alderman said if the proposal became law, local health officials would be mandated to issue such orders against burners who are affecting their neighbors.
Alderman plans to meet next Monday with the co-chairmen of the state Public Health Committee to encourage them to support the nuisance language for wood smoke.
“Wood smoke is harmful when breathed on a continual basis,” Alderman said in her group’s legislative agenda for 2010. “If exposures are long enough and high enough, they will cause bronchitis, pneumonia and in some cases even permanent lung damage.”
Alderman has already met with the co-chairmen of the state Environment Committee about the proposed ban on outdoor wood-burning furnaces and is “very hopeful” that it, too, will win passage.
She noted state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and the American Lung Association have called on the General Assembly to ban outdoor furnaces.
They already are prohibited in four Connecticut towns: Granby, Tolland, Hebron and Ridgefield.
In a recent New Haven Register Op-Ed, Alderman defined an outdoor wood-burning furnace as a small, insulated shed with a short smokestack. It burns wood that heats water that is sent through underground pipes to heat a home or building.
She noted they emit smoke 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Their dense smoke endangers the health of nearby neighbors, she said.
Her group has collected testimonials from families who have been harmed by wood smoke. One of the statements came from Robert G. Johnson of West Haven. He said he suffered asthma attacks and bronchial spasms as a result of wood-burning smoke that came from a chimney near Johnson’s home.
Johnson, who described himself as a 68-year-old asthmatic with hypertension, said his neighbor has stopped burning the wood “for now.”
Randall Beach can be reached at rbeach@nhregister.com or 203-789-5766.
Published: Wednesday, January 6, 2010
By Randall Beach, Register Staff
The president of a local environmental group is pressing state legislators to support her organization’s call for a law banning outdoor wood-burning furnaces and adding the words “wood smoke” to the state Public Health Nuisance Code.
Nancy Alderman of North Haven, who heads Environment and Human Health Inc., is optimistic both proposals will win passage during the legislative session that begins next month.
Alderman said adding “wood smoke” to the nuisance code would protect any residents receiving wood smoke in their homes from neighbors.
The sources would include outdoor pits or burners, indoor stoves or even outdoor brush-burning.
“It would cover anything that enters somebody’s house from a neighbor on a continual basis,” she said.
If such a law existed, she noted, local health departments could order the offending neighbor to stop burning.
Last April this legislative proposal passed the Public Health Committee by a large margin but was defeated in the Environment Committee.
Alderman said it failed because state health officials mistakenly believed a case in the Trumbull-Monroe health district made the proposed law unnecessary.
A health officer there had issued a cease and desist order against a burner and the order was upheld by the state Department of Public Health. But Alderman said state officials later learned the new legal precedent merely meant local health officials “may” issue such orders but don’t have to do so.
Alderman said if the proposal became law, local health officials would be mandated to issue such orders against burners who are affecting their neighbors.
Alderman plans to meet next Monday with the co-chairmen of the state Public Health Committee to encourage them to support the nuisance language for wood smoke.
“Wood smoke is harmful when breathed on a continual basis,” Alderman said in her group’s legislative agenda for 2010. “If exposures are long enough and high enough, they will cause bronchitis, pneumonia and in some cases even permanent lung damage.”
Alderman has already met with the co-chairmen of the state Environment Committee about the proposed ban on outdoor wood-burning furnaces and is “very hopeful” that it, too, will win passage.
She noted state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and the American Lung Association have called on the General Assembly to ban outdoor furnaces.
They already are prohibited in four Connecticut towns: Granby, Tolland, Hebron and Ridgefield.
In a recent New Haven Register Op-Ed, Alderman defined an outdoor wood-burning furnace as a small, insulated shed with a short smokestack. It burns wood that heats water that is sent through underground pipes to heat a home or building.
She noted they emit smoke 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Their dense smoke endangers the health of nearby neighbors, she said.
Her group has collected testimonials from families who have been harmed by wood smoke. One of the statements came from Robert G. Johnson of West Haven. He said he suffered asthma attacks and bronchial spasms as a result of wood-burning smoke that came from a chimney near Johnson’s home.
Johnson, who described himself as a 68-year-old asthmatic with hypertension, said his neighbor has stopped burning the wood “for now.”
Randall Beach can be reached at rbeach@nhregister.com or 203-789-5766.
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