Belle Plaine, Kan. – Kansas ranchers eager to prepare their land for cattle grazing have mostly brushed off the plea from state health officials to voluntarily cut back this spring’s prairie burning to reduce air pollution during the coronavirus pandemic.

With the potential of the pandemic overwhelming the state’s medical facilities, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment on March 26 encouraged land owners and managers to reduce burned acres this spring in an effort to mitigate respiratory concerns connected to breathing the smoke.

Officials warned that individuals with respiratory issues, including COVID-19, as well as those with preexisting heart and lung diseases, children and elderly may experience worse symptoms due to the smoke from fires.

But air quality monitors last week have picked up “significantly high readings” downwind from Kansas in Lincoln and Omaha, with smoke from Kansas reaching as far north as South Dakota, said Rick Brunetti, director of the Bureau of Air at at the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.

“We are seeing very little, if any, reduction in the amount of burning that is taking place in Kansas at the present time, Brunetti said.

The reasons vary, experts say. Some landowners may already have had contracts in place with the professionals hired to do the burning. Others have agreements in place to fatten cattle on those acres this summer. And still others do so because that is the way they have always done it and are more comfortable with burning in the spring.

For decades, landowners have burned their fields each spring as a way to control invasive plant species and increase the lushness of pastures where they will graze beef cattle in the coming months.

– Associated Press