Grass Growers Don’t Want To Get Burned

The Washington Legislature wrote area grass growers a blank check recently by waiving almost all rules against their controversial practice of field burning.

If they’re wise - and they’re giving indications that they are - the farmers won’t cash that check.

No one wants to see carte blanche field burning, including the growers. Farmers know that a liberal burning season would be a public relations disaster, rekindling a feud with such tourism leaders as Coeur d’Alene’s Duane Hagadone.

In view of the serious health effects of particulate pollution, the Legislature’s action was inappropriate. But Spokane County grass growers deserve credit for deciding already not to abuse their new freedom. Instead, they plan to observe voluntary restrictions similar to those followed by their North Idaho colleagues, which limit burning to 45 days in August and September with none on weekends and holidays.

Glenn Jacklin, production manager for Jacklin Seed Co. of Post Falls, expressed the importance of managing smoke for the sake of respiratory sufferers and the region’s important tourism industry: “Growers know that if they don’t follow the burn season, they’re dead. If one grower gets out of line, he’ll have to answer to other growers showing up on his doorstep.”

Some, like the Clean Air Coalition of Sandpoint and the American Lung Association, understandably won’t be satisfied with any agreement, voluntary or otherwise, that permits field burning. Clean Air Coalition president Art Long captured the zero-tolerance position with the question: “How can one burn fields responsibly when burning them in the first place is irresponsible?”

Sandpoint routinely catches the brunt of field smoke as farmers shrewdly try to keep it away from the population centers of Spokane, Coeur d’Alene and Post Falls. Last year, Sandpoint Mayor Ron Chaney asked the Environmental Protection Agency to intervene because Idaho’s “Right to Farm” law protects grass growers.

Public complaints and a long rainy season in 1993 prove the voluntary agreement isn’t perfect.

Two years ago, weather forced some growers to burn their fields beyond the self-imposed deadline. Last year, critics squawked because the field smoke mingled with that from regional forest fires - though farmers completed 98 percent of their burning in seven days.

Still, the grass industry pumps millions of dollars into the local economy and is less polluting than the urbanization that surely will take its place someday.

This last generation of area grass growers is making the best out of a bad situation.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = D.F. Oliveria/For the editorial board