Governor wants to introduce bill next year

Proposed legislation drafted by the Department of Environmental Quality calls for an end to field burning in the Willamette Valley within three years, setting the stage for a showdown with the grass-seed industry in the 2009 Legislature.

The plan calls for cutting field-burning acreage in half in 2010 and eliminating it entirely the following year — a much shorter time frame than many people had expected. Details of the proposal, drawn up by DEQ staff at the behest of Gov. Ted Kulongoski, were unveiled this week.

The final wording of the draft bill is still being hammered out, and Kulongoski plans to introduce the measure next year.

“The governor believes this issue is a policy decision that should be made by the Legislature,” said Andy Ginsberg, air-quality administrator for the DEQ. “He’s directed us to introduce this bill so the debate can happen in the Legislative Assembly.”

Oregon’s $682 million grass-seed industry has relied on burning for decades to remove grass stubble after harvesting and to knock down weeds and disease before planting a new crop. The practice has been sharply curtailed since 1988, when smoke from a runaway field burn caused a chain-reaction pileup on Interstate 5 near Albany that left seven people dead and 38 injured.

Today, state law sets strict conditions for burning and allows a maximum of 65,000 acres to be torched in the Willamette Valley each year, a far cry from the 250,000 acres allowed 20 years ago.

Most growers have adopted alternatives to burning, especially since the emergence of reliable markets for grass-seed straw in recent years. But the annual ryegrass raised by many Linn and Lane County farmers isn’t suitable for livestock feed, and the fine fescues grown in the Silverton Hills won’t germinate without fire.

Current law takes those considerations into account, allowing the burning of up to 25,000 acres each year of identified species and steep ground. The Kulongoski bill will have no such exemptions, Ginsburg said, although it would empower the Environmental Quality Commission to allow emergency burning in case of pest or disease outbreaks.

“There would be no routine burning,” Ginsburg said.

Kulongoski’s proposal is sure to run into stiff opposition from the Oregon Seed Council, the industry’s trade group, which helped scuttle a bill to ban field burning introduced last year by Rep. Paul Holvey, D-Eugene.

Roger Beyer, the council’s executive secretary, could not be reached for comment Thursday. But in an interview last month, he reiterated the group’s stance opposing any attempt to ban burning entirely.

“It’s been reduced more than 80 percent,” he told the Gazette-Times. “If you want farming to be a viable industry in this state, you have to let farmers use the tools they need to be able to do it, and one of those tools is field burning.”

Bennett Hall can be reached at 758-9529 or bennett.hall@lee.net.