Board Promises To Turn Up Heat On Grass Burners
The Spokane County Air Pollution Control Authority board agreed Thursday to monitor grass burning with the same zeal it has used recently to track odors at the Colbert composting plant.
After complaints from citizens about the Legislature’s deregulation of grass burning last spring, the board also voted to invite state lawmakers and the public to a meeting to discuss the controversial changes.
The meeting will be held between the Nov. 7 general election and the start of the next legislative session in January.
“I find myself in the cross fire. The Legislature acts, and we get the heat for it,” said county Commissioner Steve Hasson, a SCAPCA board member.
No Spokane legislators attended SCAPCA’s July 19 workshop on grass burning, at which 369 people packed into a small room to complain about the health hazards of breathing grass smoke.
The board’s decision to meet with legislators follows Spokane Rep. Lisa Brown’s recent request to the state Department of Ecology for a Clean Air Act hearing on alternatives to grass burning.
The Democrat and House minority whip said last week her vote to deregulate grass burning was the “single biggest mistake” she made in Olympia this year.
Spokane County Commissioner Phil Harris, SCAPCA’s newest board member, appeared upset by Brown’s intervention.
“She’s campaigning. We should be cautious not to give politicians an audience,” he said.
Harris then lambasted the media and clean air activists, suggesting they are launching a “hate campaign” against grass growers.
He defended taking $1,500 from bluegrass farmers in his 1994 campaign. That’s a small amoung of the $75,000 total he raised, Harris said.
“I’m not owned by any special interest group… I’m here to help you,” Harris said.
Hasson and others on the five-member board said they welcomed Rep. Brown’s interest.
The board directed SCAPCA staff to start compiling information over the next 30 days on the number and location of grass burning complaints.
So far this year, only about 900 acres in north Spokane County have been torched. The vast majority - roughly 25,000 acres in southwestern Spokane County - remains to be burned.
An industry group, the Intermountain Grass Growers Association, has set a self-imposed Aug. 15-Sept. 30 “window” to complete the burning.
Since the Legislature eliminated SCAPCA’s power to curtail burning days, the agency’s role is limited to giving growers a daily weather advisory to guide their burning decisions.
Weather conditions since mid-August haven’t been favorable for burning in most of the county, said Martha Dailey, executive director of the growers’ association.
, DataTimes