Lawmakers Square Off Over Burning Grass Growers Seeking Exemption From Statewide Ban

Two North Idaho lawmakers are facing off over grass seed farmers’ efforts to burn their fields even as authorities struggle to contain wildfires.

“Heavens, it’s kind of like somebody having a flood, and they decide to open a dam and let more water come out,” said Rep. Jerry Stoicheff, D-Sandpoint. “That wouldn’t be, in my estimation, the intelligent thing to do.”

Rep. Wayne Meyer, R-Rathdrum, a grass seed grower himself, has been leading the effort to win farmers an exemption from a statewide ban on open burning. Growers must burn their fields by mid-September or face precipitous losses in yields.

“I think things are coming together and they’re going to get something in place,” Meyer said Monday. “I have a little concern about trying to get it done in a timely fashion.”

Meyer is working with a group of state agencies trying to hash out a field-by-field exemption program that would allow only the safest fields to be burned. The state Land Board directed that approach last week after Meyer and other farmers pleaded for help.

Agency officials hope to have an application process worked up and brief Gov. Dirk Kempthorne and other Land Board members as soon as today.

“We will ask the governor, we will ask the board members if it looks OK to them,” said state Lands Director Stan Hamilton. “If we hear a major objection, we’ll go back to the drawing board. If it looks OK to them, we’ll go ahead with it.”

Stoicheff, whose legislative district in Bonner and Boundary counties is blanketed with smoke when Rathdrum Prairie fields are burned, said her top concern is safety. The last time grass seed fields were torched, smoke interfered with firefighting efforts in North Idaho and Montana, blocking the spotting of new forest fires and hampering airborne firefighting efforts.

The next day, the state imposed a statewide ban on open burning, including agricultural burning.

“We are having trouble all over Idaho and the surrounding states with extreme fires,” Stoicheff said. “Is the grass growers’ extra profit worth our firefighters not being able to see where to drop fire retardant, or to spot new fires?”

She added, “I mean, they’re not even allowed to have campfires or anything, and then you’re going to set whole fields on fire?”

Stoicheff said she’s also concerned about the plight of the timber industry, a major employer in her district which has opposed field burning while the fire danger remains extreme. Timber interests say their losses when trees burn up in wildfires last for decades.

“Why should the timber industry suffer at the expense of the grass growers?” Stoicheff asked.

Meyer said, “I understand her concerns and the citizens in her area. I have a real concern about community outcry if and when we do burn.”

But, he said, “If we don’t burn, and we’re still in business next year, then people are going to come back and say, `You can get along without burning, you’re still in business.”’

The controversial practice shocks plants into producing for another season without replanting. When farmers plow up the grass seed fields and replant, it takes about four years to “be back in the production business,” Meyer said.

Meyer said he, too, is worried about high fire danger.

On Friday night, someone started a fire in one of his fields from a car or a cigarette. “We had to go out and put out a little fire,” he said. “Luckily it was late enough in the evening, it was about 7, because if it would’ve been two hours earlier, the wind was blowing about 20 mph, it would’ve really took off.”

Meyer said he’s seen the firefighting planes make runs from the Coeur d’Alene Airport with their loads of fire retardant, and doesn’t want field burning to prevent those takeoffs.

“I hope that when we are allowed to burn again, that we’re going to communicate with the Department of Lands and see what’s going on in the area,” he said.

With the right conditions, Rathdrum Prairie farmers could be done burning in two days, Meyer said. “I think we’re a little better prepared than the person lighting the campfire,” he said. “I feel that most of our fields on the Rathdrum Prairie can be made safe.”

Sen. Shawn Keough, R-Sandpoint, also expressed concern to state agencies after the last big burn day. “The smoke was so thick in the Bonner County area that it prohibited the spotter planes from flying, they couldn’t get off the ground. And we did have forest fires that started that day,” she said.

Keough said she wouldn’t object to allowing specific fields to be burned, if they won’t cause such problems. “My concern remains that I don’t believe we can afford another day like we had that Monday,” she said.

Meyer said exemption standards will be stringent. “I think we could go all the way through this process and there’d be no permits issued,” he said. “But at least we’re going to make an effort, and I think that’s what was directed by the Land Board.”