Pollution in Eugene OR/Lane county (Coburg: stats, moving to, air quality)

[haggardhouseelf]

I can understand the air quality report - due to the mountains, the grass seed farming to the north, and to the wood burning stoves in winter, as well as the creasote issue and whatever those stinky piles of wood things are along Beltline HWY and the water treatment plant also that really stinks badly sometimes....

But honestly... Eugene feels much cleaner to us than the small town in California that we lived in - Rocklin, CA. I remember waking up and the first thing I would do is look out the windows to see the "haze" towards the Sacramento area. It was flat and boring there... so you could see for miles and miles... and there would be a line in the sky - all grey or orange or dark purple depending - and it was the big city pollution. Yuk. In Eugene... the sky is always either varying shades of overcast grey (during the winter), or wonderful blue with fluffy white clouds (just like in the opening credits from The Simpson's!)... I've never seen that sort of pollution haze line I saw in California.

Dallas,TX too - the air smells so bad there. No trees, and just all cement and construction and suburb after crowded suburb and a nasty downtown and it's just awful.... the heat and humidity, ack. But it's flat there so I guess the pollution isn't trapped like it is in places in fertile valleys - surrounded by Mountain ranges, big hills... I grew up in Dallas so I never really noticed it much... but now having lived in the Pacific Northwest with all these wonderful trees and all the rivers and water and freshness and snow and mountains... when I have gone back to Texas, I feel as if I'm being suffocated. It might not be just the air that makes me feel that way, though!

[haggardhouseelf]

CappyOne - thank you for that! Very interesting indeed...

Did you all also know that Eugene's tap water has been rated as the best water in the nation? I read it in a magazine somewhere... I will post the link if I can find it...

[haggardhouseelf]

Untitled Document There's the link... it was from 2004 though...

[OrygunBorn]

Several factors for air quality in Eugene being listed as 'bad'. One is that a lot of poeple heat with wood, and the smoke in winter lingers on what are called 'stale air days'. They ask that people not burn on those nights in Eugene and Oakridge when the air is not moving. However, even on bad days the air is better here than in the SF Bay Area in winter, when the smoke from house heating is really bad.

Another source of smoke is in the summer when they burn the grass seed fields in Lynn County just to the north. The smoke from that burning spreads all the way up to Portland and south to Eugene. When I was a kid growing up in Portland, the smoke from grass burning in the late summer was really bad some years. Supposedly they are on a phase-out plan to stop doing that at some point in the future.

Another source of smoke is from wildfires. Eugene is surrounded by conifer forests and they burn in wildfires some years when it is dry. They also burn slash here by law in the spring and fall. Slash is the leftover tree debris and cull logs that are the result of timber cutting. It has to be burned or it will pile up and dry out and become a fire hazard.

[NightBazaar]

The annual summer field burning isn't limited to just Linn county. Benton county, Marion county and several others in the Willamette Valley also brun grass seed fields. Oddly, the field burning was supposed to have been phased out and stopped completely (by law). It has been significantly reduced from past decades, but it hasn't stopped yet.

Evidently, some growers have found a way to extend the deadline, so some of the burning continues for a few weeks each summer. Eugene-Springfield usually get the brunt of the smoke from field burning because of its location at the end of the valley, as others have already stated.

There had some talk about compressing the debris into pellets, to manufacture into paper products, or even use as an ingredient for livestock feed. One company between Albany and Corvallis specialized in using the waste from grass seed fields, but I haven't heard much about it for quite a while, and don't know if they're still in operation or not.

As for the shash from timber cutting, a lot of that material is salvaged to be used as bark mulch, and as paper products such as cardboard. It's turned into a money making enterprise. But I'd sure there's plenty left in the woods which is burned.

Although smoke from field and slash burning is no picnic for people in the mid to lower Willamette Valley, it's far less now than it was in the past. I didn't realize that field burning smoke reached to Portland. Most of the time the winds are funneled south by the Coast Range on one side and the Cascades on the other until it reaches Eugene where it all piles up.

What sounds odd to me is using Oakridge as a pollution gauge to represent the Eugene-Springfield area. That doesn't make any sense. Is the ozone level also gauged in Oakridge? I'd have to guess that both Eugene and Springfield have their own monitering stations.

