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Department of Ecology News Release - Aug. 25, 2003
03-167
SPOKANE - Franklin County Superior Court has approved a settlement of two Department of Ecology (Ecology) fines issued in 1997 against two Mesa farmers who violated the state's rules on burning grass stubble.
Ecology issued a $10,000 fine to Robert Schuh for burning 113 acres of grass-seed fields without proper authorization, and also fined Patrick Heinen $30,000 for burning 580 acres of grass stubble without a permit.
Ecology issued the penalties after conducting ground and air investigations in the fall of 1997. The growers failed to observe the burning reduction that was required for the 1997 season. Ecology regulations called for burning two-thirds fewer acres than in 1995 as part of a phase-out of the practice.
Schuh and Heinen both appealed their penalties to the state's Pollution Control Hearings Board, which agreed that the violations had occurred but reduced Schuh's penalty to $4,000 and Heinen's penalty to $20,000.
Both Schuh and Heinen appealed once again, this time to the Franklin County Superior Court. The settlement agreement approved by the court required that the men pay off the fines as reduced by the Pollution Control Hearings Board, over a period of 20 months.
As allowed by Washington's Clean Air Act of 1991, the state of Washington phased out grass burning, beginning in 1996, because of public health concerns. In 1998, an alternative to burning grass-seed fields was certified as economically viable, meaning that growers would still be able to grow grass seed profitably without burning. The alternative was using normal farm equipment to rake and bale the grass stubble.
To reach this conclusion, scientists evaluated about 300 pieces of research, while economists and agronomists at Washington State University conducted a thorough cost-benefit analysis.
Today, an average of fewer than 100 acres of grass-seed fields are burned each year in Washington because of steep slopes or other conditions that prevent farm equipment from raking and baling the stubble.
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Contact: Jani Gilbert, public Information manager, 509-329-3495; pager, 509-622-1289
Copyright © Washington State Department of Ecology. See http://www.ecy.wa.gov/copyright.html.
