Ecology Chief Declares End To Grass Burning Certification Of Alternative Is Final Step In Phase-Out

After nearly thirty years of promises, studies and fights, grass burning in Washington was finally doused Friday.

Washington Department of Ecology Director Tom Fitzsimmons announced a certified alternative to grass-seed field burning, the final step before the Clean Air Washington Act could end the practice.

This is the final act of a three-year phase-out of grass-field burning.

Washington grass farmers have long burned their fields to remove stubble, combat weeds and insects and improve their soil. Now, with only a few exceptions, they must find alternatives for removing the straw, such as raking and bailing, Fitzsimmons said.

“We just had to make a decision and make it soon enough so you knew it early enough,” he told three grass growers after a news conference. He said the policy will take effect in one month.

Now clean-air activists plan to take their battle to Idaho, where about 26,000 acres were burned last year.

Washington and Idaho growers have battled the ban from the start, saying that ending burning would diminish seed production and could drive them out of business.

“It’s going to be hard,” John Cornwall, a bluegrass farmer from Fairfield, told Fitzsimmons. Cornwall later said the announcement was “no surprise.”

In response to complaints about air pollution, growers promised about 30 years ago to start looking for alternatives to open field burning. For the past three years, the Department of Ecology has worked to end grass burning in the state.

“The underlying principal and most important priority was that the public health of our citizens must be protected,” Fitzsimmons said.

He said it will cost growers between $4.2 million and $6 million to stop burning and find alternatives. But the benefits to the public from the end to burning will range from $3.8 million and $9.8 million “and those are mostly direct medical health benefits.”

With a few exceptions, this ends grass field burning in Washington. Areas of a field that equipment cannot reach, such as steep slopes, can still be burned with Ecology approval. Still, the burned acreage can’t total more than 2,000 acres, a pittance compared with the 60,000 acres of grass-seed fields burned a few years ago. About 20,000 acres were burned in 1997.

Also, owners of farms that gross $300,000 or less may apply for a partial one-year reprieve on the basis that alternatives to burning may be costly or hard to acquire. They can apply to burn 25 percent of the fields they burned last year.

As for growers who might ignore the law, the Department of Ecology has budgeted money and resources to enforce the no-burning rule.

Upon hearing the news of the end to burning, Spokane City Councilwoman Cherie Rodgers said “It’s a good day for public health and safety.”

Patricia Hoffman, a Spokane Valley veterinarian and founder of a group that lobbied to ban field burning, agreed. “We waited a long time to hear those words,” she said, referring to the 35-year effort to reduce burning in the region.

For her and the group called Save our Summers, the next battle is across the border, where Idaho farmers are protected by state law from regulation. “It’s going to take a different strategy,” she said. “But our concern is not just Spokane. It’s all the same. You need to stop it everywhere.”

Fitzsimmons said the department is now turning its attention to other agricultural burning, such as the 200,000 acres of wheat stubble now burned in Washington each year.