Wood Smoke Free New York
Did you know the Stimulus package, containing your tax dollars, is helping to fund EPA wood stove promotion in the form of tax credits for wood stove buyers? This means that we are all inadvertently helping the wood stove industry and paying part of the cost of the purchase of new wood stoves!
Wood smoke contains carcinogenic particulate matter that contaminates our air causing severe respiratory problems, premature death, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome along with a host of other illnesses affecting those exposed. Wood smoke is linked to climate change and is a public nuisance that deprives residents of their right to good health, as well as the right to enjoy their property in peace and comfort, without the invasion of noxious wood smoke. If your neighbor were to idle a diesel truck 24/7 beside your house, they'd be stopped and fined for polluting the air with choking emissions; exactly what wood smoke does. We need strict laws imposed and enforced to protect human rights, wildlife and our environment. Everyone has the right to breathe clean, fresh, healthy air. Please sign our petition which will be sent to the EPA in Albany, NY and to the Governor of New York and to Washington D.C.
Visit http://www.woodsmokefreeny.com for videos and more information.
Did you know the Stimulus package, containing your tax dollars, is helping to fund EPA wood stove promotion in the form of tax credits for wood stove buyers? This means that we are all inadvertently helping the wood stove industry and paying part of the cost of the purchase of new wood stoves!
Wood smoke contains carcinogenic particulate matter that contaminates our air causing severe respiratory problems, premature death, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome along with a host of other illnesses affecting those exposed. Wood smoke is linked to climate change and is a public nuisance that deprives residents of their right to good health, as well as the right to enjoy their property in peace and comfort, without the invasion of noxious wood smoke. If your neighbor were to idle a diesel truck 24/7 beside your house, they'd be stopped and fined for polluting the air with choking emissions; exactly what wood smoke does. We need strict laws imposed and enforced to protect human rights, wildlife and our environment. Everyone has the right to breathe clean, fresh, healthy air. Please sign our petition which will be sent to the EPA in Albany, NY and to the Governor of New York and to Washington D.C.
Visit http://www.woodsmokefreeny.com for videos and more information.
Governor of New York State
State Capitol
Albany, NY 12224
Dear Governor,
Wood Smoke is just as harmful as cigarette smoke, if not worse.
Please help us stop the spread of wood smoke in New York by declaring wood smoke a Public Nuisance. Many states are now banning wood stoves and other indoor and outdoor wood burning devices that negatively affect air quality. Connecticut is close to passing legislation that will declare wood smoke a Public Nuisance. We need to do the same so we can stop the constant introduction of wood smoke into our lives and lungs.
Wood smoke contains toxic particulate matter that is polluting our air, harming our environment and our health. Involuntary inhalation of wood smoke worsens asthma, threatens those suffering cardiac problems and diabetes, causing severe respiratory problems, even for the healthy. Children and the elderly are especially at risk. Wood smoke is linked to SIDS and premature death in the USA. Black carbon from wood smoke is now linked to climate change. Yet more and more people are turning to wood to heat their homes. We need to educate and raise awareness of the dangers of inhaling wood smoke, just as we do with cigarettes.
Doctors, scientists and state officials are beginning to realize that wood smoke is extremely harmful, remains in your body longer than cigarette smoke, and in most cases, it's not an individual's choice! We are at the mercy of "burners" whose uninvited wood smoke smolders and hovers, entering our homes through closed windows. Smokers have a choice. Non-smokers have no choice but to breathe the air around us, air that in many areas of New York is filled with poisons from wood stoves, fireplaces and outdoor wood boilers.
Stricter legislation must be written and enforced, to stop or at least control the amount of wood smoke spewed into the air.
When you think about it, cigarette smoke and wood smoke share a lot in common...poison!; why inhale ANY smoke into your lungs? We are telling our kids not to smoke cigarettes which have been banned in public places, yet wood burners are forcing our children to breathe wood smoke right in our own backyards!
Cigarette and wood smoke contain very similar, deadly toxins. Help us educate all residents of the hazards of wood smoke, and on economical alternatives to wood burning. They may be saving a life by not burning wood. You may be saving a life.
Wood smoke is a public nuisance that deprives residents of their right to good health, as well as the right to enjoy their property in peace and comfort, without the invasion of noxious wood smoke. If your neighbor were to idle a diesel truck 24/7 beside your house, they'd be immediately stopped and fined for polluting the air with choking emissions; exactly what wood smoke does. We need strict laws to protect human rights, wildlife and environment.
Everyone has the right to breathe clean, fresh, healthy air.
Thank you for your support and for taking the first steps necessary to make New York a Smoke Free state.
Would you hand your kids a pack of cigarettes to smoke? Of course not. Yet thousands of children and adults are "chain smoking" deadly wood smoke on a daily basis, and EPA researchers suggest that the lifetime cancer risk from wood smoke emissions may be 12 TIMES GREATER than the lifetime cancer risk from an exposure to an equal amount of cigarette smoke. (see "Health Effects of Wood Smoke" at http://www.ecy.wa.gov/biblio/92046.html )
Would you hand your kids a pack of cigarettes to smoke? Of course not. Yet thousands of children and adults are "chain smoking" deadly wood smoke on a daily basis, and EPA researchers suggest that the lifetime cancer risk from wood smoke emissions may be 12 TIMES GREATER than the lifetime cancer risk from an exposure to an equal amount of cigarette smoke. (see "Health Effects of Wood Smoke" at http://www.ecy.wa.gov/biblio/92046.html )
The neighbors wood furnace affects my granddaughters asthma condition. For eight months out of the year there is a real heath concern for her when she visits. Also, I am concerned about snakes in the wood pile which is next to my property. Villages, Towns, and Cities in New York need stricter regulations on wood burning stoves and furnaces. A summer night around a campfire can not be compared to eight months of 24/7 smoke inhalation and home infiltration.
