Quote:
Originally Posted by 65MAX
^^
They still do that, grass seed is big business in the Willamette Valley.
|
Yeah it is wild. I remember as a kid going up to Salem right before school and it was unbelievable.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...45/ai_19815161
As the valley's population expanded in the 1960s, residents began to complain about the smoke-filled summer air. But it was a tragic accident that set the stage for changing growers' management practices.
"In 1988, smoke from a wildfire - believed to have started when the wind blew burning grass straw out of control - covered Interstate 5 south of Salem, Oregon," says David Nelson, executive secretary of the Oregon Seed Council. "A chain collision resulting in several deaths and injuries mobilized the industry, legislators, and the public to negotiate a phase-down of field-burning."
Before 1991, growers burned up to 250,000 acres per season in the valley. The allowable burned acreage has decreased incrementally since then and will be limited to 40,000 acres, plus up to 25,000 acres of steep terrain as identified by the Oregon director of agriculture.