Field burning particulate pollution & asthma - Shorts

Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients,  Jan, 2003  by Jule Klotter

• E-mail
• Print
• Link

For people with asthma, fine-particle pollution caused by fires, can be deadly. A recent documented case, reported in US News & World Report (September 3, 2001), occurred in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, in September 2000. The day after clouds of smoke from agricultural field burning covered the town, Marsha Mason, a waitress with asthma, called 911 at 4:51 am because her nebulizer was no longer working. By the time help arrived, she had died. Her doctor listed the cause of death: "Victim with known asthma subjected to intense air pollution from wheat field burning."

Field burning after harvest is common practice in the grass fields of the Northwest; sugarcane fields of Florida, Louisiana, and Texas; and rice fields of California, Arkansas, and Missouri. Burning clears fields of plant residue, preparing the soil for planting without the need to till it. Some farmers say that burning increases crop yield and helps control weeds and pests. Unfortunately, the small soot particles from field burning and other combustion sources, such as coal-burning power plants, travel across large distances and easily enter buildings. Journalist David Whitman says: "Estimates by the Natural Resources Defense Council and researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health suggest fine particulates from power plants and other combustion sources may be the nation's leading unregulated air-quality threat."

The EPA has not addressed field burning because air quality standards are based on 24-hour averages. The particulate pollution from field burning always falls within the 24-hour federal limits, even though it can greatly exceed safe limits for a few hours. At 8 pm, the night before Marsha Mason's death, an air quality meter near her home recorded a reading of 161 micrograms per cubic meter. Any reading above 100 micrograms means that "people are going to be choking," according to Idaho officials. Instead of relying on EPA limits, Idaho's Department of Environmental Quality now halts field burning when an hourly reading reaches the 100-microgram level.

Whitman, David. Fields of Fire. US News & World Report 2001 September 3.

COPYRIGHT 2003 The Townsend Letter Group
COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group