Weather traps air pollution in skies over Eugene
»Play Video
EUGENE, Ore. - Like a lid on a soup kettle, an air inversion is slowly turning the air over Eugene-Springfield airshed into pea soup.
The Lane Regional Air Protection Agency declared a yellow woodburning advisory Tuesday, urging homeowners to avoid using wood to heat their homes, if possible.
"We call a yellow advisory when we see air quality beginning to deteriorate and we want to make sure that we don't have to go to a total burn ban," said Sally Markos with LRAPA.
The inversion is trapping particles from wood stove smoke in the atmosphere. The problem is more pronounced in areas like South Eugene, where the South Hills create "pots" with smoke trapped under the inversion layer like a "lid."
The proof came early this month when LRAPA's Amazon Park testing trailer measured the highest particulate reading in years - a reading that exceeded federal standards for air quality.
Persons with health issues related to breathing need to pay attention to this sort of weather inversion.
This happens all the time across the country and is not a new situation.
We have no idea how fortunate we are here, air pollution is rare in the Eugene/Springfield area, this is not the case for many cities across this nation. Some get freaked when there is no brown cloud...LOL
One of the many reasons I love living here - we do not have a daily air pollution alert like many cities do.
"The proof came early this month when LRAPA's Amazon Park testing trailer measured the highest particulate reading in years - a reading that exceeded federal standards for air quality"
Â
These federal standards for air quality are exceeded all the time everywhere. Everyone who lives next to or near someone who burns wood are exposed to smoke pollution levels that exceed federal standards for air quality.
Â
With wood smoke now proven to shorten human life spans and most significantly shorten male life spans, why is wood burning being encouraged by local health officials?
Â
With air pollution from burning wood for just one night being equivalent to the air pollution from driving a car for an entire year, why is wood burning allowed at all?Â
Â
Living next to or near someone who burns wood exposes those people to toxic pollution levels that far exceed EPA safety guidelines, even when there is no inversion layer.
Â
Maybe, just maybe it is time for local officials and the public health department to crawl out of their caves and enter the modern world and put an end to the most health hazardous and the greatest life shortening form of air pollution residential humans can be exposed to, especially now that clean burning natural gas is available everywhere.
Â
WOOD SMOKE KILLS
 @Tom Gillilan Natural gas is NOT available in South Eugene, as the brilliant city planners allowed houses to be built without the natural gas infrastructure, forcing us to use either expensive electricity or wood stoves.
@Tom Gillilan ---ever wonder about those Native Americans sleeping in their tee-pees on the ground while the indoor/tee-pee camp fire burned slowly all night long in the winter? Since CO1 is heavy and concentrates near the ground/floor where they slept, how did they not all die from carbon monoxide poisoning by morning time?. Maybe the Plains Indians used clean burning cow pies?
In any event, perhaps there is a way to process woodproducts so they burn cleaner w/o making such firewood so dam expensive.
 @Tom Gillilan Actually the modern woodstove, be it catalytic or after burner type emits way less pollution and particulates than older stoves, and are on par with typical gas appliances. The real issue is the abundance of older non-epa approved stoves in use.
@FunkyMonkey @Tom Gillilan ---I also recall some sort of filtration units (20 years ago) for the stove pipe/smoke stack (non-epa approved), but remember it being difficult to service, filters being too expensive, and draw power was so bad that the smoke would linger inside the house. Perhaps they have made advances long since, because firewood is expensive/burdensome enough already w/o such hassles. I am sure Whole Earth Magazine has some articles on this topic.
 @Tom Gillilan I can agree with you on many of your points but the reality is some people cannot afford to use their heat - they cannot pay that bill and rely on wood to heat their home. What do you say to them? Freeze? I'll pay your bill? It is a real situation - I have several neighbors in this situation and as I can agree with what you have said I cannot begrudge my neighbors warmth. Maybe you are not aware of how many people are still struggling to get by day by day. There should be a solution that does not go beyond a persons means or damage air quality. A balance would be nice huh?
@colorowdy @Tom Gillilan ---when EWEB silver shovelers pressed the button and raised their rates by 20% while people were still busy struggling to pay their heating bills come last Dec., I just knew that more wood stoves were going to get fired up. Dressing warm indoors can only go so far when the mercury drops below 32 F outdoors. Poor Rover! His dog drool has turned to icicles just sitting in the living room along with the frozen snot under my rugrats noses. Why is there steam whenever we use the toilet? Luckily, urine is warm and can thaw out that layer of ice, so the toilet will flush in the morning.
Â
Sorry, time to pollute the air with those seasoned cords of alder, maple, oak, and madrone donated to our family by church volunteers assigned to us from the local elementary school's Christmas charity programs. God bless them!Â
Â
TMI I know, but it does illustrate how grateful our family was for the woodstove and firewood during cold hard time$.