I have a vacation home in a pristine area but the homes on the road all have wood burning stoves. I have a lung disease and bought the house for the clean air up there and now am so upset that the air is being polluted by wood smoke. I had to once leave two days early due to my throat burning. I am desperate enough to buy a catalytic converter for the neighboring house that is the biggest offender. Our houses each sit on 2 acres or more but the air is always tinged with a smoky smell in the cooler weather, which is early May, autumn and Sept. So summer is the only time I can go up there and not worry about wood smoke.
I have been bothered by smoke for many years. Thus, it is especially unbelievable to me that now when we finally have so much data showing the horrific hazards of smoke that our government is actually promoting wood burning with generous tax incentives. Shame, shame, someone please do something to stop more wood burning.
I live upstate NY and my neigbor had an OWB installed this past winter. Could not stay outdoors and could not open my house windows without having smoke come into the house. One of my dauhgters has had previous bouts with asthma. Started the fight to do something with the town board - a close minded bunch of individuals who couldn't care less. Right now trying to get new people in their seats ( new elections coming up in Nov.) who are intelligent enough to listen to reason and hard facts from Judy Schreiber, a scientist who did a great study on OWBs -"Smoke Gets in Your lungs: OWBs in NY State".
There are 2 outdoor wood stoves across from me. One neighbor burns his all summer to heat the hot water tank. I have an attic fan that I can rarely use now because it pulls in the wood smoke and my whole house smells like a wood fire. It wakes me up at night and I have to close all the windows. I therefore have to use air conditioning most of the warm weather. I used to just use the attic fan to cool my home. Now summer months cost me twice as much in utility bills plus the smoke often burns my eyes. It scares me to think that I am breathing this 24 hours a day, all year. It is unfair and the state, county and town need to do what is right here and at least limit burning to the winter months, and force them to put converters , blowers and/or higher stacks on them. I would like to get fresh air in the spring, summer and fall. Something needs to be done now.
We have rules about who can put signs up on their property (non-invasive) and noise ordinances (invasive). It's about time we can spend a nice sunny day in our homes with the windows open and not have smoke pour into our homes from the inconsiderate neighbor in the next 1/5 acre lot. Wood fires are for camping - IN THE WOODS - not for a neighborhood.
I live in the Town of Wawarsing, Ulster County, NY. Two of those smokers have been installed in our neighborhood in the past year, one less than 40 feet from our house. What an eyesore, beyond the visual negative, the stacks are short and the smoke permeates into our home. Now that nicer weather is here, we cannot enjoy opening our windows. We wake up in the morning with scratchy throats and burning eyes. Those things should be banned. I have had my heat off for a week, I have an excellent hot water tank off my oil-fired boiler. These folks load that furnace up with more than 20 logs and it seems more of a waste of wood and energy if it is on all the time, burning and smoking. Ban Them PLEASE! Our home will have less resale value because people with any respiratory conditions ( ie, asthma, etc..) will not buy a home that smells of smoke. I called the Town, they told me to deal with it as there are no laws banning their use. Nobody seems to care that we are in a village setting, not a farm with hundreds of acres.
Wood smoke is a growing nuisance in New York that politicians must recognize and address.
Please keep up the fight in this never ending battle. Education is the key to success with people understanding the importance of Clean Air. http://freedomofair.webs.com www.myspace.com/freedomofair
Dutchess County has a rated air quality that is poor. We recently recieved an "F" Air quality Rating. We need to clean up the problems that produce these un-acceptable ratings.
My daughters MD wrote that woodsmoke from one neighbor was a threat to her life, health, safety, and welfare. He did this at the request of a lawyer who sahared the opinion with a city council man. The reason? Another neighbors heart attack within weeks of the start of woodburning and asthma worsening in my daughter followed by an asthma attack and two opacity meters reading very unhealthy dust (PM) and odors (toxic gas). The Am Lung Assn also supported me and the Maine Medical Assn too. The ALA gave me an owb report that predicted this could happen and it did in my backyard. Maine passed an outdoor wood boiler bill whick is good but it has flaws. New York needs an outdoor wood boiler bill too but a better one like Washinton States. The Maine DEP recomended following that but woodburners in the legislature refused to follow the advice of the experts. Regulations against other wood smoke health threats are needed as well because old fireplaces and stoves give off enough pm per Maine DEP modelling to cause asthma attacks and heart attacks like outdoor wood boilers. The pm from even a certified stove improperly operated can reach 400 mcg/m3 according to a Professor in New Zealand and this can kill. New science is showing wood smoke to be worse than second hand smoke in amount and toxicity so some locations have banned wood burning and the burnig of solid fuels. London has done this since 1950 or so since the London Fog air pollution disaster. If woodburning cities in New York have a blizzard, blackout and emergency woodburning the pm levels can get up to 300 mcg/m3 and 30 mcg/m3 for 3 hrs can kill. Dr. Schwartz from Harvards School of Public Health wrote this and he is considered the world's leading expert on PM. Hampstead, Quebec has followed the lead of London and New Zealand is starting to ban some old woodburning equipment. The black carbon or pm from woodburning is 500 times worse from wood burning than from oil burning so wood burning is 500 times worse for global warming. It has to end. Better alternatives are available. Maine is starting to turn to them by tapping offshore windpower, running the electricty to power heat pumps and heating buildings that way cheaper than with wwod and with no environmental consequeces. New york could do it with nuclear power from fail safe new nuclear plants.
