Dust research done in by CR

Farm and Ranch April 22, 2011. Numerous agricultural research projects in the Pacific Northwest funded by congressionally directed, or “earmarked” dollars had their funding eliminated in that Continuing Resolution Congress recently passed for fiscal year 2011. One of them was the Columbia Plateau PM10 Project, which since 1993 has been researching wind erosion and ways for farmers to reduce dust emissions from their fields. Washington State University agronomist Bill Schillinger had been a project coordinator and says the research was highly successful.

Schillinger: “And during the course of our work we have tested a lot of control practices, and a lot of them are clearly not agronomically or economically viable, while other practices can be put to use to benefit wind erosion control and air quality without hardship to the livelihood of wheat growers or irrigated growers.”

Scientifically the project produced over 150 scientific journal articles.

Schillinger sees the elimination of funding for the PM10 project coming at an unfortunate time.

Schillinger: “The EPA is likely going to tighten the PM10 core standard. So it is going to get tougher. The standard for agricultural dust is going t to get tougher, most likely, and now we will be without research to find better methods for growers to control this blowing dust on their farms.”

The elimination of all these special projects across the country is saving taxpayers 135 million dollars.

I’m Bob Hoff and that’s the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on Northwest Aginfo net.