1991 Field Burning Legislation in Oregon

In June of 1991 the Oregon Legislature ratified a compromise measure that will sharply reduce field burning in Oregon's grass seed fields after 1997. The bill (HB 3343-C) was signed into law by Governor Barbara Roberts on August 7. The following is a summary of the major provisions of this legislation.

What the bill does

• Modifies Oregon's field burning law. The major provisions are open burning acreage reductions and an increased emphasis on research funding for field burning alternatives.

Public Policy

• Declares that Oregon's public policy on field burning is to reduce the practice of open field burning, while developing and providing alternative methods of field sanitization and alternative methods of utilizing and marketing crop residues.

State Agency Coordination and Rulemaking

• Provides that the responsibility for operating the Smoke Management Program is transferred to the Department of Agriculture (DOA) pursuant to a memorandum of understanding.
• Provides that the Environmental Quality Commission (EQC) has authority for rulemaking, e.g., rulemaking for the Smoke Management Program.

Research

• Requires that annually the DOA will examine field burning alternatives, crop residue market development, and alternative crops.
• Requires that after DOA examination, the DOA then develops plans for the expenditure of research dollars, including a $500,000 annual allocation from the State of Oregon for 1992 through 1997.
• Requires that the annual research plan is submitted to either the Joint Ways and Means Committee or the Emergency Board for approval.
• Allocates $1 million for the 1991-1993 biennium from the Executive Department Economic Development fund.

Acreage Allowances and Fees

Provides a schedule for the phase-down of open field burning of grass seed or cereal grain crop residue and increases registration and burning fees as follows in the accompanying table.

* Yearly, an additional 25,000 acres of land identified by the Director of Agriculture may be open burned.

** Starting in 1998, 75,000 acres per year may be propane flamed if monitoring shows that not more than 20 pounds of particulate matter, 10 microns in diameter or less, is emitted for each acre burned.

Application of New Acreage Allowances and Fees

• Applies acreage allowances and fees to Multnomah, Washington, Clackamas, Marion, Polk, Yamhill, Linn, Benton, and Lane counties (Willamette Valley counties).
• Requires farmers outside the nine Willamette Valley counties to pay a $4 per acre open burning fee for grass seed crops. These fee revenues will support research.

Certainly the result of this legislation is to require increased use of alternative sanitation methods in the future. However, the acreage of grass seed crops open-field burned has been declining since about 1985 (1985 = 214,787 acres; 1990 = 159,353 acres). During this same time acres of grass seed being produced increased by one third (1985 = 296,100 acres; 1990 = 396,048 acres). This change has occurred even though there was a 250,000 acre acreage limit on field burning in existence, as set by the 1979 Legislature.

Thus between 1980 and 1985, 75 to 80 percent of acres produced were being open-field burned. In the last five years (1986-90), however, the percentage of acres open-field burned has dropped to about 40%. This change is a result of increasingly stricter rules established by smoke management authorities, which reduced the opportunity to achieve timely, early-season burns.

The new bill limited open-field burning to 180,000 acres in 1991 year, and decreases the maximum acres allowed to be burned to 40,000 acres by 1998. However, just over 100,000 acres were actually burned in 1991. Already many growers are adopting alternative methods of cleaning up straw and stubble, and investigating new markets for straw. As addressed in the field burning bill, these changing management practices are being coupled to research investigations to ensure that these new cropping systems will maintain both high yield and high quality grass seed crops.

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