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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Pullman Man’s Death Ignites Policy Debate

The death of a young Pullman man hours after the heaviest grass field burning of 1994 triggered a powerful letter to the Department of Ecology.

It also sparked an internal debate about the agency’s role in the contentious air quality issue that continues to this day.

Ecology officials learned of 21-year-old Aaron Dittmer’s death from Dan Green of Moscow, Idaho.

The Washington State University campus planner sent the letter to Ecology’s Olympia headquarters on Sept. 14, 1994, the day after Dittmer died from respiratory failure.

Ecology brass in Olympia never replied to Green’s letter - triggering a dispute among Spokane staffers about how to respond to public health concerns.

Dittmer, the son of a WSU colleague of Green, died at Pullman Memorial Hospital the morning of Sept. 13, 1994, an hour after suffering an acute asthma attack.

There is no proof that smoke led to the man’s death.

Less than 24 hours earlier, area growers torched 11,057 acres of bluegrass. The smoke rolled deep into the Palouse and radio broadcasts warned people with breathing problems to stay indoors.

“It came in as a really dark cloud. It obscured the sun that day about an hour before sunset,” said Green, who had watched the cloud from Moscow Mountain.

In his letter, Green told the Department of Ecology that rural people were suffering because of the growers’ smoke management plan to burn only on days when winds blow the smoke away from Spokane.

The plan aims to minimize smoke in the more populated urban area.

The agency’s response was to put Green on a mailing list about the field burning issue.

Green’s letter arrived at the office of the Department of Ecology Assistant Director D.J. Patin on Nov. 7, 1994.

“It kicked around at the highest level, and then was sent to Spokane,” said staffer David Duncan.

Spokane air chief Grant Pfeifer discussed the letter with his staff, including Duncan, that fall.

But the agency didn’t investigate Dittmer’s death.

On his own, Duncan tracked down Dittmer’s death certificate and placed it in agency files - where it was stapled to Green’s letter.

The death certificate lists respiratory failure one hour after an asthma attack as the cause of death.

In a memo to Pfeifer last October, a frustrated Duncan said the Department of Ecology “failed to properly investigate and respond ” to Green’s letter.

The agency now has “reasonable cause to believe that grass seed field burning in Spokane County can and has caused serious injury and possibly death,” Duncan added.

He was told his memo was “inappropriate.”

The Dittmers can’t prove smoke caused their son’s death, and they never pursued a lawsuit, said David Dittmer, Aaron’s father and a WSU facilities planner.

But their questions linger.

“Two weeks earlier, his doctor had told Aaron he was in great shape. Then overnight, he was gone,” David Dittmer said.

The Department of Ecology should have responded more directly to Green, Pfeifer said this month.

“We are in kind of an awkward role,” he said. “We aren’t a health agency. But we aren’t ducking the health issue.”

, DataTimes