Court Snuffs Challenge To Field Burning Rule Superior Court Judge Rules Olympia Court Proper Venue

Bluegrass growers trying to halt a state emergency rule slashing field burning this year were dealt a blow Wednesday in Whitman County Superior Court.

As forest fires and burning fields wreathed the courthouse in dense smoke, Judge Wallis Friel ruled the proper venue to decide the issue is in Olympia.

Attorneys for three farm families had asked the judge to decide the issue in Whitman County, the heart of Kentucky bluegrass country.

But Friel said the law requires their broad challenge to the validity of the state edict to be heard in only one court.

“I’m absolutely convinced the only venue is Thurston County (Olympia),” Friel said in his ruling from the bench.

Assistant Attorney General Mary Sue Wilson argued that state law contains strong precedent for hearing all challenges to agency administrative rules in Olympia.

The growers’ attorneys, Ted Rasmussen of Tekoa and Bill Symmes of Spokane, said recent Legislatures had made it easier to file a challenge in Eastern Washington.

“The impact of this decision is felt right here in Whitman County,” Symmes said.

Symmes also said the growers plan to challenge the constitutionality of a section of the Washington Clean Air Act that allows Ecology to order gradual reductions in field burning to improve air quality.

With Labor Day weekend approaching, it now appears less likely the matter will be resolved before the end of this year’s burning season. Growers usually finish torching their fields by the end of September.

Wilson told Rasmussen she’d agree to try to obtain an early hearing date in Thurston County Superior Court. But that court has a far more crowded docket than rural Whitman County.

Stewart Pfaff of Garfield, the lead plaintiff in the growers’ suit, was in court to hear Friel’s ruling.

“We thought we had a 50-50 chance” to have it heard close to home, he said Wednesday as he listened to the legal arguments.

The other growers in the suit are Brian and Conny Crow of Whitman County, and Paul and Mary Jane Dashiell of Fairfield, in Spokane County.

Ecology Director Mary Riveland imposed the field-burning cutback last March after receiving a petition from more than 300 Spokane doctors who said the annual practice hurts their patients.

The ruling covers more than 60,000 acres of bluegrass statewide, most of it in Eastern Washington.

Ecology will hold hearings next month to make the emergency rule permanent. It would cut burning 33 percent this year, slash another 33 percent next year, and then phase it out when no-burn alternatives are commercially available.

, DataTimes