Growers air stand on pollution limits

Valley lawmaker's event focuses on agriculture economics.

By Mark Grossi
The Fresno Bee

(Updated Saturday, March 8, 2003, 4:44 AM)

BAKERSFIELD -- In the last decade, massive Paramount Farms sent 2 million tons of orchard waste to clean, wood-burning electricity plants rather than light open-field fires and pour dirty smoke into the sky.

Paramount spokesman Rob Baker on Friday told state Sen. Dean Florez, D-Shafter, that his 50,000-acre operation will continue to take the clean-air alternative to field burning, but it's not getting any cheaper.

"We spend $250,000 a year now to do it," he said. "A few years ago, we didn't spend anything."

Farm economics became the topic of the day for Florez, who is holding a series of hearings all over the San Joaquin Valley on the area's problems as the second-worst place in the nation for air pollution.

The hearing Friday focused on agriculture, which contributes more than half of the Valley's particle pollution and about 20% of the smog-making pollutants.

Florez has proposed 10 air quality laws, including several aimed at agriculture. One

proposal would ban open-field burning, the cheapest disposal method for many thousands of tons of farm waste.

Florez opened the hearing by saying he didn't think the Valley would have to make a political choice between agriculture and clean air.

"We can have a vibrant agriculture industry and air healthy enough for asthmatic children to breathe," he said.

But farm representatives fear regulation backlash will drive some growers out of business. They said farmers are trying to do their part, but economics are making their lives miserable.

They said they could use help, especially for biomass power producers who use farm waste to make electricity. Biomass power producers have a hard time competing in the electricity market because their costs are generally higher than other power producers.

"But biomass is highly effective at reducing air pollution," said Bob Hoffman of the California Biomass Energy Association. "It removes 96.5% of the pollution compared to open-field burning."

Such field burning accounts for less than 5% of the particle pollution in the Valley each year, but regulators say such fires sometimes can "smoke out" a neighborhood or a business.

Biomass plants daily prevent about 7 tons of particle pollution and 4.6 tons of smog-forming emissions in the Valley.

The state needs to make money available to help growers, wood chippers and biomass plant owners, farm officials said.

Shirley Batchman of the California Citrus Mutual said the state also needs to take urban demolition wood out of the picture.

The wood coming from Los Angeles and the Bay Area into the Valley on diesel trucks is sold cheaper. Biomass plants, which are stretched financially, are using it.

"We need legislation mandating the use of wood from the Valley," she said. "We have got to address the issue of affordability.

"Bottom line, we need these biomass plants on the grid. And we need them to use Valley waste."

Batchman said growers will abandon orchards if field burning is eliminated without providing some incentives for alternatives. Abandoned orchards will raise the chances of tree disease and fire.

Gary Wilson, who chips and hauls wood, provided an illustration of the financial dangers already affecting agriculture, even though burning is currently allowed. He said his family farms Kern County vineyards and this year needed to remove 80 acres of them.

In previous years, it would have cost about $10,000 to rip out and dispose of the waste, he said. But now the waste can't be burned because it contains treated wood in grape stakes. Between labor, transportation and landfill costs, the disposal price has grown to $80,000, he said.

"You're looking at paying a third of the cost of the land," he said. "Growers really don't want to burn. But smaller growers haven't been able to afford anything else."

The reporter can be reached at mgrossi@fresnobee.com or 441-6316.