Foul air in San Geronimo Valley

When we moved here almost 5 years ago I set up our nearly new air filter and was surprised when it needed to be cleaned shortly thereafter. I cleaned it in the bathtub and our white tub was filled with dark black oily water that stained my hands and the tub. Regular household cleaners couldn’t get it off. A couple of weeks later, the same thing happened. Most of you probably don’t have an air filter (we only do because we received it as a gift), but if you did, I’m sure you would have a similar experience. It really provides a disturbing visual of the air we breathe.

Let me add: we don't even have a wood stove or a fireplace.

I’m really, really upset about the wood smoke where we live. As in, it makes me cry. And I’m really most sad about how it is affecting our children.

Our children are breathing air that is really, really, really irreversibly bad for them. I worry about the short term effects, but I’m not losing as much sleep over red eyes and runny noses and asthma as I am the long term effects of wood smoke pollution. Is the wood smoke where I live increasing my children’s risk of cancer? That is what keeps me awake at night.

And there is no escaping it. My children are no better off at school, in the classroom, on the soccer field, on a hike, at a sleepover, playing in their own yard, in a home that doesn’t heat with wood, and especially not in a home that does heat with wood.

When I think of everything we do as parents to protect our children and try to keep them safe and healthy, burning wood makes no sense. It feels very lonely to be educated about it, worried about it, and have others shrug it off as a lifestyle choice.

When it’s bedtime on a chilly night and I can smell the smoke in our house (or even if I can’t smell it), I know my children will be breathing toxic air all night long while they sleep. Sometimes I lie there and cry because I feel so helpless. We cannot afford to move, and finding a place to move around here is next to impossible. When my kids get up in the morning they go to school in air that is heavy with wood smoke. School, recess, after school, back home. It’s all the same.

There are months during which my children cannot go outside in our yard to play, or anywhere around here, without playing in wood smoke. Some days are worse than others. It breaks my heart that even when they come inside, they are not safe. Even the most tightly sealed home or school can’t keep such incredibly small particulate pollution out.

We cannot enjoy looking at the stars (the stars are visible, but we can’t be out in the air). We cannot grow food in our garden that is safe to eat. No air filter can change this.

What saddens me too is the irony that we live in a part of the world where we have options. For so many in developing countries, wood smoke pollution cannot be escaped. But here, we get to choose.