Growers worry about looming ban on burning agricultural waste
| Wednesday, Apr 21 2010 05:23 PM
Last Updated Wednesday, Apr 21 2010 06:30 PM
Growers who occasionally need to burn prunings or entire orchards or vineyards are worried about a state program to phase out burning that's meant to clear the valley's polluted air.
SB 705, sponsored by state Sen. Dean Florez, outlawed the practice of burning agricultural waste in open fields seven years ago, but it is being implemented gradually for different crops. Shortly before the newest restrictions on vineyards and various nuts were to take effect in May 2007, the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District voted to allow burning in orchards of 20 acres or less until 2010. That was to give small farms more time to identify cost-effective alternatives.
But industry groups say even with the added time, implementing the law would create a severe financial hardship for growers already struggling to overcome a drought and a weak economy.
"Unfortunately, we still don't have any other economically viable alternatives to burning," said Camron King, program director of the California Association of Wine Grape Growers.
Florez, in an e-mail, wrote: “What are the alternatives for the children whose lungs and health will be affected by continuing open field burning? What are the cost-effective alternatives for their health and well-being?”
The Air Pollution Control District will hold a hearing on the issue at 9 a.m. May 20, and could either hold firm to its June 1 deadline or give growers another extension. Locals who would like to participate in the hearing can offer testimony via video feed at the Bakersfield district office, 34946 Flyover Court.
The state had been encouraging growers to take agricultural waste to a biomass plant where it can be burned in a controlled, less polluting environment and converted to energy.
But despite state incentives to operate such plants, there are only 10 of them in California. For many growers, it is inconvenient and expensive to chip waste and truck it to a biomass plant, and in any case plants don't have enough capacity to handle the volume of material generated by California agriculture, growers say.
Some orchards and vineyards have to be completely replaced after so many years because yields often diminish over time. It's also common to burn diseased vines and trees to keep illness from infecting healthy plants. Weeds are sometimes burned, too, to cut down on the use of pesticides.
Mark Hall, president of Grapevine Vineyards Inc. in Arvin, said he has prepared for the worst by burning while he still can.
"There are two sides to everything," he said. "We all want clean air, but I'm thinking some day it's going to be more expensive to pull a vineyard out than to plant it."
Arvin-based Kirschenman Enterprises, which grows both table and wine grapes, is worried, too.
Disposing of a vineyard or its trimmings isn't as easy as it sounds, said manager Rick Deckard. If you have metal trellises or wires, the vines must be removed from them before they are delivered to a biomass plant because the metal damages plant machinery.
"It's a lot of labor, and you still have the cost of hauling it," Deckard said.
The staff recommendation to the Air Pollution Control District board is to continue to allow smaller farms to burn certain crops because of the cost of the alternative, and to consider requests from larger farms on a case by case basis, said executive director Seyed Sadredin.
"We understand there is substantial cost involved, and even the alternatives produce emissions," he said. "The diesel fuel for a chipper, and trucking (material) to a plant, both pollute the air, and we don't want to create hot spots of pollution where these plants are located."
Preventative burning to create a fire break would still be allowed under the new rules.
The valley's smoke management program will continue either way, as well, Sadredin said. That program divides the valley's eight counties into 103 geographic zones, and burn permits are granted in each zone based on weather conditions and other factors that affect smoke dispersal in a specific area.
