Growers’ Lawyers Warn Health Group American Lung Association Accused Of Misleading Public

Local grass growers have sicced their attorneys on the region’s major clean-air group, the American Lung Association of Washington.

The lung association is misleading the public about the potential health dangers of grass smoke, said attorney Dawn Allison in an Aug. 31 letter.

The letter was sent to Yvonne Bucklin, the lung association’s regional director in Spokane.

Allison’s firm, Lukins & Annis, represents the 450-member Intermountain Grass Growers Association, an industry group of Washington and Idaho bluegrass growers.

A report cited by the lung association on the dangers of airborne particulates doesn’t include studies of grass smoke, Allison said in the letter.

The association should “refrain from stating that reports show that grass burning has adverse impacts on the population,” the attorney wrote.

Bucklin says the industry attorney is “splitting hairs” in an effort to muzzle her group.

Grass smoke is a source of lung-damaging small particulates, even if the American Lung Association’s national report didn’t specifically include that kind of smoke, Bucklin said.

“They are trying to silence us on this issue,” she said.

It’s a mistake to gang up on the lung association, said Patricia Hoffman, a Spokane Valley veterinarian and founder of Save Our Summers, a new group seeking a grass-burning ban.

The industry “keeps saying there’s no problem with grass smoke, but they don’t deny that particulate pollution causes health problems. Grass smoke is a particulate problem,” Hoffman said.

Allison and the growers’ association did not return repeated telephone calls on Friday. , DataTimes