WHAT
HAPPENED TO BASIC PROPERTY RIGHTS?
24
hour a day smoke emissions in a residential neighborhood
is an abuse of property
rights and creates serious quality of
life issues for dozens of Oak Grove, Minnesota residents.
UPDATE
NOVEMBER 20, 2009 This
was taken literally moments before the City Planner did a "drive-by" inspection
on 11/20/09. (I have the original time stamp on the camera file.This
photo is untouched
except for cropping it into a long strip.) From left to right is
a 2.5 acre property, viewed across the diagonal. (I'm about 70
feet back in my yard). The cloud continues over Uplander which
is about 40 feet on the other side of the building to the right.
I watched the City Planner drive from left to right, north along
Uplander under the smoke cloud, up to 201st. This smoke is excessive,
unhealthy and just makes our Oak Grove neighborhood look like some
a hick
backwater
hole of a town. Who would be proud of property ownership when this
is a daily occurrence? From where we live, Oak Grove is a smokey
cesspool.
Monday
afternoon, 4:45pm,
November 9, 2009. Between October 1 and October
15, 2009, this is what happened every night for two weeks straight, and many
more times since. There's no wind, and this smoke is gathering like runoff from
a rainstorm- pooling in and around several properties including ours. This photo
was taken about 300 feet from the source, and the smoke cloud continues behind
me,
several
hundred more feet, enveloping our entire property.This
is what
we are forced to live in during the day and sleep under at night.
The
owner knows very well he is the cause of this continual problem. The City is
also
well
aware this is happening and yet allows it to go on unabated. This is a case
of continuing
willful
neglect
toward
the health and safety of property owners in Oak Grove.
Sunday night, 4:20pm, January 11, 2009.
The wind becomes still at sunset, but
the smoke output never stops, with emissions continually
adding to the clouds, above. The visible
part of the stationary smoke cloud is around 1000 feet long,
and covers
a
much larger
area
we
can't see, but can certainly smell. Tonight, like
many other nights throughout the year, our homes
and properties
will be wrapped in
this progressively thickening smoke
blanket from sunset to sunrise. In
January 2009 alone, the scene above was repeated at least
10 times, or 1 of every 3 days. (Click
on the 2009 nuisance log in the upper right corner to see
the day by day effect this has on us.)
Tuesday night, 8:15pm, August 5, 2008 This
was "National Night Out" night
last fall, and needless to say, there were few neighbors
outside because
the air was once again unbreathable. The smoke easily reaches
the height of the trees in the background, at least 40 feet
tall, and the smoke and
stench
reaches across
yard after yard. The City of Oak Grove calls what you see
above "common
practice" wood
burning. However, common sense says this is extreme by definition,
an abuse of property rights and more than just a nuisance- a real
health
issue
for property owners affected by the resulting
by-product of the continuous
burn. Smoke like this day after day makes it difficult for healthy
people to breathe, and aggravates the health issues of many property
owners who are forced to live with the high
volumes of smoke.
Oak Grove residents
are forced to live with the by-product of EXTREME wood burning
practices,
losing the BASIC RIGHT to breathable air on their own properties.
When you picture rural Minnesota, you think of beautiful lakes, woodland
forests, and fresh air. As homeowners in Oak Grove, Minnesota,
for over a dozen years, we have been fortunate to enjoy some of the
best Minnesota has to offer. However, we lost our right to an adequate
supply of breathable air on our property over three years
ago (!) and it continues while you are reading this.
Our home and property are engulfed
in
extremely
large
volumes of
smoke
and odor which
will
appear at any moment,
any time
of day, any day of the year. The quantity of smoke is comparable
to the appearance of a forest fire, or someone's house going up in
smoke, However, this fire is
never put out. The odor from
the combustion is highly concentrated and nothing like a traditional
wood smoke smell. It
has an acrid
burnt
odor,
and is
thick enough
to constrict the nose and/or throat at times. The smoke is rarely
clear or white, but is often shades of gray or blue, but we have
also seen smoke that is purple, browns, and black. Living
downwind from the smoke, we suffer real quality of life issues.
If our windows are open on a downwind day, a continuous
stream
of smoke will blow inside our home. There is
always smoke
and odor.
It
never
stops. At low burn, the volume of smoke is comparable
to a heavily stoked wood stove in full operation, EVERY DAY OF THE
YEAR. That's the good news, relatively speaking.
Then the real party starts. Every few hours (sometimes EVERY hour)
, 8, 10 times or more each day and night, without warning, comes
the
high
volume smoke cycle, The
volume of smoke doesn't double. Or triple. Or quadruple. The volume
of smoke can be compared to appx. 25 fully stoked wood stoves burning
at the same time, according to studies. The enormous purge
of wood smoke may last
for
as little as 15 minutes, but more often lasts a half hour to an
hour, and often two hours or longer. The whole process will cycle
and
repeat
every
few
hours
again,
24
hours a day. This is an extreme method of burning
wood by any common sense
standards.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Appx. 200 feet left to right -------------------------------------------------------------
Another typical
view from our property. The smoke begins at the far right in this
photo. The wind is blowing toward
the
left. By the center of the photo the smoke plume has fanned out to
40 feet
tall, as tall as the pines, and the smoke is still rolling along
the ground, fanning out horizontally left and right. In about 3 seconds
the smoke has traveled about 200 feet, from right to left in this
photo.
At
head
height, on the far left by the pine trees,
is a cloud of
smoke, still so thick you can't see the trees
which are behind it. This is a GOOD day for us, as this is not blowing
directly at our house.
Many surrounding properties are experiencing the same problem.
We live in a 3rd tier residential
neighborhood. The two square blocks around the smoke source includes
23 properties. Although properties are appx. 2.5 acres in size,
there is simply not
enough
open land
to dilute
and
dissipate
the enormous volume of smoke and odor.
This type of high volume incineration may not be a problem on larger
acreage
where
neighbors
are not located
in close proximity. However, in our case the wood burning takes
place in a location close to multiple property lines, so the volume
of smoke
creates
an issue
for
many
others
besides ourselves. At least a half dozen of the closest properties,
with at least 20 family members, have been bothered enough to make
one or more complaints to the City of Oak Grove.
In our family, the smoke has triggered asthma attacks and caused
severe headaches and extended periods of coughing. Ours is just
one of many stories told by people in the neighborhood. Many property
owners
are experiencing
not
only the nuisance smoke, but health problems which they tell us are
aggravated by the ongoing excessive volumes
of
smoke and odor.
This is an abuse
of property rights at the expense of the health of others.
We are not opposed to outdoor wood boilers.
What we ARE OPPOSED TO is wood boiler smoke and smell.
Why is it necessary to create a whole web site for a
smoke nuisance issue?
After filing multiple written complaints to the City of
Oak Grove and City officials since the Fall of 2007, we and many
others living on
Swallow and Uplander Street would like an answer to that very question,
when
existing
ordinances
clearly cover
this
issue. And plain common sense says this is extreme for a residential
neighborhood to put up with the smoke and smell year after year.
This lowers our quality of life, devalues our land, and is a day
to day
issue with us. This never goes away. It's part of our lives
every day of the year.
