Wind, Cane burning, and Pesticides

[FuzzySuzie]

[quote=NandVsMom;13285730]Last summer was our first experience with cane burn. Woke to a super smokey smell and haze in the air.

Which island did you have the cane smoke and which area were you living at the time?

FuzzySuzie

[FuzzySuzie]

[quote=Calico Salsa;13280073]Oh yes, of course lots of pesticides, fertilizers, and additives in agriculture. Also on golf courses. Have never seen a crop duster, but they are sprayed on from the ground and via irrigation.

Good to hear that they do not use crop dusters to fertilize like they do here in the Central Valley of CA.

FuzzySuzie

[NandVsMom]

We are in South Kihei on Maui.

[Calico Salsa]

I had to go search out the YouTube video to see how the cane ash was depicted. I've never seen it that bad, but the video is there so it must have happened at least once. I was here in 2006, living in Kihei, don't know what to say.

The way it usually looks & feels for us is a tang in the air, tasting like burnt material. The sky looks like there is a fire somewhere, with an orange-ish look. The ask is in big curls like the video, breaking up into smaller particles, but not as dense and not in big drifts like that time.

As I wrote, if you go upcountry and look down, the plume is much more apparent than if you are down on the ground within it. It's kind of like when I go back to the SF Bay Area or to the LA area. I am appalled by the quality of the air, and can see the color of the sky as tinted and ugly. But when I lived there I didn't notice it, and the color of the sky was what it was.

Is it unhealthful? I'm sure it is unhealthy to breathe in the smokey air. Is it more unhealthy than living in areas where the air quality is always filled with particulate from cars and industry? I don't know... I don't have the statistics. Personally I believe the Maui air, including Kihei, has got to be better nearly all of the time. The winds blow the smoke out to sea, but there are hours of the night & day when the plume sits over the town and we are breathing it in. It's just not every day, or even every week.

I am sure there must be somewhere one can find out how often burns happen.

[FuzzySuzie]

None of it so far is as bad as the LA smog that we came from, if that's any comparison.[/quote]

When it's hot and there isn't any sea breezes coming off the bay...the SFBayArea gets pretty bad too. You can see the smoggy brown haze just hanging in the air everywhere. Worst smog I can remember was around 1965 when we went to LA and Disneyland as kids on a family vacation. Taking a deep breath hurt your lungs...

Slightly off topic...but can someone tell me where the boundaries/street names are that separate North, Central (is there even a Central?), and South Kihei from each other?

TIA,

FuzzySuzie

[NandVsMom]

I don't know south vs. central vs. north Kihei but I do know that anything South of Welakahao (Hope Chapel) is served by Kamali'i Elementary School.

[Calico Salsa]

I'm not so sure there's a hard line, maybe the realtors would say differently.

I think of it like this:
Northern Kihei as Uwapo Road down to Piikea, the start of the more commercial area,
Central as from there to Keonekai (Kam II-ish),
South as from there to Kilohana or where Wailea begins

[PacificFlights]

to burn fields, they have to get a permit from the Hawaii dept of health. The health dept notifies all the other agencies like the police, DOD and FAA. So i would start with seeing if the health dept has a notification system for telling residents. Some companys like Dole and Maui Brands have phone numbers you can call to hear recordings about schedule burns. They also have their own email alert systems which you sign up for to get alerts.

[FuzzySuzie]

Much Mahalo to all who were so kind and patient to help. Who knows what tomorrow may bring...but we may meet one day and I can perhaps be of some help to you too...8D

FuzzySuzie

[aqua0]

One thing about Kihei: unless you have central AC where you have the luxury of sealing your house down, you'll be constantly cleaning. Especially nice white tubs. The dust finds its way in, every day.