Try calling the DEQ complaint line...see what that gets you. (Nothing, but I do it anyway)

They'll tell you it's out of their control. It's all regulated by the Ag Department. And when it's a choice between Portland asthma sufferers and Albany grass farmers, guess who wins at the Ag Department.

I'd love to know the name and phone number of the genius bureaucrat whose job it is to forbid burning when the wind is blowing up the valley. I'd like to call to say what a fine job he or she did today.

As long as it's for medical purposes, dog.

They usually time it just before it rains, which is good, but don't breathe for several hours before the rain starts.

It's not a bother in the Portland area compared to what it can be in the Eugene area!

No kidding. The amazing thing is, there are only a few dozen families benefitting economically from field burning. And yet millions of folks suffer from it. Ah, our "livable" state...

People always say "Oh, it used to be so much worse," and this did: used to be so much worse. (And it is worse further south, and used to ruin many beautiful summer days.) It's been a long, long, slow, slow road to get it better. It was almost more better way mo' faster, due to an interesting saga of a very active citizen group sometime back in ancient history. I investigated that story for the campus paper when I was in college 20 years ago. (Damn I'm old.)

My dusty (or smoky) recollection is that the citizens got much of what they wanted, went on their merry ways, and then the powers-that-were upended the citizen-group actions once the citizens were again safely disorganized.

There just wasn't the organization and motivation to attempt it all over again. Stuff like that makes people tired, and the cynicism if not the memory lives on. The Big Freeway Crash sometime very late 1980s is what started to bring some action back around.

I don't know where you'd find all that history. I don't remember where I did, and can't vouch for all of it either. Keep an eye out if you ever happen across it.

(PS -- and unrelated -- at least one political candidate for Oregon's next gubernatorial campaign is taking contact info off this site.)

I'm in the WAY minority on this one, but I've always enjoyed the smoke. All the way back to grade school the haze and smell told me Fall was here. Since then, of course, I've learned it's the grass seed folks turning our atmosphere into their own personal landfill, but there's still a part of me that reminisces every few years when the wind shifts.

Minor crop agriculture used to be Oregon's greatest and most productive (and most lucrative) industry. I guess it's government now. In spite of the great successes our enviro activists have made, Oregon remains the nation's leader in grass seed production. Between Smith Seed and Pennington Seed, probably half of the nation's grass seed is grown in Oregon. A lot of people rely on grass seed production for income. It's not just a few families. This industry is what produces "living wages," folks. Including mine. And it's what produces those gorgeous green weed-free lawns that we love to roll around in. We wouldn't need so much burning if the farmers were able to use the soil sterilants that have been recently banned by actions of the anti-agriculture enviros. The burning is needed to rid the soil of weed seeds. How many of you want to plant a seed lawn that is loaded with weed seeds? Every action has consequences. In this case it's smoky Falls.

It's not just a few families.

Relatively few burn any more.

When burning was cut back after people died on the freeway from careless burning, the farmers all said the world would end. It didn't.

And if the Ag Department people would obey their own rules and not allow burning when the wind's blowing into populated areas, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

If you have to jeopardize people's health to grow your crop, you need a new crop.

When I drove from NYC to Eugene in 1972, looking to escape NY's filthy air, I well remember the burning fields on either side of I-5 as I headed south to my new life. Amazing sight. As was not seeing ten feet in front of you in Eugene when the wind shifted, and Eugene filled with smoke.

I'm with Jack on this. But I think the reductions in field burning show that this is not "required" to keep the grass seed industry financially viable.

According to ODA, you have the legislature to blame. On ODA's Smoke Management website, ODA explains that a phasedown reduction in acres burned occurred the 1990s. The last step of the phase-down allows 65,000 acres of open field burning. ODA is required by statute to operate the program at this last step until a change is enacted by the legislature. There are at least three agencies that oversee burning: ODA (Willamette Valley field burning), DEQ (other agricultural waste burning and other general burning), and Dept of Forestry (slash burning). Local jurisdictions have a say, too. For more interesting facts on smoke burning, try Googling "field burning." Fascinating reading.