Dust in the wind

RATHDRUM – When Wayne Meyer’s family moved to the Rathdrum Prairie more than 40 years ago, farmland could be snapped up for $100 an acre.

These days, it’s an entirely different scenario.

Property is selling for roughly 300 times as much. Developers are devouring land and constructing subdivisions. And a recent ban – although now in limbo – on field burning may quicken the prairie’s transition from farms to tract homes.

With the rapid change on Rathdrum Prairie, the age of the bluegrass farmer may be passing, said Meyer, 57, one of the mainstays of the local farming community.

“I’ve been living with this my whole life,” said Meyer, who is preparing for his 37th crop in his farming career. “Uncertainty and farming go hand and hand.”

Meyer, a former state legislator, was 23 when he first purchased property on Rathdrum Prairie. Today, he and his family farm nearly 3,000 acres, some leased and some owned. Most of the acreage is planted in bluegrass.

But that crop is threatened by a recent state ban on field burning.

Idaho halted issuing field-burning permits this year after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in January that burning has been illegal in Idaho since 1993 under federal law. Under that premise, the state asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to begin again its consideration of Idaho’s formal plan for complying with the federal Clean Air Act.

Earlier this month, however, the EPA told the state that it interprets the court decision as allowing the state to continue issuing permits while the agency undertakes additional reviews, which could take years.

That surprised state officials, who had determined that the court decision stopped all field burning in Idaho outside of Indian reservations, which weren’t subject to the court case.

Last week, Gov. Butch Otter asked all parties to submit to negotiations, including clean-air groups that had sued to stop the grass- field burning, claiming the billowing smoke violates the Clean Air Act and hurts people’s health, especially those with breathing problems.

The uncertainty at the state level has left bluegrass farmers in a quandary, Meyer said.

“It makes it difficult to know what to do,” he said. “I’m hoping for the best but preparing for the worst.”

Kentucky bluegrass farmers burn the residue off their fields in late summer. Without torching the fields, grass-seed yields would drop by 75 percent, making the crop financially unviable, Meyer said.

“If I have to plow it up and start raising wheat that takes different machinery than what I have,” said Meyer, it would take a substantial investment.

He isn’t ready to give up his way of life.

“Humans are creatures of habit,” Meyer said at his farm home off state Highway 41 in Rathdrum. “I’ve done this my whole life. My dad had me riding on a tractor when I was 6 years old. For me, it’s hard not to do that.”

Farming in his blood

The Meyer family tree could be planted in farmland. Both of Wayne Meyer’s parents came from farming backgrounds. Of their six children, nearly all went into some kind of crop-raising.

Meyer was born in Colfax, Wash., and spent much of his childhood in nearby Colton, where his family raised wheat, peas, barley and livestock.

His parents moved the family north in 1964 after his father, Richard Meyer, grew tired of competing with relatives for local property that came on the market, Wayne Meyer said.

The following year, his family planted grass seed for the first time on Rathdrum Prairie.

“That’s what everybody was doing in the area,” said Meyer, who graduated from Central Valley High School. “We’ve been in the grass-seed business ever since.”

In 1970, the same year he was married, Meyer started farming on his own, leasing 500 acres from his father. Two years later, he earned a bachelor’s degree in plant science from Washington State University.

He has dabbled in wheat, barley, peas and a little hay, but his mainstay has been grass seed, Meyer said.

His wife, Karleen, raises horses. His daughter, Jaime, leases farmland from him with her husband, Lance Deacon, and their three children.

Meyer was elected to the Idaho Legislature in 1995, serving five terms. He’s still involved in state politics, serving as legislative liaison for local chambers of commerce and volunteering on the aquifer protection advisory committee.

In July 2005, Meyer was diagnosed with colorectal cancer. Last spring, he was undergoing chemotherapy, he said, but he still was out in the fields, a catheter strapped to his chest.

“I had a goal I was going to get back to what I did before,” Meyer said.

This spring, he’s working on prepping his irrigation system for this year’s crop, which will be harvested in July, he said.

If field burning is permitted, bluegrass farmers on Rathdrum Prairie will torch about 1,900 acres in late summer, down from 2,400 last year, he said.

Bluegrass farmers have a total of about 2,400 acres in production on the prairie, Meyer said, adding that about seven bluegrass farmers forgo burning their fields.

The acreage represents a dramatic drop from the early 1990s, when about 12,500 acres were farmed for grass seed, he said.

“Development has taken a lot of land out of production,” Meyer said. “And because of the issues surrounding bluegrass on Rathdrum Prairie, some people said, ‘I’m not doing it anymore.’ “

This spring, Meyer finalized the sale of 290 acres along state Highway 41, making up about 40 percent of his acreage, he said. He’s one of the last farmers on the prairie to sell property, Meyer said.

Meyer and three brothers also have optioned 135 acres to North Idaho College, which hopes to build a work-force training center on the prairie.

The state’s announcement earlier this year banning field burning prompted his decision to sell the 290-acre chunk of land, Meyer said.

Meyer, however, still is not giving up on farming. He has thought about going to the Palouse region and buying farmland there.

But he’s still banking on growing bluegrass; last week, he invested $37,000 in a piece of tilling equipment, he said.

“Farming’s in my blood,” he said.

Wenatchee has its apples, Meyer said. South Idaho, its potatoes. And the Midwest, its corn.

“North Idaho,” Meyer said, “is Kentucky bluegrass.”

3,000: Acres of farmland that Wayne Meyer and his family farm on Rathdrum Prairie

1,900: Total acres of bluegrass to be torched this summer on Rathdrum Prairie if the state issues burning permits

2,400: Acres burned last year on Rathdrum Prairie

12,500: Total acres of bluegrass in production on Rathdrum Prairie in the early 1990s

2,400: Total acres of bluegrass in production today

Source: Wayne Meyer