"We are part of the whole which we call the universe, but it is an optical delusion of our mind that we think we are separate.This separateness is like a prison for us. Our job is to widen the circle of our compassion so we feel connected with all people and situations."
Albert Einstein
ENVIRONMENTAL TERRORISM: Welcome to the Trenches March 1, 2003
by L. Backus, B.A., Historical Studies, M.A. candidate, E. Backus, B.S., Health Science/Respiratory Therapy <lisa.maria@mindspring.com>
March 25th, 2003 update on chemical tests on the sludge residue from the perpetrator's wood stove.
Victims Speak
California 3/03 I just went outside for a moment, and, it's bad again. I can't believe
it. At 8:30, I couldn't smell a thing, and now, it was pretty smokey.
It's March now, and it's about time this stuff stopped!
Regards,
Thanks for the information. How do I reach the complaint line for the Bay
Area Air Quality Management District? I have a next door neighbor who is
making our lives a "living Hell". In fact, the Vet last week during my
dog's checkup before an operation asked if we were affected by wood
burning smoke. My dog is now a victim.
Regards,
Forest fires in West could mean health problems for asthmatics American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology
( 611 East Wells Street, Milwaukee, WI 53202
Phone 414-272-6071 Fax 414-272-6070) AAAAI Practical Guide Case StudiesUnfortunately, no one is diagnosing children with winter cough from wood smoke. Think of the medical cost to us all because we don't want to recognize wood smoke for the killer it is. It is not enough to talk about smoke free (meaning tobacco free) homes.
A Brief 2001-2002 Holiday Smoke Report:
Westchester County, NY: Mostly free from wood smoke. AQ:Very Good
Queens, NY Very Good
Manhattan, NYC, NY Charcoal burning carts add substantial street level and therefore indoor levels of smoke. Along with a lot of street cigarette smoking exposure is sporatic, but high. Lets do something wonderful for New York - turn push carts into clean fuel only carts.
The Bronx Botanical Gardens, NYC: New Years Day Excellent - no wood smoke.
Texas:Even the President of the United States doesn't know any better: Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2001 12:04:46 EST
Subject: GEORGE BUSH WAS JUST ON TV, FROM HIS RANCH. HE SAID HE WAS GOING OUT TO CLEAR AND BURN SOME BRUSH. OUT IN THE WOODS. Air quality next to the ranch?San Francisco Bay Area: Pretty Bad. Smell of Wood Smoke permeates the city and local areas north. Marin, Novato, Petaluma, Bodega Bay, Etc. etc. Thick wood smoke obsuring driving visability Jan.3, 01. We are waiting for further reports from observers. If you can help fill in the map let us know - also is it better or worse than in previous years.
2001- 2002 Aethalometer monitoring in Downtown San Franciscohttp://www.mageesci.com/sf/downtown_sf.htm
These are great charts of Wood smoke along with city living. Look at Christmas Eve. See how the smoke pollution fills the air and then it doesn't clear out until early morning. This is early data but very helpful.
Wood Smoke pervades California air. Air Districts, CA Air Resources Board and District IX EPA sit on their hands. Localities struggle to arrest the building of more fireplaces but not wood stoves. Lawsuits have been initiated by the hearth industry. The particulate from wood burning is predicted to increase into 2010.
EPA EXEMPTS California farmers from all clean air rules. 12/5/01
CA-Air-review California Air Resources Board Proposes Air Quality Standards for Fine Particles: BackgrounderCalifornia : Politics as usual : here is the flaw: --"No 24-hour PM2.5 standard is recommended. (The federal standard is 65 ug/m3, 3 year average of 98th percentile concentrations)." Still time for comment. We need to stop wood burning and crop burning in CA. It is clear that the CA ARB has not been out and measured fine particulate. This is a document to do nothing about the year round wood smoke that invades California air.
San Francisco Bay Area: Burning Issues 1999 rebuttal to BAAQMD Plan.
"Santa Rosa may ban new woodburning fireplaces. Law would also require wood stoves not EPA-approved to be removed when home is sold."
Berkeley: Contact: Jamie Casebar: Citizens Opposing Polluted Environments (COPE): <jcaseber@yahoo.com> Berkeley Law bans commercial wood burning ovens and fireplaces. Dec. 15, 2001 SF Chronicle
Central California Coast Contact: <MPOWERGIACOLETTI@prodigy.net>
"I am working on a report that should greatly support a permanent burn ban in Ga.We all know what goes in our air that does not choke us right away comes back through our water and food supply. It is my understanding many DIOXINS cannot be filtered out of our bodies and they accumulate, poison and cause cancer .Perhaps it is why we are warned to only eat the small fish in our rivers and streams. I continue to listen to all for only then will I have the gardeners view. A view of A Gardeners Quest for Beauty and Fresh Air.
Contact: http://gardenersview.com
December 09, 2001 11:13 AM Dear Louis, Thank-you for your letter supporting clean air in the Macon Telegraph at: http://www.macontelegraph.com/content/macon/2001/12/09/letters/view_1209_sun day.htm "Thanks for clean air I wish to thank all the persons involved in helping to clear our air. I believe the unanimous vote by Macon's City Council supporting the clean air resolution is a breath of fresh air for all of us. It gives us hope, the concern for healthy air and healthy people will be great enough to place a permanent ban on burning trash of any kind in our neighborhoods. It also gives us hope that we may live long enough to see our grandchildren laugh, play and learn in a healthy environment.
