Assessing Water Quality Friendly

A fire pit can extend the usability of outdoor living spaces and serve as a warm, welcoming focal point. According to Ben Holt, owner of Embers Custom Fireplace & Gas Products in Mentor, North Olmsted and Solon, it can also help preserve and protect air quality.

Holt says the most environmentally friendly fire pit in chemical threats in freshwater bodies, swimming pools and hot tubs. Fortunately, she also offers ways to reduce them.

Lakes and rivers. Arguably the most frightening thing people can share freshwater with is Naegleria fowleri. Dr. Hoyen explains that the amoeba enters the nose and makes its way to the brain, where it causes a severe encephalitis that is usually fatal. Most of these relatively rare infections occur in late summer, when the amoeba proliferates in warm waters. It prefers mucky lake and river bottoms. Common sense dictates avoiding that muck by not swimming near it or deliberately stirring it up.

“Using nose clips, plugging your nose and keeping your head above water so that you don’t get water

Fire

terms of its effect on air quality is the gas fire pit. “It’s a pretty clean-burning flame,” he says. The smokeless wood-burning counterpart is second. He describes a fire bowl surrounded by an outer shell with an air intake at the bottom. A series of small holes just inside the fire bowl’s top emit super-heated air that “re-burns” the smoke.

“There is still some smoke,” he concedes. “But it is a dramatic difference between that kind of a fire and just having a fire out in the backyard.” up your nose can be helpful,” Dr. Hoyen adds.

More common issues arise from algae-bloom toxins, which can irritate the respiratory tract, gastrointestinal and nervous system and skin. Algae blooms are made worse when storm-water or farmland runoff gets into the water adding nutrients like nitrogen into the river, lake or ocean. Dr. Hoyen advises against swimming after a heavy rain, near a drainage outlet or in cloudy water not only to avoid algae blooms but also any other waterborne bacteria, viruses or parasites. Check for any advisories by logging on to odh.ohio.gov/know-our-programs/bathing-beach-monitoring/beachguard. And obey all no-swimming signs.

Swimming pools and hot tubs. “Any time you are in a swimming pool, you need to worry about bacteria and viruses as well as some other parasites [such as cryptosporidium and giardia],” Dr. Hoyen warns. She explains that even the most fastidiously clean individuals have a “fecal veneer” on parts of their bodies that can put diarrheal-illness-causing bugs in the water when they’re sick. Anyone who swallows the water has a chance of developing that illness. Soaking in a hot tub can result in an itchy, red, bumpy skin rash caused by the bacterium pseudomonas.

Chlorine, bromine and filtration systems can reduce or eliminate these hazards if they’re used and maintained correctly. But even then, dead skin cells and other biologic materials wash off bodies and bind with the chemicals, decreasing their effectiveness. To improve conditions, Dr. Hoyen recommends rinsing off before and after swimming or hot-tubbing, making sure children take hourly bathroom breaks, keeping swim diapers changed and staying out of the water until all symptoms of any diarrheal illness have resolved.

For the best results, Holt suggests using a seasoned cordwood, a hardwood such as maple, oak or cherry that’s been split and dried for six to 12 months, ideally reducing its moisture content to

10 to 15%. (To learn more, log on to epa.gov/burnwise.)

Built-in units, both gas and wood-burning, should be installed by a National Fireplace Institute-certified contractor to ensure safety.

Take a stroll and experience the beauty at Wade Lagoon this spring.

By Gabe Leidy