Sept. 22, 2011
To the editor:
I oppose Proposition 2. People have been burning wood to heat their homes since history began. It has not suddenly become an unbearable hazard since the environmental movement came into being.
Fairbanks winter air quality has been an issue long before wood burning heaters became popular here. The nearly exclusive use of fuel oil and gas has supposedly impacted Fairbanks air quality since I moved here in 1971. We should not be beholden to the federal government when our livelihood is at stake, especially to get their money. Our local governments should stand with us; not with them.
Wood smoke is not the health hazard it is being made out to be. Societies have heated with wood for thousands of years. Minus 40 degree air is the real hazard. No one escapes it without heat. Staying warm with the cheapest fuel source we can find is a necessity to living in Alaska. The wood-burning complainers can’t initiate propositions to stop forest fires. By comparison, they pollute plenty and we all keep living.
This doesn’t mean people with overbearing wood-burning neighbors should have no recourse. Common sense solutions can be found without criminalizing the wood-burning community at large.
Wood-burning heaters are a survival issue to many in the borough. The need to confront the harsh winter climate with an adequate heat source when we can’t afford heating oil or gas should not be legislated and fined away from us. Keeping “Old Man Winter” at bay is the real life-and-death matter we face. The fanciful talk of the “air is ours” and “working together” to criminalize and penalize our neighbors is chatter we can’t afford to allow to become policy.
Vote “no” on Prop 2.
"The sentiment that woodsmoke, being a natural substance, must be benign to humans is still sometimes heard. It is now well established, however, that wood-burning stoves and fireplaces as well as wildland and agricultural fires emit significant quantities of health-damaging pollutants,including several carcinogenic compounds."
http://www.uvm.edu/~susagctr/Documents/Woodsmoke.pdf
This year, just cancer the area grew to cover more than 7,000 square miles with an population density of about 8 humans per square mile. Your were told this would happen voted 2:1 and to try and stop it.
"A camel's nose in the tent?"---------------
Sample ballot:
http://www.co.fairbanks.ak.us/elections/RegularAndServiceAreaElections/RegularElections/2011/FNSB SAMPLE 2011.pdf
Text of the ballot prop. "Shall Chapters 8.21, 1.04, and 3.08 of the Fairbanks North Star Borough Code of Ordinances be modified to provide for air quality control prohibitions, standards, incentives, and penalties? In the nonattainment area, passage of this initiative will prohibit wood-fired hydronic heaters and coal burning appliances, add coal to the list of prohibited fuels, and remove the Interior/Healy coal exception from prohibition against using material not intended for use by the manufacturer. Borough-wide, passage of this initiative will prohibit misuse of a heating appliance, establish standards for Visible Emissions and Emissions Crossing Property Lines, extend eligibility of the Voluntary Removal, Replacement, or Repair Program to all properties, and offer property tax credits for air quality improvements. Passage of this initiative will modify the fines for violations of these provisions."
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Hmmm... let's see if I can match that : In ester's ' circle of hippie bacteria and Joan Baez squeals ' , parents with hyphenated last names feed their kids an education of Karl Marx and Saul Alinsky and give them payment in dried flowers for braiding their mothers' armpit hair and spying on their neighbors.
Yeah, that ought to do it ...
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Reading your comments.
You deliberately gave false information. On fast particles fall. Which can't be verified experimentally by others.
Answer the question: "Which penny hits the ground first?".
How long does it take for common cooking flour, when used to simulate, 2.5s flipped from a 10' hight to hit the ground? House hold dust from your vacuum cleaner can will also work.
You are singing a song claiming to represent yourself as some kind of comment scientist.
How about telling me the results FROM the VERY SIMPLE experiments.
"Trust but Verify"
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Exaggerated health claims issue:
By the way!! ACCORDING TO THE FNSB air quality web site for someone to p-o-s-s--i-b-l-y be harmed by wood smoke they MUST be O-U-T-D-O-O-R-S a-n-d ENGAGED in P-O-L-O-N-G-E-D O-R H-E-A-V-Y E-X-E-R-T-I-O-N
Se comprende Amigos OUTDOORS!!!!!
