Bluegrass Straw Could Be Paper Instead Of Smoke Growers Say Canadian Firm’s Alternative Wouldn’t End Field Burning

Bluegrass straw currently burned by farmers in Spokane and Kootenai counties could be salvaged and converted into $20 million worth of office paper products, a Canadian businessman said Friday.

Al Wong, co-owner of an Alberta company that cooks cut straw into pulp and paper, told 50 farmers and scientists that paper made from bluegrass straw would supplement a shortage of wood pulp and make it profitable for farmers to grow lawn seed with little or no burning.

“This solves your problem of needing more income, and there’s less air pollution and fewer people checking into the hospital,” said Wong, who was brought in by the Washington State University Cooperative Extension.

“The timing is right for this.”

But John Cornwall, president of the Intermountain Grass Growers Association, said the process wouldn’t eliminate the need for farmers to burn their fields after harvest.

Rather, a pulp mill would buy tons of bluegrass straw that farmers could remove before torching their fields. Once fields were cleaned of residue, he said, the smoke and particulates would be greatly redcued.

“I’m optimistic,” he said following Wong’s presentation. “This is a great project.”

Clean air activists said the project is potentially a good step for grass growers, but would be unacceptable if it was used as an excuse to keep burning fields.

Patricia Hoffman, president of Save Our Summers, said WSU in 1976 found that fields burned after the residue was removed produced more emissions than those burned with the straw.

“This sounds great as long as it’s not another delay tactic,” Hoffman said.

Bluegrass farmers have been scrambling for alternatives to burning since March, when the state Department of Ecology issued an emergency order to eliminate the practice in three years.

Spokane County farmers this year can burn about 21,500 acres, a practice growers say is necessary to kill disease and remove debris from next year’s crop.

Wong, a scientist who founded Arbokem, a Vulcan, Alberta-based pulp and paper mill, said it would cost $15 million to $20 million to build an “agri-pulp” mill in Spokane.

Questions remain about demand for Wong’s paper, which contains up to 50 percent waste paper. That’s considerably higher than the 10 percent content of recycled paper found in many office products.

“Three months ago, this was a pile of straw in some field,” Wong said, holding up a bundle of catalog paper. “Now it’s office paper.”

, DataTimes