Grass Growers Begin Torching Field Stubble State Agency May Push For Ban If Residents Complain About Smoke

Wally Meyer hopes to start burning his harvested bluegrass fields next week.

The 46-year-old grass seed farmer works nearly 1,000 acres on the Rathdrum Prairie, long a Meyer family farming stronghold.

“It’s all bluegrass now,” Wally Meyer says, scanning the blond stubble rolling across the prairie to the east. “There’s no money in anything else.”

Growers say burning stubble is the only cost-effective way to ready fields for next spring’s crop. Clean-air activists and people with respiratory problems say the summer-time smoke is too high a price to pay.

This year’s burning season began this week.

Growers who lease land on the Coeur d’Alene Reservation had only burned about 162 acres, after their season started Tuesday. The growers are not tribal members.

Prairie growers such as Meyer are expected to start setting their fields on fire next week.

A state hotline for comments about burning opened this week. By Friday afternoon, no complaints had come in. The number is (208) 765-7006 or (800) 421-8475.

A new policy at the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality could reflect public concerns.

Complaint calls don’t usually come in until after burning stops for the day, said Michael Gersten, an air quality analyst with the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality.

But if a lot of calls come in early, the state will press for a burn ban, Gersten said.

Last year, operators fielded more than 600 calls, the lowest number since 1990. The most calls came in on two consecutive days, Aug. 17 and 18, when growers on the Prairie and the reservation burned a total of 3,665 acres.

A partial log of calls from Aug. 18 reveals the frustration burning evokes: “I can’t breathe, kids can’t breathe … who do these people think they are,” said Post Falls resident Jeff Whitman, who lives on Meyer Road.

“It is really bad today. It has completely covered the highlands - I had to bring in the animals and the children and eyes are burning and is hard to breathe,” said Andrea Wood, calling from the Highlands development in Post Falls.

Meyer, while not dismissing public concerns, said most of the burning on the prairie happened fast. State records show prairie growers torched a total of 2,866 acres in two days at the end of August.

The smoke is only around for a short time, Meyer said.

“I have two nieces with asthma,” he said. “It doesn’t seem to impact them too badly.”

In Idaho, field burning is managed on a strictly voluntary basis with growers, as mandated by the Idaho Legislature.

Growers agree to burn Monday through Thursday, except Labor Day, from 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. Once burning starts, they have a 45-day window to torch their fields over a total of 14 days.

Farmers rely on meteorologists to gauge smoke patterns with weather balloons. Generally, a southwest wind is best to blow smoke up and away from settled areas.

Last year, growers on the prairie registered to burn more than 6,800 acres, according a DEQ report on field burning in 1999.

Growers on the reservation burned roughly 25,000 acres last year.

With field burning all but outlawed in Eastern Washington, Spokane County growers torched only about 253 acres.

State and tribal regulators said they expected slight increases this year.

“Just a little more this year than last,” said Norma Jean Louie, with the Coeur d’Alene Tribe.

There’s been no change in the number of nontribal growers leasing reservation land - 32, according to Louie.

Field burning did not exceed national air quality standards last year, according to DEQ records.

Since the 1980s, the amount of stubble burned on the prairie has dropped by nearly half.