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41 -80 ugm^3
"U-N-U-S-U-A-L-L-Y sensitive people S-H-O-U-L-D CONSIDER REDUCING P-R-O-L-O-N-G-E-D OR H-E-A-V-Y E-X-E-R-T-I-O-N."
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176 - 300 ugm^3
People WITH respiratory or heart disease, the elderly and children SHOULD avoid prolonged exertion; everyone else should limit prolonged exertion [OUTDOORS]
After 301 and up 500 ugm^3
"People with respiratory or heart disease, the elderly and children SHOULD AVOID ANY O-U-T-D-O-O-R ACTIVITY ; everyone else SHOULD avoid
P-L-O-N-G-E-D EXERTION."
over 500 ugm^3
E-v-e-r-y-o-n-e S-H-O-U-L-D AVOID ANY OUTDOOR EXERTION; people with respiratory or heart disease, the elderly and children SHOULD REMAIN INDOORS.
Notice these numb nuts don't even suggest wearing a P100 mask or covering your nose with a sheet of toilet paper for protection.
http://www.co.fairbanks.ak.us/airquality/Docs/ParticulateLevels.pdf
PS-- Heavy exertion is not done around here in the winter because you will frost bit your lungs!
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« Yukonjohn wrote on Tuesday, Sep 27 at 08:59 PM »
At least, in a week, we will be done with this.
AMEN!
I've answered your particle questions several times. Frankly, I'm a little tired of doing it, and if someone ELSE wants to know, they can ask. Or they can work it out themselves. Stokes Law, etc.
In your own words below, you acknowledge that winds can carry ash particles aloft but not golf balls. And you know what - PM2.5 particles - that'd be particles sized 2.5 microns and smaller - are smaller than most of the forest fire ash particles.
A 16' stack is plenty high to keep them in circulation for a big long time. If you have large chunks of stuff coming out of your stack that you can see falling to the ground, you have a serious problem with your device.
Frankly, your posts have "jumped the shark."
You're obfuscating the issue at hand.
Which is:
a) high levels of PM2.5 are harmful to human health.
b) Fairbanks has elevated levels in the wintertime, and those fine particles are 60-80% woodsmoke.
c) winter fine particulates have been increasing in recent years, fueled by the increased use of cordwood hydronic heaters, which produce many times more smoke than woodstoves.
d) the EPA has designated a part of our Borough as non-attainment for PM2.5, and has threatened all sorts of actions if we don't improve by 2014.
e) what kind of place puts individuals' "cheap" heat over everyone's health, local control, and our EPA highway funds?
Sheesh. Golden Heart we ain't.
reply -- Answering my question with a question tells me you don't know the answer.
Your implying / telling me a 2.5 particle from a camp fire travels travels 8 or more miles though the woods because of volcanic activity which you don't understand.
Wood stove 2.5s have a starting elevation of 16', what volcanic force keeps them up in the air HERE IN FAIRBANKS ALASKA?
You examples are irrelevant and bazaar buy claiming gravity DOES NOT exert the EXACTLY THE same downward force on a 2.5 vs a golf ball.
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You ask - "How does ash from a forest fire 30 miles away make it onto your windshield."
Answer:
The heat generated by the big fire causes the HOT air to rise there by LIFTING the ash perhapses thousands of feet. The upward heat lift over comes the downward pulling force of gravity. This works for ash because it is light. The rising air from a forest fire can't lift a golf ball.
When the AIR cools, the upward HOT AIR push is no longer bigger than the downward pull of gravity and the ash falls to the ground or windshield.
How far ash travels horizontally is determined by vertical HEIGHT from which the ash starts falling and wind.
Horizontal speed does not slow the ash's fall BECAUSE THE force of gravity is the same all the time.
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So, What was the result to your penny experiment?
Which penny hit the ground first? The horizontally tossed one or the one dropped vertically at the same time.
And how long DID it take for the pennies to hit the ground?
By the way, gravity causes dropped objects to travel 32' by the end of the first second in a vacuum where there is no air resistance.
Unless voting trends this year are different from past years, Proposition 2 will be defeated, and a small minority will get what they want. The ultra-conservative "Liberty" faction will be at the polls en masse, and they have shown time and again that they do not have a stake in Fairbanks as a viable community.
