Air Quality Alert At County Fair Partially Downgraded After Officials Determine Grandstand Haze Mostly Funnel Cake
"Those fryers have operated at exactly this particulate level since 1987," said committee chair Diane Vandehey, 61. "The haze is a feature."
WAUKESHA — The air quality alert covering the Waukesha County Fairgrounds was partially downgraded Friday afternoon after state monitoring equipment determined that a significant portion of the haze hanging over the grandstand was not, in fact, Canadian wildfire smoke, but funnel cake.
The finding resolved a discrepancy that had puzzled technicians since Thursday morning, when a temporary air monitor stationed near the grandstand began reporting an Air Quality Index of 171, a full 33 points above the countywide reading of 138 that placed all of eastern Wisconsin in the "Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups" range this week.
A state technician dispatched to investigate the anomaly walked the fairgrounds Friday with a handheld particulate monitor and observed, in her words, that "the numbers went up the closer I got to fryer row, and they went down every time a fryer cycled between batches." At the funnel cake stand nearest the grandstand, the handheld unit briefly read 190. Forty feet upwind, it read 139.
"The wildfire smoke is real and people should take it seriously," the technician said, declining to give her name because she was not authorized to comment on pastry. "But what's over the grandstand is a layered situation. The top layer is Canada. The bottom layer is powdered sugar and fryer oil, and it has been there, as far as I can determine, for decades."
"The top layer is Canada. The bottom layer is powdered sugar and fryer oil, and it has been there, as far as I can determine, for decades."
— State air monitoring technician, fryer row
The Committee Disputes Nothing And Apologizes For Less
Fair planning committee chair Diane Vandehey, 61, received the finding Friday afternoon with what witnesses described as visible relief, followed immediately by visible defiance.
"Those fryers have operated at exactly this particulate level since 1987," Vandehey said. "The haze is a feature. People see the haze from the parking lot and they know the fryers are on. If the state wants to measure something, measure the line, because it was 40 people long at noon."
Vandehey noted that the fair has never received a complaint about fryer haze in 39 years, "unless you count the smoke detector in the exhibition hall, which we relocated."
Concession data reviewed by this newspaper suggests the alert has had no measurable effect on demand. Fairgoers purchased 341 funnel cakes Thursday, up from 212 on the fair's 96-degree opening day, a rebound vendors attribute to the cooldown into the low 80s. One fairgoer, a 54-year-old man from Vernon eating a funnel cake beneath the grandstand Friday, told this reporter the haze "adds atmosphere" and that he could "see the food fine, which is the main thing."
The Truce Lasted 48 Hours
The finding has also reopened, after a two-day pause, the longest-running dispute in fair governance. Readers will recall that on Wednesday the committee voted 8-1 to table the funnel cake versus cream puff question "until conditions improve," a posture Vandehey described at the time as "thermal neutrality."
By Friday evening the cream puff faction had circulated a one-page memo arguing that conditions had not improved so much as "changed category entirely," and that the state's finding constituted new information material to the question. The memo describes the cream puff as "a steam-based product" and "the responsible dessert during an air event," and closes by noting that "no cream puff has ever been mistaken for wildfire smoke by government instruments."
"No cream puff has ever been mistaken for wildfire smoke by government instruments."
— Cream puff faction memo, p. 1
The funnel cake side has responded with a memo of its own, which is four words long and reads, in its entirety, "The line speaks. 341."
Bob Krueger, the retired DPW supervisor whose nine-page minority report on cream puff heat tolerance was received by the committee Wednesday, has filed a two-page addendum arguing that the air event actually favors funnel cake, on the grounds that "the fryer haze predates Canada" and therefore holds what he calls "squatter's rights to the airspace above the grandstand." The addendum includes a hand-drawn cross-section of the two haze layers. The committee has confirmed the addendum has been received.
Guidance For Fairgoers
Reached at his office, Councilman Gary Puchalski, who does not sit on the fair committee but has historically been unable to avoid being asked about it, declined to characterize the fryer haze as either a health concern or a heritage asset.
"The state says the air is unhealthy for sensitive groups, and I'd ask residents to follow that guidance," Puchalski said. "My office has received nine calls about the smoke this week. Seven of those callers wanted to know if the fair was still on. It is. One wanted to know if the smoke would affect the train schedule. It will not. The train does not answer to weather, and frankly it does not answer to me."
The fair's own guidance, posted Friday at the main gate on a laminated sheet, advises sensitive individuals to "limit prolonged exertion on the midway" and to enjoy funnel cake "in moderation, and where possible, indoors."
By Friday evening, the temporary monitor near the grandstand read 168. The countywide reading had fallen to 131. The fryers were on. The line was 44 people long.
The Waukesha County Fair runs through Sunday. The alert, in both its layers, is expected to outlast it.