burning

[gtill]

According to some here, burning cane is a horrible pollutant even if only once every 18 months (much of what killed sugar here). Now it seems that Maui (where cane is still burned) has received a "best air quality" award from the American Lung Association. Mabe we should watch who we listen to.

[LaurelJ]

I just love the smell of burning cane on Maui, look forward to it every time I'm there, which BTW, will be this Friday, and IF Pele decides to wake up a little more I'll be over to Puna in a heartbeat []

[swys]

I lived across the road from a cane field mauka from Waipahu back in the '80's where, across the field was a sugar mill. The cane burning didn't bother me. The mill...another story. When the wind was just right, that mill put forth an aroma that I remember to this day. In the southern states, the aroma of a paper mill is offensive to many. I think of it as "the smell of the South," sort of like creosote and diesel exhaust - ambrosia to a salty old Sailor from his days on the waterfront.
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I don't take offense with the smell of the low tide either.

Aloha

[oink]

Have you gotten a whiff of the Indian River a few days after a strong on shore wind?

Pua`a
S. FL
Big Islander to be.

[swys]

Not familiar with that river, we're btwn St Lucie and Jupiter Inlets. Living around the coast all my life has really given me an appreciation of the smells of the sea. I was a Sailor for 26 years. Me mother was a mermaid, me father was King Neptune...nevermind, got carried away.

We used to frequent a restaurant that was built on piers over the harbor and liked to sit outside and watch the boats, dolphins, sunset. Tourists would come out on the deck to be seated and at low tide, more often than not they would take a whiff, then ask the hostess to find them another table inside. There were always tables ready for the locals out on the deck.

[missydog1]

When we were renting out our ohana, I got an enquiry from someone living in Kihei who was ill from the cane burning. She wanted to come over to get away from it when it was happening.

Combustion of any kind is hard on people with asthma. Cigarettes, burning cane, burning paper ... the bronchial tubes can't handle it ... and some people who don't have asthma to begin with will develop it due to the exposure.

ed to add, but she didn't have respiratory illness. She had developed environmental sensitivities ... where you get chronic fatigue, pains, flu symptoms, Gulf war syndrome variation.

[gtill]

I understand their predicament, but is one or a few people who stress over the smoke once every 1 1/2 years, have the power to shut an entire island off from their only real source of work. If it was every week or month yeah, but so rare it happens, and a lot of us don't mind it. I will be living right beside a volcano, and am building an A/C room to bail to when it gets bad. I'd venture the Maui population isn't any less healthy than Big Islanders, and they have jobs!

[dakine]

Actually in most instances cane grows at a much faster rate than that. Hamakua Sugar would harvest in 9-10 month cycles for the fields at lower elevations that got irrigated, and 16-18 months for the fields up higher. The burning went on almost continuously, since it's one patch at a time, and yes each patch got burnt only once per growing cycle, but there were a lot of patches. Miles and miles of them. And besides the smoke, all herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers were spread aerially. It was an environmental nightmare for some.

[Nalu]

I lived on Maui for over 10 years before moving to the BI in 2004. The cane smoke was horrible. It bothered me more than the vog does. I had thought that the Cane Cos. were under a court order to come up with a more environmental way of clearing the fields?? Does anyone know the outcome of that?

[Guest]

In the end, it is the actual sugar itself that is the pollutant.

We poison ourselves with it without a second thought. It keeps emergency rooms busy and the drug companies profitable.