Field burning could resume by fall

BOISE – Compromise legislation on field burning that includes a new focus on public health passed the Idaho Senate unanimously Thursday, clearing the way for a possible return of field burning to Idaho as soon as the end of the summer.

“In 12 years of service here, this is a good day,” declared state Sen. Shawn Keough, R-Sandpoint. “It’s good for the people that suffer from the smoke, and it’s great for the farmers, and I applaud the effort that’s gone into getting us here.”

Gov. Butch Otter scheduled a signing ceremony for this afternoon. “Everybody came in and sat down at the table, and said, ‘Y’know, this is something we need to do,’ ” Otter said. “That’s a great accomplishment.”

The bill, HB 557, earlier passed the House unanimously. Both the House and Senate suspended their rules to speed up the passage of the bill, so the state Board of Environmental Quality can approve rules on March 12 for the new smoke-monitoring system required by the bill. Those rules then would need U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approval.

Idaho Department of Environmental Quality Director Toni Hardesty said, “What we are attempting to do is to have a program approved and in place so that the farmers can burn in the fall.”

Hardesty said she thought the compromise was “a really excellent piece of legislation.”

“It allows crop residue burning to continue, but I think it’s going to be very protective of public health, and that’s very important,” she said.

Field burning has been banned in Idaho for more than a year, after a federal court ruled the state’s regulation system illegal. Health advocates, farmers, state agencies and others helped hash out the new agreement with the help of a mediator over the past six months. It allows burning to resume, but with new rules, including a cutoff when air pollution reaches 75 percent of standards, more monitoring of smoke and regulation by the state Department of Environmental Quality, rather than the state Agriculture Department.

The bill also ends the Agriculture Department’s practice of treating the locations of field burns as state secrets – giving nearby residents no warning that a field was about to go up in smoke. Now, the state will make public, in advance, the date, location, acreage and crop type that will be burned, said the bill’s Senate sponsor, Steve Bair, R-Blackfoot. People with respiratory problems will be able to monitor upcoming burns on a Web site.

“This is perhaps for the state of Idaho one of the most important pieces of legislation we will consider,” Bair told the Senate.

State Sen. Jim Hammond, R-Post Falls, said, “I’m very pleased that we were able to reach a compromise and those grass growers will once again be able to have a good crop of seed. Instead of filling a lot of North Idaho farmland with houses, maybe we can keep that in agriculture.”

Wayne Meyer, a grass seed farmer and former state legislator from Rathdrum, said he has 400 acres of newly seeded grass fields. “I will hopefully burn that 400 acres this summer,” he said. But, he said, “I will probably be the only one.”

Meyer, whose family previously raised more than 2,000 acres of grass seed on the Rathdrum Prairie, said much of that acreage will be planted in wheat. Many of his fellow farmers have switched to wheat or barley, he said, because of the cutoff of field burning. “The seed companies have some real fears that they might not have enough product to work with,” Meyer said.

Food Producers of Idaho, an association of farm groups, praised the legislation. “Field burning in Idaho is not just a grass seed industry issue,” the group said in a statement. “Many of our commodities use field burning as a valuable tool to control insects, diseases and weeds. Oftentimes, Mother Nature deals us a situation that results in field burning being the most economical and timely way to handle crop residue left in a field following harvest.”

Grass seed farmers on the Rathdrum Prairie were the focus of much of the controversy, however. They traditionally have burned their fields annually to spur a new crop without reseeding, which makes grass seed more profitable. But smoke from the annual late-summer burning posed problems for respiratory patients downwind and led to multiple lawsuits.

Safe Air For Everyone, a Sandpoint-based group organized by physicians concerned about the smoke’s effect on their patients with respiratory problems, filed the lawsuit that resulted in the federal court’s overturning of Idaho’s regulatory system.

Patti Gora, SAFE executive director, said in a statement, “The bill, together with the rules to be promulgated by the Department of Environmental Quality, provides key protections for public health, including special protections for the most vulnerable citizens who cannot flee from smoke plumes such as schools in session, hospitals and residential care facilities.”

In the Senate debate, John Goedde, R-Coeur d’Alene, expressed concern that the bill doesn’t apply on Indian reservations, which also weren’t affected by the federal court order that stopped Idaho’s field burning program. With the Coeur d’Alene reservation just southeast of Coeur d’Alene, he said, “it will encourage grass farmers to locate within reservation boundaries, and that smoke is all going to get funneled into my district. That’s during our tourist season, and people don’t want to be out on the lake when they can’t breathe the air or see across the lake.”

State Sen. Mike Jorgenson, R-Hayden Lake, chairman of the Idaho Indian Affairs Council, responded, “The Coeur d’Alene Tribe is currently and actively engaged in trying to ban burning.”

Coeur d’Alene Tribal Chairman Chief Allan confirmed that. Nine years ago, the Coeur d’Alene Tribal Council passed a resolution to phase out field burning over 10 years, Allan said. “Farmers on our reservation know that’s expiring pretty soon. … There’s not going to be a big rush of people moving to the reservation to farm,” he said.