Field burning season begins

Farmers on the Rathdrum Prairie may torch up to 1,000 acres of bluegrass stubble by 10 a.m. today, kicking off the annual field burning season.

That’s about half the acreage slated to burn on the prairie, which is nearly surrounded by housing developments.

Farmers burn their fields after harvest to remove crop stubble and prepare the land for next season’s crop of grass seed. Some on the Rathdrum Prairie have tried to burn for the past several days, but smoke from forest fires in neighboring states have prevented Idaho officials from giving the OK.

The prediction for today’s burn remains tentative. Officials from the Idaho State Agriculture Department and meteorologists planned to check weather conditions early this morning before giving final approval, department spokesman Wayne Hoffman said.

Residents who want to track field burning activity can find regularly updated information, including size of permitted burns, on the department’s Web site: www.idahoag.us.

The Coeur d’Alene Tribe also hopes to light fields this week to get a start on the nearly 36,000 acres of bluegrass stubble.

“There isn’t enough wind yet to get rid of the smoke,” said Margaret SiJohn, a legislative assistant for the tribe.

Clean-air advocates said they once again are disappointed the state won’t give precise locations of burns so people, especially asthmatics and those with heart and lung ailments, can escape the smoke.

Patti Gora, of the Sandpoint-based Safe Air For Everyone, also questions why the state can add acreage to the burn list throughout the day. That lack of information doesn’t give people time to plan, she said.

“Literally 2,200 acres of the burning is what is in essentially a subdivision,” Gora said. “I don’t know anywhere else in America where that would be allowed. That’s not prudent. That’s not safe.”

Hoffmann said specific locations of the burns are private and state law excludes them from public record. He added that there is no policy change and that farmers always have been able to add more acreage to the burn permit during the day.

“We are going to do our best to burn in a fashion that recognized the concerns of our agricultural neighbors,” Hoffmann said.

If a burn is done properly, the smoke will rise in a plume, catch a transport wind and head out of the area, he said.

“Before this program there was smoke all over the place, on the ground and running into neighbors’ houses,” he said.

Bluegrass farmers say burning is the fastest, cheapest method of removing crop stubble. Burning also reduces the need for the use of chemical weed killers on the Rathdrum Prairie, which sits atop the region’s drinking water aquifer. Farmers grow grass seed for use in lawns and golf courses.

Although the Idaho Legislature and Idaho Supreme Court have upheld the right of farmers to burn their fields, the booming real estate market has caused much of the smoke to vanish. Many of the grass fields have been turned into subdivisions.

The 2,000-acre burn anticipated on the Rathdrum Prairie this year is consistent with the past two years. But in 2003, about 3,600 acres were lit on the prairie, Hoffman said.

Farmers also burn fields in Boundary and Latah counties in addition to 40,000 acres within the boundaries of Nez Perce Tribal lands east of Lewiston.

Burning of grass seed stubble has been outlawed in Washington since the late 1990s. Burning of wheat and other grain stubble continues, but the acreage has been cut in half in the past six years, according to the Washington Department of Natural Resources. When a decision is made to allow burning a grain field, the exact location is given.