One of the little-known items in the proposed state budget is $350,000 to educate farmers about the environmental dangers from burning heavy-duty plastic hay bale covers, and to encourage proper disposal of plastic pesticide bottles.

But while education of farmers is valuable, it's not enough. A practical way must be found to help them dispose of this material in an environmentally-friendly way.

Another, little recognized threat, is hidden in thousands of barns across this state. It comes from delabelled agrichemicals and pesticides --- compounds once approved for agricultural use, but which are now prohibited from use by the state Department of Environmental Conservation. It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of pounds of these toxic compounds remain stored in barns and storage sheds across this state. Much of it has been there for years.

These chemicals are still there because the farmers who own those barns are good citizens, and do not want to pollute the environment. When told they can no longer use these chemicals, they simply store them.

While no one expects farmers to suddenly abandon their environmental stewardship and release these compounds, it is their unintended release that represents the greatest hazard. Just one fire in an old barn could spell disaster to a local community, and there is nothing to prevent that type of disaster being repeated in dozens of places among the 37,000 farms that occupy the 25 percent of this state's land area devoted to agriculture.

These chemicals are also there because there has never been an organized, ongoing, statewide program to collect and safely dispose of them. Education is indeed the first step. But giving farmers a practical way to dispose of chemicals must be next.

Patricia C. Scalera

Claverack

Scalera writes for the New York Rural Water Association