[OrygunBorn]

Well yes, they do burn grass fields in other counties in the valley, even in Lane county. However, Linn County boasts of being the grass seed capital of the world and all. So they get the finger pointed at them during grass burning season. Also I cannot say that the air in Eugene now during the grass burning season is any worse than it was in Portland when I was a kid. Far better here and now than it was then and there, actually. And yes, it did reach there every summer, and it was very bad there some years. Probably more was done as a result of PDX bad air than Eugene, on the political front, to put a stop to the burning. I would think that they would be better served by using the grass seed leftovers as feedstock for ethanol production, or something like that, even if is a break even or partly state funded operation.

As for yarding slash, I live south of Eugene in the middle of several million acres of commercial timber property. I have been salvaging slash (with permission from the logging companies) for several years now, and I can only say that they are pretty inefficient in using anything other than saw and pulp logs destined for the mills from clear cuts out here. Slash includes cull logs, tree tops and branches, as well as any non fir, cedar or alder species of trees. I particularly look for the so-called 'trash trees' like madrone, maple and oak in slash piles, which I cut and use to heat this house with.

As an aside, we also burn slash here on this 100+ acre property. We have to by law, and we are liable for any fires that break out as a result if we do not, even if it is the result of a lightening strike or freak accident. I try to use what I can for firewood, but the rest goes into piles and is burned. There is no market to take the stuff too, and chipping it into mulch is too expensive (gas and equipment costs). It would probably also make for good feedstock for alchohol production of some type. But no one is set up to take it or process it that I am aware of. So up in smoke it goes every fall and spring.

[NightBazaar]

I've lived in Albany for pushing close to 40 years after having been raised in the Eugene-Springfield area. I realize Linn County may have the largest acreage of grass seed production and may get the finger pointed over field burning, but it's not just who produces the most. It's the combined number up and down the Valley. Smoke from field burning doesn't usually bother me, but I know it can be pretty troublesome for a number of other people, if nothing else than the times smoke occasionally drifts across I-5, Hwy. 99, etc. There are alternatives for grass seed fields than burning them, but it's faster using the torch.

What I don't understand is what happened to the so-called deadline for the end of field burning? That was addressed decades ago. Seems to me the deadline was supposed to have been in the 90s. It has been significantly reduced, but we still see the gigantic smoke plumes going up every year. Evidently when money speaks, politicians listen and have a sudden lapse of memory.

I'm not sure when you were a kid, but when I was a kid there were more orchards, pole bean and strawberry fields, and fields for livestock grazing. Yes, real estate development also took up acreage closer to towns and cities. There were some grass seed producers in the past, but very few in comparison to now. Converting more land into grass seed production, notably lawn seed much of which is sold overseas, meant higher profits and less expense.

[OrygunBorn]

My observations are that the smoke from grass field stubble burning was bad from the late 60's through at least the 80's, supposedly when it peaked. We were living just south of Portland. I was not here much in the 90's, when I was living in San Diego (far worse air pollution down there than anyplace in Oregon, BTW). And yes, there used to be more ag here, all over Oregon. Then they planted condo seeds, and they sprouted.

Hey, it looks like the grass burning issue is being fanned into political flames again, as we speak. The olympic trials in Eugene is driving it this time. Govenor Ted says he will bring up the issue again, next year... when the smoke clears... (yah, right Ted, we will all hold our breath) but not a ban, yet another phase-out plan to eternity. Here is the story:

Environmental group seeks permanent ban on field burning - Oregon, Northwest and National Politics & Elections News - Oregonlive.com

[NightBazaar]

Orygunborn: Great post. Gave me a good laugh. Condo seeds. LOL! Good description.

I agree that smoke was worse in the 60s to the 80s. I expect any hub-bub by the governor over field burning will amount to little more than the usual political noise that comes out of Salem.

It might be that rising fuel costs (that effect everything else) may end up reducing the demand for hybrid grass seed, especially if the cost of seed goes up as well.

[OrygunBorn]

Yah, the governor will try to appease the city dwellers until after the election. Then he will recommend that they add a reduction on grass field burning to some obscure bill that is failing, and he will have made good on his promise.

As for Salem, I learned about that first hand whem I was a kid. My father was an Oregon state rep. in the early 60's. He used to take one of us kids along to Salem once a week. Typical day there was my dad on the phone in one of the oak-door phone booths at the back, his foot holding the folding door open so he could listen to the vote while talking on the phone. Busy work. A woman had a desk next to his where I usually sat, becasue my dad was never at his desk. She had a drawer full of giant sized candy bars. She let me choose any one I wanted. Now, that was my kind of politics! She got my vote.