Field burn smokes out parts of valley

By Diane Dietz
The Register Guard
Published: Wednesday, July 11, 2007

The first field burn of the season went awry Tuesday, sending smoke into Eugene on a 100-degree day when people without air conditioning were already miserable.

The incident was an inauspicious start to the controversial practice that southern Willamette Valley politicians are trying to ban, whether through state rules, legislation or the courts.

The smoke from just one 55-acre field burn south of Harrisburg rolled into Junction City, through the Churchill and Bethel areas and on south to Lorane.

About 50 residents complained to the state Department of Agriculture about the smoke, which is created when farmers torch leftover stalks after harvest. Twice that number lit the phone lines at the Lane Regional Air Protection Agency.

"It was outrageously dramatic," air agency spokeswoman Sally Markos said. "Everyone was caught by surprise. The phones started ringing and it just didn't stop."

The state smoke management program, which is meant to ensure that field burning smoke is controlled, blamed the farmer.

The farmer was supposed to use a prescribed "rapid ignition" process, which involves hanging a drip torch on the back of a pickup truck and ringing a dry field with bits of fire. That's supposed to make a tight column of smoke.

But it didn't happen Tuesday.

"Who knows (why)?" said John Byers, who oversees the smoke management program. "There's always a variety of issues. Sometimes it's mechanical failure. Sometimes they hit a green part of the field. It could be a lot of things - inexperience."

The state fire marshal prohibits field burning when two of three conditions occur: temperatures of 95 degrees or greater, humidity of 30 percent or less and winds of 15 mph or greater.

When the unidentified farmer lit the Harrisburg field at 11:30 a.m., none of those conditions were in place - although the smoke management program had predicted the thresholds would be reached by afternoon, Byers said. It was 84 degrees at the time of ignition, he said.

"It wasn't heated up yet. We had good surface winds and strong winds aloft," Byers said. "Meteorologically, it was a great day for a burn."

Still, the burn went awry and people with lung conditions called Lane Regional Air Protection Agency to say it was distressing them, Markos said. Last year, the state fielded 1,182 complaints about field burning.

"This could cause an asthma attack for somebody who was asthmatic," Markos said. "The smoke was thick enough."

The incident comes at a time that the grass seed trade group, the Oregon Seed Council, is trying to reduce criticism of the practice by reducing the number of days that Willamette Valley residents will have to contend with smoke.

One proposal includes tightening conditions under which grass seed farmers can do five- or 10-acre preparatory burns.

Those are usually allowed on "marginal" burn days, when winds are not likely to carry the smoke out of the valley.

"You're burning around the barn, so when a good burn day comes, you're burning the whole 100 acres," Byers said. "You're not wasting your time burning the small, little piddly stuff trying to protect your property. When you have good burn days, you should be burning the whole thing."

At the growers' request, regulators may reduce the total acreage of preparatory burns allowed on a single day to 100 acres, compared with the present 200 acres. Farmers burn a total of about 50,000 acres each year.

The agency may not issue as many permits, may increase the amount of time required between prep burns in close proximity and increase the amount of distance and time between the smaller burns, he said.

"From a public perspective, it's still a burn; they may see smoke. Maybe they're impacted, but maybe they're not. But perception is reality if they're seeing smoke, " Byers said.

The tightening requirements are a defense against efforts to ban field burning.

Earlier this year, state Rep. Paul Holvey, D-Eugene, tried to get a legislative ban on field burning.

The House Health Committee give the bill a "do pass" recommendation, but the House Agriculture Committee killed the bill.

Currently, the Lane County Board of Commissioners is petitioning the Environmental Quality Commission to stop field burning administratively. That agency is not expected to rule until the burn season is nearly over.

The county board has met with environmental law attorneys to consider whether to seek a court injunction to stop field burning.

Willamette Valley grass seed farmers are expected to burn on scattered days through August and September - but they'll hold off on the fires until next week, Byers said.

"It won't be this week for a number of reasons. One is the weather is too hot," he said.

WHERE TO CALL

Citizens can call these agencies to log complaints regarding field burning:

Oregon Department of Agriculture: 686-7600

Lane Regional Air Protection Agency: 736-1056.