Some Farmers To End Burning Jacklin Leads Phaseout Of Grass Field Fires Over 10 Years

About half of the Rathdrum Prairie grass farmers, led by Jacklin Seed Co., announced on Thursday the end to grass field burning over the next decade, saying they are bowing to public pressure.

“The message from the community is clear, we must stop open field burning,” said Don Jacklin, vice president of the Post Falls-based company, which produces seed for the high end of the market in the United States and several foreign countries.

The voluntary phaseout is preferable to being forced to change by government regulation, Jacklin said. It also “is the right thing to do.”

The agreement, negotiated privately among some of the Rathdrum Prairie growers over the winter, calls for reducing burning on 10 percent of the acreage each year beginning this summer. The 10 percent reduction will be calculated from a base of 10,600 acres.

Growers decided on the 10,600-acre base by averaging the number of acres of Kentucky bluegrass grown and torched over the past decade. They concede, however, that some of the land that’s being calculated in the 5,800-acre phaseout already is developed or slated for housing developments.

For example, the Schneidmiller family has agreed to curtail burning on a total of 1,565 acres during the next 10 years. Some 640 acres of Schneidmiller grass fields already are being used for the Coeur d’Alene Place housing development.

The new Lake City High School sits on 40 acres. Commercial development, such as the Harper’s furniture manufacturing plant in Post Falls, are on former grass fields, according to the Intermountain Grass Growers Association.

Growers who join in the Jacklin deal also are agreeing to completely stop burning within a year of the discovery of any economically viable alternative.

Burning reduces pests, disease and greatly increases seed production. But it also irritates the lungs of some people, aggravates the tourism industry, and has come under increasing fire from the medical profession for the resulting particulate matter believed to damage human health.

Thursday’s announcement is drawing mixed reactions from growers and environmentalists.

“I think it’s a very good gesture for these people to make,” said Buell Hollister of the Kootenai Environmental Alliance. “But I was dismayed that (Jacklin) said there is no viable alternative because I think we are going to rue the day we put asphalt over all of these farm fields.”

Art Long, leader of the Clean Air Coalition in Sandpoint, also agrees the phaseout is a start. But he questions whether 10 years is fast enough and whether it really means what’s advertised.

“Because the proposed phaseout involves about half of the growers, the real reduction is actually about 5 percent per year, not 10 percent,” Long said of the total acreage that won’t be torched.

The promised reduction probably matches what’s being converted to development anyway, so “even the proponent ‘good guys’ are not giving up very much,” he added.

The Intermountain Grass Growers Association, which represents growers in North Idaho and Eastern Washington, isn’t taking a position. Other growers are adamantly opposed.

“It’s rather premature to say we are going to do this when we don’t have a solution,” said Yvonne Satchwell of Satchwell Farms. “I’m for working with people to find a solution.

“But I’m not for lying to people or appeasing people.”

Satchwell Farms is experimenting with mint, even installing a distillation plant this fall. But it’s far too soon to say that mint or other crops are the answer.

The Satchwells don’t want to convert their land to a housing development. They have worked hard to build what they have, are poised to pass it to a fourth generation, and those aren’t “things you walk away from,” Satchwell said.

The Jacklins say this move signals an end to grass seed farming on the Rathdrum Prairie. They are moving their production to the Columbia Basin, where in some instances they can grow grass seed in rotation with potatoes and without field burning. Their seed production plant will remain here.

The end to grass growing on the Rathdrum Prairie does not mean an end to grass field smoke in Coeur d’Alene. Most of what is generated on the Rathdrum Prairie drifts north into Sandpoint.

There still are 19,000 acres grown and burned on the Coeur d’Alene Reservation. Some of the Lake City’s smokiest days last season came from burning of fields on the reservation. The tribe also is planning to get rid of field burning, but haven’t set the date to begin.

Washington clean-air officials welcomed the Jacklin plan.

“It’s not as aggressive as Ecology’s requirements, but it’s a good step forward,” said Joe Williams, Department of Ecology air quality official in Olympia.

Last year, Washington adopted a new statewide rule that mandates a two-thirds cutback in Kentucky bluegrass acres burned by this summer - nearly 40,000 acres statewide.

The state won’t move to halt burning on the final one-third until it can certify an economical and practical alternative to burning bluegrass, Williams said.

The Rathdrum Prairie cutback will help clear the air in the Spokane Valley, said Eric Skelton, director of the Spokane County Air Pollution Control Authority.

“We get a lot of impacts in the East Valley from burning on the prairie, so anything that reduces that would be beneficial,” Skelton said.

A Spokane lung doctor also said the agreement is good news.

“Any restriction sounds like a positive step forward,” said Dr. Michael McCarthy, a children’s lung specialist.

A Spokane clean air activist was less charitable towards the Jacklin plan.

“Two years ago, this industry said its smoke was harmless. Last year, the Spokane medical community stepped forward and identified it as a health hazard,” said Patricia Hoffman, a Spokane Valley veterinarian and founder of Save Our Summers. “Given this information, a responsible industry would adopt an immediate no-burn policy. If they don’t, they have a moral obligation to pay the medical expenses for those injured by their smoke.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo Graphic: Phasing out Rathdrum grass burning