By LISA STIFFLER
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Change -- more traffic, chain restaurants, a loss of traditional family farming -- is blamed for a decline in the rural feel of Burlington.

But one new trend could save the agricultural splendor of the area: an increase in the Hispanic population, a labor force vital to the survival of farming.

The number of Hispanic residents in Skagit County has grown to 8.1 percent in 1998. Skagit's Hispanic population represents the largest percentage of people of Hispanic origin in any Washington county west of the Cascades.

If Hispanic labor were lost, "it'd wipe out farming in this city," says the Rev. Bob Ekblad. The Presbyterian minister is director of Tierra Nueva del Norte, an organization providing assistance to Hispanics in Burlington and throughout Skagit County.

While the harvest is seasonal, increasingly there are year-round jobs available in agriculture: sorting potatoes and flower bulbs, processing meat, pruning trees. These positions allow a formerly migrant population to remain in Skagit Valley all year.

And becoming permanent residents has allowed many Hispanic agricultural workers to move into other facets of the work force.

Ekblad believes the number of Hispanics in Skagit County is higher than the official count of nearly 8,000. He estimates there may be 12,000 living here year-round, and more than 15,000 during the May-to-October harvest.

The more stable population has spurred a cluster of Mexican restaurants and stores at the east end of Fairhaven. Among these businesses is a former bank that houses Tierra Nueva del Norte and the reverend's Hispanic ministry.

A few men sit on the tattered couches of Tierra Nueva waiting for Ekblad to help them find housing in Burlington so they can move from their present residence -- a van. Children scurry about and play with the silver baptismal basin.

A jack-of-all-trades, Ekblad assists workers dealing with immigration and acts as liaison between farm workers and farm owners. He also performs a daily prayer service and in the summer conducts Bible studies at farm-worker camps.

He has arranged meetings where workers have the chance to tell their personal stories to mostly white Skagit Valley church congregations.

"It's a way to dignify them," says Ekblad. When people can recount where they've come from and tell about their families, they are no longer anonymous, he explains.

Rocio Robles, a Mexican immigrant, has lived in Burlington for four years and volunteers at Tierra Nueva, helping to produce a Spanish newsletter.

"I think white people accept us," says Robles.

While many here agree that Hispanics are becoming integrated and accepted by the predominantly white society, Ekblad still sees a gap. "There's very little interaction and little social connection with each other," he says.

Increased opportunities for interaction arise from the church meetings, a farmers market where Hispanics sell produce from their communal farm, and the growing permanent Hispanic population.