Coal smoke is a poisonous killer

To the editor:

When I was young we heated our house with coal. It kept us warm. We would bring a pickup load and shovel it into a big bin area in the basement. From there, we shoveled it into buckets to dump into a hopper, which somehow cranked the coal into the furnace. It would create big klinkers that we had to remove with a long, three-pronged grabber and set them in an area where they wouldn’t catch anything on fire.

Sometimes the furnace would do something mysterious and the coal smoke would backfire into the house. It stunk like sulfur and we would wave the doors back and forth to clear out the smoke. Housewives needed to scrub the walls twice a year to remove the soot buildup, which we were obviously breathing!

But the worst time I can recall is when noxious coal smoke started pouring into the house through the vents. Swinging doors wouldn’t make a dent, we had to get outside. We had a wonderful little parakeet called Charlie. He was an albino and could do lots of tricks, like flipping cards and dice, plus he liked to kiss our ears and neck and talk to us. We couldn’t find Charlie in that haze and after the smoke cleared, there was Charlie, lying dead. It was a sad day.

My point is I know what can happen with coal smoke. It’s poisonous and a killer. I don’t think there is any such thing as clean coal unless it is left in the ground to purify the natural aquifer for which it was intended.

And I certainly don’t believe the other governments when they claim to know how to clean up their messes (see Exxon Valdez and BP gulf spills).

For all you coal mining lovers, I wish you could get a whiff of dirty coal smoke filling up your home and have to clean up the residue before you decide.

Patricia Wade

Palmer