Posted on 04/30/2004 9:08:50 PM PDT by writer33
Smoke from torched bluegrass fields contains up to eight times more lung-aggravating small particles than burned wheat stubble or forest fires, a new study says.
The Washington State University study also found that baling bluegrass stubble on Idaho's irrigated Rathdrum Prairie before torching the fields doesn't reduce smoke.
However, the same process worked to cut smoke by 66 percent at dryland test sites near Worley on the Coeur d'Alene Indian Reservation, the study says.
"This is information we didn't have before. There was more variability in the fields than we'd realized," said Dan Redline of the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality.
The results from the Rathdrum Prairie came as no surprise, said Linda Clovis, spokeswoman for the North Idaho Farmers Association, a bluegrass industry group.
The study "showed there is a lot of water vapor in the smoke ... it's not all toxic chemicals as some have said," Clovis added.
Tiny particles in field smoke, called PM 2.5 because they are 2.5 microns or less in diameter, are considered a health risk because they can be inhaled deep into the lungs.
The study made comparative measurements of PM 2.5 at 18 four-acre test plots burned in August 2001 on the Rathdrum Prairie, the Coeur d'Alene Indian Reservation and a field near Connell, Wash.
The March 2004 study was headed by William J. Johnston of WSU.
The Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, the Washington Department of Ecology, the Coeur d'Alene Tribe, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the grass seed industry also participated.
The study suggests that smoke management "should be based on emissions rather than acres burned" -- a position favored by the grass industry -- but says more data is necessary.
That conclusion concerns Patti Gora of Safe Air For Everyone, a Sandpoint clean-air group that's sued to halt field burning.
Emissions-based rules won't address the main problem on the Rathdrum Prairie, where bluegrass fields are located near housing developments and schools, she said.
"The single largest problem on the Rathdrum Prairie is its proximity to people. I don't know that an emissions-based solution will reduce injuries," Gora said.
The new information will help Idaho officials decide how many fields can be burned on a given day, Redline said.
Idaho hasn't pushed to halt field burning, but the state requires farmers to get permits and runs a daily burn advisory program. A new state law passed last year shields farmers from lawsuits if they burn legally.
The constitutionality of the "farmer shield" provision is under attack in a class-action lawsuit brought by people exposed to field smoke. A hearing is scheduled May 6 before the Idaho Supreme Court.
Washington state has taken a different approach to regulating bluegrass.
In 1998, Washington phased out most bluegrass field burning for health reasons and has certified mechanical stubble removal as the preferred alternative, said Grant Pfeiffer of the Washington Department of Ecology.
"It's a lot harder to farm grass seed than it used to be. But we're not getting the smoke complaints from the public either," Pfeiffer said.
Pfeiffer said it isn't a surprise that the WSU study found less PM 2.5 in wheat and other cereal grain stubble because that stubble is drier and taller, he said.
"There is quite a difference in the character of the fire," he said.
As a condition of a legal settlement with the Spokane clean-air group Save Our Summers, Washington is about to start rule-making on new ways to meter emissions from cereal grain burning.
Clean-air activists are intrigued by the WSU study's finding that bluegrass burning generates a lot more fine-particle pollution than cereal grains or forest fires.
"I wonder if that isn't the reason we tend to see more deaths associated with grass field burning. This deserves more of a look," Gora said.
SAFE has documented at least three deaths linked to field burning: Aaron Ditmer, a 21-year old Pullman man with severe asthma who died in 1994; Sharon Buck of Sandpoint, a 37-year old asthmatic who died in 1996; and Marsha Mason, a 49-year Rathdrum woman who died of an acute asthma attack in 2000, the day after 6,000 acres of fields had been burned. A local coroner said field burning contributed to Mason's death.
This is going to turn into another smoking like issue. Those farmers who burn and those that don't. The ones that do will be treated like scum.
I would say that the houses are located next to the blue grass fields, not the other way around.
However, the same process worked to cut smoke by 66 percent at dryland test sites near Worley on the Coeur d'Alene Indian Reservation, the study says.
Duh, the hotter it burns, the less smoke. Maybe they should try lighting it with thermite grenades.
At any event, what might be a plausible solution to the whole issue, and I know I'm going out on a limb here, is to stand up wind of the smoke. Criminy.
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