Brown Seeks Hearing On Burning Grass Fields

A Spokane legislator wants the state Department of Ecology to hold a public hearing on alternatives to grass burning.

Rep. Lisa Brown, minority whip of the state House of Representatives, wrote Department of Ecology Director Mary Riveland seeking the public forum.

Under the Washington Clean Air Act, it’s the state’s duty to protect the most sensitive members of the public from unhealthful air, the Spokane Democrat said in her letter to Riveland.

Regulators are also supposed to curb air pollution that interferes with “the enjoyment of life, property and natural attractions” for all citizens, she said.

“Grass burning does all that. Given the controversy over this issue, it’s time to get it before state regulators,” Brown said.

The Department of Ecology will be responding soon to Brown’s request, said Joe Williams, the department’s air programs director in Olympia.

According to a survey conducted last year by the American Lung Association, more than 1,300 people in Spokane County got sick, went to the hospital, or had to increase medication due to grass-smoke exposure.

Brown also plans to ask Rep. Gary Chandler, the Republican chairman of the House Agriculture and Ecology Committee, to revisit the contentious issue next year.

The Legislature was “misled” last spring into approving a bill sought by grass burners that limits the Spokane County Air Pollution Control Authority’s powers to regulate field burning, Brown said.

Lawmakers were told nobody in Spokane opposed the measure, when in fact no clean-air groups or local officials were asked to testify, Brown said.

The new law expands the number of burning days from 16 to 25, within an Aug. 15 to Sept. 30 burning “window.” Local growers have agreed not to burn on weekends and holidays.

Voting for the bill was “the biggest mistake I made in the Legislature this year,” Brown said.

“We think it’s unfortunate that this issue has been taken out of the hands of the local air authority” by the Legislature, the Ecology Department’s Williams said.

The new law has angered - and energized - local clean-air activists.

More than 300 people packed a Spokane County Air Pollution Control Authority workshop July 18 to protest the law and call for a grass burning ban.

Members of a new anti-burning group, Save Our Summers, also are writing to Riveland.

“It’s time to…give the people both for and against the industry position an opportunity to share current information,” wrote Cherie Rogers, who also is a member of the Spokane City Plan Commission.

Burning still is considered the “best management practice” for the Kentucky bluegrass grown in the Spokane area, said Martha Dailey, executive director of the Intermountain Grass Growers’ Association.

“This is the first we’ve heard” of Brown’s request for a hearing, Dailey said Thursday.

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