Agency Defends Farming Program Field Burning Part Of Fight Against Erosion, Feds Say

Clean-air advocates may want to douse agricultural burning, but their lawsuit to stop it only involves about one-fifth of the acres burned in Washington.

And those 40,000 acres already are enrolled in a federal program designed to improve the environment.

The state has banned most bluegrass burning after years of contentious debate, but that still leaves at least 200,000 acres of other crops that farmers have permits to burn this year.

Last week, the clean-air group Save Our Summers, the American Lung Association of Washington and the Washington Environmental Council brought suit against a federal agency for endorsing a specific burning practice without public review.

The practice, called an Alternative Conservation System, is designed to help farmers reduce soil erosion. It enables farmers to plant their fields without having to till the soil.

But Patricia Hoffman, founder of Save Our Summers, said approving burning as an environmentally friendly practice is a mistake because it doesn’t reduce erosion as well as other methods.

The program was approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service last year at the end of a three-year study. It provides a way for grain growers to remove leftover straw in order to seed the next crop without tilling the soil.

Under the program, they can graze animals on the land, cut and bale the straw, or burn it, said Ross Lahren, Natural Sciences Team Leader for the NRCS.

Grazing and baling are more complicated, so most farmers in the program are burning, he said.

But, Hoffman pointed out, the other alternatives cause less soil erosion than burning. Lahren agrees.

Farmers must meet several standards before they qualify for the ACS, Lahren said.

They must have at least 4,400 pounds of residue per acre, which is common where farmers grow at least 50 bushels of wheat an acre. They also must be seeding a winter cereal crop right after the harvest of another cereal crop. And they must comply with city or county law for managing the residue.

While the burning may help with one environmental problem, it worsens another, clean-air advocates say.

The lawsuit, which the groups brought against the NRCS in U.S. District Court, claims the agency approved the burning practice without following the proper steps for assessing its environmental impact.

“The major problem with this is all of a sudden you have the USDA stamp of approval on it,” said Hoffman. “Farmers are now looking at burning as a conservation practice when it’s not. That’s what’s so horrendous about this.”

The NRCS doesn’t see it that way. Producers using the ACS are in the process of converting to an environmentally safer system in which they don’t have to till their fields before planting them, Lahren said.

“Anytime we’re preventing erosion, we’re improving water quality and improving the health of the soil,” he said. CLEARING THE AIR This fall, Eastern Washington farmers must be sure the air is clear before they burn their fields. To keep smoke from blowing into towns and cities or blanketing major roads, growers must call a new Department of Ecology line to check on air quality and wind conditions. This is in addition to signing up for a burning permit and checking in with the local fire district. The number, 1-800-406-5322, went into effect two weeks ago, but many growers with burn permits are not yet aware of it. Ecology uses National Weather Service information to forecast wind and weather conditions, then makes county-by-county judgments on burning. Colfax farmer Randy Suess recently learned about the phone line when he renewed his burning permit. He said other farmers in the county aren’t aware of it.