3 News Articles suitable for printing in Newsletters .
Small towns may win smoke protection
By Diane Dietz
The Register-Guard
Published: Saturday, January 13, 2007
Facing a dilemma created by population growth in Oregon's rural communities, the state Forestry Board will soon decide at what point small towns become big enough to merit protection from the smoke of logging industry slash burning.
State environmental officials say once a town reaches 10,000 population, state forestry officials should automatically take extra precautions before allowing timber companies to burn near the town's boundaries.
Under that approach, towns such as Florence, Sweet Home and Prineville, which are all nearing 10,000, might soon be eligible for the special protections.
But the forest industry opposes automatic thresholds and would rather that city leaders be required to petition the state with evidence that slash-burn smoke is blanketing their town.
The state Forestry Department's goal is to keep the air clean but also to maximize the timber industry's ability to burn slash - big piles of branches, stumps and other waste wood at logging sites - said Charlie Stone, a state employee who's shepherding a major overhaul of forestry burning rules.
"We don't want to cover the map - everywhere there are people ... because then you'll never be able to accomplish the burn," Stone said.
Oregon's logging industry wants to continue doing what it's long done: Torch 1.5 million to 2 million tons of slash annually on private and public timber lands.
In Lane and Linn counties alone, as many as 750 slash fires are needed every year to clear as many as 14,000 acres of logged forest and prepare them for replanting.
The forest industry and the U.S. Forest Service hopes the overhaul of the rules will allow them to burn even more, Stone said.
But new arrivals in Oregon's booming small towns have medical problems such as asthma and heart disease, which are exacerbated by smoke.
Meanwhile, on the behalf of people nationwide with those problems, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency limited the amount of smoke - from any source - allowed to hang in a community's air.
Oregon officials worry that townspeople might someday flex their muscles and seek to prevent timber companies from burning nearly as many tons of slash as they need to.
Bigger cities, bigger fires?
Under state law, the Oregon Board of Forestry and the state Department of Environmental Quality must agree on new rules for protecting the air over growing towns. The issue is part of a major overhaul of the rules governing the state's forestry smoke management program.
The forestry board is expected to consider the issue on March 7. The DEQ's advisory board may start deliberations in April.
The overhaul also could allow larger fires near big towns, such as Eugene-Springfield, which have been on the protected list since near the start of the smoke management program three decades ago.
Current law limits the number of total tons that could be burned within 30 miles of a protected city, with the amounts calibrated to match the weather conditions.
The proposed overhaul would take off the tons-per-mile limits and instead allow state meteorologists to decide day-by-day how many acres can be set ablaze next to cities.
"Science has improved. Technology has improved," said Mike Dykzeul of the Oregon Forest Industries Council.
But Gary Stevens, the program manager at Jackson County Environmental Health who was on the rule review committee, said meteorologists are fallible, and if the wind changes direction, towns are smothered.
The forestry department officially recorded 29 slash-or-thinning burn smoke intrusions into protected cities during the past six years, including nine in Eugene-Springfield and one in Veneta. That number does not include intrusions into small towns that have not gained status as protected areas.
Since the smoke program's inception, the practice of adding towns to the protected list has been inconsistent. Cities were added for varying reasons.
Today, the entire Willamette and Rogue River valley floors are on the "burn with care" list, and 20 cities outside those areas are specifically named for protection from smoke. In total, the protected areas contain 75 percent of Oregon's population.
However, Florence, Prineville, Sweet Home and other small towns don't qualify for the level of care - which involves forecasting, monitoring and reporting.
The initial version of proposed smoke rules would have allowed towns over 4,000 to petition for protection and towns that cross the threshold of 10,000 to be placed on the list automatically.
That makes sense because concentrations of people also means a concentration of people who are sickened by smoke, Stevens said.
Many studies document the vulnerability of those people, according to a forestry committee studying the dilemma. They breathe the tiny particles in smoke deeply into their lungs, where the particles are absorbed by the lung tissue and hamper breathing.
Stevens estimates that one-fifth of the population of Jackson County is vulnerable, including 12 percent of children with asthma.
He gets calls from people in Medford when the air gets smoky there, asking whether they should leave the valley until the air clears. "We tell them that that's a good idea," he said.
But Dykzeul, who represents 60 timber companies, said towns and cities wanting extra protection from slash burning smoke should instead be required to petition the Oregon Board of Forestry, which oversees the Forestry Department.
To qualify, under his proposal, the towns would need evidence of two slash-burning smoke exposures per year over a two year period.
Further, under his plan, a lone complainer could not petition. The initiative would have to come from the town's leadership. "We felt it needed to be community based rather than individual based," he said.
Also, under his plan, if a town already on the protected list had no evidence of smoke intrusions - and the DEQ never installed a monitor to prove it one way or the other - the state would drop the town off the list.
"We're trying to protect both goals of the program: The air quality and the same time maximizing our essential forest land burning opportunities," Dykzeul said.
But Stevens questions whether small towns have the wherewithal to document intrusions. "An intrusion report has to be filed, and if it isn't, it doesn't mean an intrusion didn't occur," he said.
Further, the review committee found that the Forestry Department isn't set up to receive complaints, said Greg McClarren, a Bend area forester and environmental activist who was on the review committee.
"As Oregon became more urbanized and there's more incidence of asthma and other respiratory diseases, we felt there needed to be an easy way for people to speak out so they didn't get the run around." he said.
LEARN MORE
Smoke proposal: www. oregon.gov/ODF/FIRE /SMP/SM_Review.shtml
Oregon Department of Forestry: (503) 945-7420
Oregon Department of Environmental Quality: (503) 229-6278
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