Convert fireplaces to gas or electric

Where there is wood smoke, there is grave danger to our air, quality of life and health.

Your neighbor's outdoor wood boiler, outdoor wood-burning fire pit or fireplace and indoor wood-burning fireplace forces your family to involuntarily breathe deadly wood smoke.

The Breathe Healthy Air Coalition (www.breathehealthyair@blogspot.com ) encourages the creation of a government cash grant to those who voluntarily convert their indoor wood burning fireplace to natural gas or electric.

Exposure to wood smoke particulates can trigger or aggravate respiratory and cardiovascular problems. Symptoms include eye and nose irritation, breathing difficulty, wheezing, coughing, and headaches.

People most vulnerable are those with asthma, emphysema, chronic bronchitis, COPD, pregnant women, babies, children and elderly.

Long-term health problems are heart and lung disease, and cancer. In the "Smoke Gets in Your Lungs Report," State of New York, EPA , October 2005, "More than 60,000 deaths each year in the United States can be attributed to exposure to air polluted with fine particulate matter." Over 30,000 of these deaths are attributed to wood smoke.

Wood burning is one of the most polluting and least efficient forms of energy. The US EPA compared wood burning to natural gas when measured in pounds of emissions per unit of energy generated: clean wood emits 9,695 percent more lead, 4,066 percent more sulfur dioxide, 1,460 percent more particulate matter, 1,300 percent more mercury, 525 percent more carbon monoxide, 193 percent more nitrogen oxide, and 65 percent more carbon dioxide than natural gas.

Are we OK with this?

People in Illinois shouldn't have to beg, hope, and pray for clean air -- air that is unpolluted by wood smoke.

Let's urge our public officials to act now, without delay.

Kenneth D. Dubinski

Founder, Breathe Healthy Air Coalition

Elk Grove Village