Suit claims field burning violates disabilities act

BOISE – Clean-air advocates in North Idaho are suing the state in federal court, claiming Idaho officials violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by allowing grass farmers to burn their fields.

The lawsuit filed Wednesday is the latest effort by Safe Air For Everyone to stop the practice of field burning, which the group says can pose health risks to people suffering from respiratory ailments in Idaho’s panhandle. The plaintiffs have asked the court to certify their complaint as a class action.

Bluegrass farmers say field burning is necessary to clear their fields of stubble and to shock the ground into producing more grass seed the following year. The state Department of Agriculture says the farmers have no economically viable alternative.

In previous lawsuits, the group has argued that federal officials shouldn’t allow field burning in Idaho or that the state erred when it concluded field burning was grass growers’ only viable option.

This complaint against the state and its Agriculture Department takes a different approach: SAFE contends Idaho is authorizing field burning at the expense of disabled residents’ rights and personal liberty.

“In the last five years, bluegrass and wheat stubble burning has killed at least two people, threatened the health and lives of thousands, shortened the lives of the children and adults who have cystic fibrosis, and discriminated against disabled individuals by isolating them from the community, denying them access to public services and imprisoning them within their own homes,” the lawsuit says.

Bob Cooper, spokesman for the state attorney general’s office, said he had not yet seen the lawsuit and so was unable to comment. State Agriculture Department spokesman Wayne Hoffman could not immediately be reached for comment.

One of the lawsuit’s named plaintiffs is a 14-year-old girl identified only as Alex H. The teen suffers from cystic fibrosis, the document says, and smoke on the Rathdrum Prairie during the late summer burning season allegedly aggravates her disease. Alex has to leave school and move to the smoke-free Priest Lake region during that period, the lawsuit says.

“Each time Alex is exposed to smoke she suffers additional pulmonary injury that is permanent,” the lawsuit says. “Tragically, the smoke is shortening her already abbreviated life and making the years that she has left on the planet less enjoyable and less rewarding.”

SAFE is asking that a federal judge order Idaho to stop the burning and pay damages to residents damaged by the practice.