Ag Task Force Investigates Northwest Field Burning Panel Examines How Much Farming Contributes To Air Quality Problems

The Inland Northwest is a national “hot spot” for agricultural burning controver sies, says the chairman of a federal air quality panel advising Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman.

There’s more field burning going on here than in other areas of the country, said panel chairman Pearlie Reed, chief of the Natural Resources Conservation Service.

The Agricultural Air Quality Task Force wants to know why and how much farmers contribute to the region’s air quality problems.

“Our goal is to get the right kind of science-based information to Secretary Glickman on these issues,” Reed said.

Reed’s 18-member panel is in Spokane for three days of meetings and farm tours. They got a glimpse of the region’s contentious debate over agriculture burning in their opening session Tuesday.

Washington state regulators told the panel why they’ve been busy issuing orders to curb most bluegrass burning and negotiating a voluntary agreement with the wheat industry to cut stubble burning in half by 2006.

Smoke from agricultural burning is a “significant regional health problem,” said Grant Pfeifer of the Washington Department of Ecology.

In 1998, some 250,000 acres of wheat stubble were burned in Eastern Washington - producing 12,595 tons of tiny particles that can cause lung disease, Pfeifer said.

Estimates of agriculture’s contribution to regional air pollution problems have ranged from “1 to 100 percent,” he said.

Ecology’s best estimate is that field burning contributes 50 percent of the small particle pollution in 10 Eastern Washington counties, Pfeifer said.

Under new farm practice guidelines that took effect June 2, it’s now harder to get a burning permit, he said.

Unlike Washington, where bluegrass cutbacks were ordered under an emergency rule in 1996, Idaho’s approach has been voluntary, said Terry Jacklin of the Jacklin Seed Co.

Bluegrass burning on the Rathdrum Prairie has declined 75 percent and will end within a decade as the prairie is developed, Jacklin said.

Bluegrass production has moved to southern Alberta and onto regional Indian reservations, he said.

“We need burning as a tool, but we need to not use it just as a convenience,” Jacklin said.

Wheat grower Jay Penner of Waitsburg, a member of Washington’s Agricultural Burning Task Force, complained about Ecology’s stubble burning curtailment.

“Ecology and EPA have lost control of their mission and they need to be brought back into line,” he said.

Farmers are under conflicting mandates to clean up the air and also reduce erosion to keep streams clear for salmon habitat, Penner said.

He argued that no-till practices, coupled with burning, cause less erosion and should be encouraged.

The wheat growers decided to cut a voluntary deal with the state because if they didn’t, they’d lose burning as a tool, Penner said.

“They saw this truck coming at them at 100 mph and they didn’t want to get run over,” Penner said.

After farmers perfect no-till methods, “in 20 years we won’t be burning,” he predicted.

Several panel members were critical of Ecology’s new regulations, commenting that they seemed an undue burden on farmers.

Washington farmers were involved in crafting the new management practices for cereal crops, Pfeifer said. “We bent over backwards to make this workable,” he said.

The vagueness of Ecology’s estimates of agriculture’s contribution to air pollution also rankled some of the panel members.

“These estimates may be off by a power of 10,” said Robert Quinn, meteorologist for Idaho bluegrass growers. “We need to get better research.”

Ecology actually has a good emissions inventory, and the panel’s pro-industry stance is discouraging, a Spokane clean-air activist said.

“They came here when there’s no smoke in the air and they included nobody from the local community except for farmers,” said Patricia Hoffman of Save Our Summers, a Spokane-based anti-burning group.

“They wanted hard science, yet they didn’t invite those who could have provided it to participate in their meeting,” she said.

Washington State University economists who concluded in a cost-benefit analysis that public health benefits outweighed costs to farmers of dousing bluegrass burning should have been invited, Hoffman said.

On Thursday, the panel will hear from University of Washington epidemiologist Jane Koenig, who has been studying the link between field burning and respiratory problems in Spokane.

Tuesday, the panel agreed to seek $40 million from Congress in 2001 to pay for new research projects on agriculture’s contribution to air pollution. The funds would be shared between USDA and the EPA.

Last year, the USDA asked for $20 million for air quality research, but the Office of Management and Budget cut the request to $2 million. House budget negotiators recently eliminated the $2 million, Reed said.

“We are having a hard time convincing policy-makers in Congress,” he said.

Jack Silzel, legislative assistant on farm issues to Rep. George Nethercutt, R-Spokane, promised to help the panel.

“We never received a request in our office for this research. We were not asked,” Silzel said.