Smoke Dogged Sandpoint, But Air Worse In Post Falls

Anti-smoke advocates have a new conundrum to smolder over.

The air in Post Falls was worse last Tuesday than it was in Sandpoint. That’s the same day clean-air activists in Sandpoint, who get the brunt of smoke from grass fields, say they were smothered by pollution from the annual torching of the Rathdrum Prairie.

In fact, grass growers were asked to stop lighting new fires Tuesday afternoon after air pollution exceeded limits set at this year’s field-burning summit. But by the time the day was over, air pollution monitoring equipment showed the breathing was worse in Post Falls than in Sandpoint.

Measurements in Sandpoint showed 40 micrograms of pollution per cubic meter of air for all of Tuesday. It was 45 in Post Falls, said Terry Christianson of the Idaho Division of Environmental Quality.

Post Fall’s higher pollution level may have resulted from vehicles stuck in and near town after a tanker accident closed the eastbound lanes of Interstate 90 near Coeur d’Alene last Tuesday, he said.

Heutter Port of Entry officials last week said hundreds of truckers were parked along Seltice Way in Post Falls and at the Heutter rest area east of Post Falls waiting for the interstate to open.

Art Long, president of the Clean Air Coalition in Sandpoint, agrees the figures show air pollution problems go beyond grass burning. Still, he doesn’t believe the Post Falls example is a reason to give grass burners a break.

“It’s intentional degradation of the environment for the profit of a very few,” Long said. Twenty growers are “causing 30,000 people not only to be uncomfortable but to run up medical bills,” he said.

What happened in Post Falls isn’t the same, Long said.

Despite the unhappiness arising from last week’s grass burning, Idaho DEQ officials say this year they are receiving far fewer complaints from people about the smoke.

As of Friday, 282 people called the Idaho hotline with smoke complaints, Christianson said. That’s fewer than expected, considering that half the Rathdrum Prairie’s grass acres were burned last week and that there are normally 1,000 complaints each season.

The Spokane County Air Pollution Control Authority had received 35 complaints through Friday. Comparative data from last year’s Eastern Washington burning season was not available.

The other good news on the Idaho side of the grass burning horizon is that, weather permitting, the field burning season could be finished with three days of fires, Christianson said. It is unclear if that will happen this week, because a coastal weather system is moving this way and brings the threat of rain.

Growers say they must burn their fields each fall to clear stubble and boost production on the next crop. Intermountain Grass Growers Association officials point out that their industry generates a crop worth $185 million and provides 1,500 full- and part-time jobs in Eastern Washington and North Idaho.

, DataTimes