They've pulled out all the stops. They claim that voting Yes will cause people to freeze or starve. They claim that the proponents are socialists, Outsiders, or worse. They claim that the data does not support the claim that hydronic heaters and coal stoves emit pm2.5 at much higher rates than other heating devices. They claim that the data doesn't show that pm2.5 is harmful to health. They claim that voting Yes will result in a future wood stove ban.
None of their fear-mongering or honest ignorance is correct. 1. Most if not all of the hydronic heater owners are well-to-do. All are eligible for a rebate. Low income people are eligible for many programs, including energy assistance and home weatherization. 2. The supporters of Prop 3 are local residents. Many, including myself, heat with a wood stove. 3. The data clearly show that hydronic heaters and coal stoves emit high levels of pm2.5, and that the particulates are harmful to public health. 4. A future ban on wood stoves does not follow from Prop 3, any more than any other law or ordinance leads to another.
I would love to see an average age under 40 at the voting booths this time around. If you plan on sticking around Fairbanks for a few decades, don't let the gray hairs (no offense, I have a few myself) determine your quality of life.
What kind of a community will you and your children live in ten years from now? Will it reflect your vision, or someone elses?
-How does a kite rise into the sky?
- How does a weather balloon reach orbit?
- How does a hang glider not fall immediately from the sky?
- How does ash from a volcanic a thousand miles away make it Washington and Oregon?
- How is billions of tons of water transported through the air across the United States on daily basis?
- How does ash from a forest fire 30 miles away make it onto your windshield.
There are alot of things bigger, and heavier than PM 2.5 that manage to make it incredible distances in at least temporary defiance of gravity. If they can do it...so can smoke from your wood boiler.
Hey, Dick. I don't care who else uses wood.
--- And so do I.
I have plenty to do besides sticking my nose in my neighbor's stack
How many complaints did you generate against the old timer by Farmers Loop.
By the way, because I smell wood smoke does not make it harmful.
"How about doing some thing useful?"
We are, we're cleaning up the air...and holding the selfish responsible for their actions
-------Yah, sure! since when does the "we are" know what is good for me?
--- The "We are" are to lazy to shut the windows at 40 blow; to cheap to take your neighbor to court under existing air pollution laws therefore you want to use borough taxpayer and lawyer to attack your neighbor over what amounts to a barking issue in an area where 50,000 some people are spread out over some 7,000 square miles at an average population density of 7 people per square mile.
--- we cleaned up the air last year and your side was defeated 2:1
What is "clean air"?
While your at it how do wood smoke particles neutralize effect of gravity?
When you did the experiment with the pennies which one hit the floor first?
And they have some of the most polluted air on the planet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_brown_cloud
So what was your point?
People who burn wet wood, use outdoor boilers that pump out noxious smoke 24/7, burn trash, and/or are using coal in residential areas (without the scrubbers/cleaners that the power plants use) ARE the problem. THEY poison the air. THEIR ACTIONS MAKE PEOPLE SICK. It is not OK for THEM to take my family's health away or our quality of life. NOT OK, DICK.
When did you get your PhD in human physiology? How long have you been practicing? You speak with such authority. Your sub-specialty in thoracic surgery will really payoff as pollution levels climb.
People marvel at your skill bisecting lungs. Those rib saws are amazing. After you remove the diseased section, and the patient is sent home to see if they pull through, they tell friends about your bedside manner. You're a real joker.
Aren't those kids amazing? So much promise but they never get off to a good start. Their parents smoke at home; feed them soda pop six times a day; and they live in North Pole's rectangle of death. But, hey, who said kids get to choose?
By the time they get to the OR, it's your time to shine. Cut, burn and poison. I know how you love your work.
But as long as you are warm, Paul, that's all that counts. Your comfort, your insistence that there's nothing to fear in a little lung disease, and blind assurance that your neighbors are faking illness, that's all that counts.
Douglas Yates, Ester
LOL! you keep asking the same silly question about woodsmoke. Yet I noticed you didn't answer my question. If your wood smoke can't make it 8 miles, how is that ash from a forest fire dozens of miles away, rain from the Pacific ocean hundreds of miles away, and volcanic ash from a volcano a thousand miles away can make it into your yard.
Figure that out and you will understand how your smoke under the right conditions will travel quite far.