Fires in and near cities

 

Saturday afternoon, we had fire climbing up Beacon Hill. One house burned.  It stopped at the first ridge top, thanks to the work of our firefighters.  On Sunday, six hundred homes and structures burned in Spokane.  MSN wrote, “The fires exploded in size over the weekend amid strong winds, hot temperatures and critically dry conditions.” 

          “Strong winds and hot temperatures” are caused by “critically dry conditions.” Fires like these have been far too common in recent decades.  Up to the mid-80’s, fires didn’t start anywhere near cities, because cities were being watered by sprinklers every weekend of the growing season. 

We are told, “Sprinklers evaporate half of what they throw before it reaches the ground.”  I heard that in Landscape Management class in 2001, and it is true in most cases.  Air also evaporates any water that doesn’t soak into the ground, plants, fences, sidewalks and streets.  

This does not waste water; it is used for beneficial purposes. It cools the area being watered.  Water vapor rises up to cloud level and makes clouds and rain.  It spreads sideways as well, humidifying the area around cities, farms, and gardens.  With every city, farm and resident watering with sprinklers, every city was protected from wildfires, which happened only way out in the wilderness. 

In 1985, we had thunderstorms nearly every weekend of that summer. The exceptions were when many people didn’t water because they thought it would rain. 

On the other hand, in 1986, we were told before it happened that we were heading into drought so, “Don’t water your lawn or wash your cars.”  That summer, we had 103 days without rain.  If we had been watering as usual, we would have had rain regardless. 

We never heard of dry lightning storms causing fires near cities in Oregon in those days.  We didn’t hear about cities being torched by firebugs.  Gravity winds were mild or non-existent.  I remember one such wind event in Tillamook, Oregon in midwinter.  We had a foot of snowpack that melted away overnight, causing flooding in the flat land.

 

8-19-2026, 3-minute speech to the Grants Pass City Council published at GardenGrantsPass.blogspot.com. 

To be posted on Facebook, Nextdoor and X.com

 

            Rycke Brown                  541-955-9040          rycke@gardener.com

A massive Willow still grows

 

The thicker the plants grow, the more they grow and the safer from fire you are.  Clover is the best ground cover, being a perennial that shares space well with other plants.

          A massive twisty willow still grows next to my pond.  With the hotter weather, it is sucking more water.  I have to keep a hose trickling into the pond, after I play catch-up by opening the valve fully first thing in the morning.  The rest of my yard is being watered by impact sprinklers as needed and misters running in the heat of the afternoon and through the night, when it spreads further. Our backyard is well watered; our front yard has not been watered enough and has to be supplemented. 

My daughter’s family of four lives with me.  I pay the mortgage; she pays the utilities and the escrow.  This month, she began getting worried about paying the “city services” bill, as our utility bill is now called.  She thinks we should cut back on water but can’t think of what to cut.  A watered yard with misters is cooler and safer than an unwatered yard.  We do a lot of laundry as well. We wash dishes once a day. 

People shouldn’t have to cut back on water’s comfort, safety and hygiene to pay the water and sewer bill. Nor should any other city service be on our utility bill. The only reason they are on it is so the city can charge whatever it takes to pay the utilities’ overhead, police and fire fighters, streets and sidewalks while avoiding votes on what used to be called taxes, not “fees.”

We, the people, are tired of this whole package of lies.  We are tired of poor and middle classes being unable to use all the water and sewer we need, while the upper classes just pay the bills and use all they want.  Our water and sewer plants belong to all citizens, not our administrators. 

We are angry about unequal pricing of water units and sewer being tied to our winter water use.  Sewer needs to go back to all base rates. We need equal unit pricing of real unit costs, not tiered rates if we own a single-family home or fees for living uphill or across the river.

We used to have a city where lower classes’ yards were not so easily distinguished from upper classes.  Our city was beautiful in the eighties.  We fear the day that our city burns for lack of irrigation.  My house will not burn.

 

7-15-26, published at GardenGrantsPass.blogspot.com.

Like Ratepayers for Fair Water and Sewer Pricing on Facebook.

To be posted on Facebook, Nextdoor and X.com

 Rycke Brown, Natural Gardener          541-955-9040              rycke@gardener.com

The best fire insurance is a green yard plus misters

 

The thicker the plants, the more they grow and the safer from fire you are.  Clover is a great base ground cover, but in my yard, only sticker and burr plants are weeded out.

 At our last meeting, a councilor asked me how I liked my water bill.  I said it’s good.  But that answer was incomplete.  I like using our water for any beneficial use, but I don’t like the cost our City and most other cities place on such use.

The best insurance against wildfire is a green yard, and that doesn’t mean plastic grass.  When Paradise burned, the McDonalds burned, but their sign, surrounded by real green grass, did not burn.  In Santa Rosa, huge subdivisions burned for lack of defensible space, but the young trees and grass across the sidewalk did not. 

Just outside Grants Pass about a decade ago, a large pine tree burned in an unwatered yard.  Their vehicle also burned, followed by the neighbor’s fence.  But that is where it stopped, as the adjacent yard had six-inch tall fescue, which stopped the flames from reaching the neighbor's house. 

Fine fescue goes dormant for lack of water readily and cannot be revived until fall.  Tall fescue grows roots eighteen inches deep. When not watered, it slowly loses outer leaves until only the innermost leaves survive.  It does not go dormant.

Water is the death of fire.  Any plant with water flowing through it is safe from wildfire, particularly with other watered plants around it.  Misters are surprisingly cheap to use, even at our present high unit rates, which are made to make poor and lower middle class people not use as much water as they need, while wealthier or more determined gardeners use what they need regardless of price.  Rock doesn’t stop a gravity-wind-driven fire.  Blowing embers cross everything except watered plants, sprinkler water and mister vapor.

Everyone should be able to water their yards, at a price that pays for the true unit cost of cleaned water.   Normal cost accounting for utilities puts all their infrastructure, employees, and office costs in base rates to pay overhead, costs that are steady over the months of the year, while unit costs (about 1% of utility costs) rise and fall with production.  Sewer is base rate only because its volume cannot be directly measured.

 

3-minute speech to the Grants Pass City Council, 7-1-26

published at GardenGrantsPass.blogspot.com.

Posted on Facebook, Nextdoor and X.com

 

 Rycke Brown, Natural Gardener          541-955-9040              rycke@gardener.com

Eight beavers solved a flooding problem in the London Tube

 

Courtesy of elli60, free photo

Since the nineteen seventies, there had been a problem with flooding in the London Tube in the Ealing area and the neighborhoods around it.  Nothing the City did worked to stop it.  But in 2023, the city introduced five beavers to Paradise Fields, which this year had eight beavers.  There was no flooding problem in the Tube or the neighborhoods this year even though there were torrential rains.  The dams and wetlands the beavers created held the water.

We have had occasional flooding in the Southwest part of our city on the South side of the Rogue River.  Public Works Director Jason Canady told me that they are staying on top of it, but he is intrigued with the idea.

It might take longer than in London; we might have to buy land near the Redwood Highway or Redwood Avenue and plant a lot of fast-growing willows, poplars and big-leaf maples.  But our river will be cleaner once the dams are built and the chances of flooding will be greatly reduced.  We don’t even need to go far for beavers, as they live in our river and make their homes in its banks.

2-minute speech to Grants Pass City Council, 6/17/26

 published at GardenGrantsPass.blogspot.com.

Posted on Facebook, Nextdoor and X.com

 

 Rycke Brown, Natural Gardener          541-955-9040              rycke@gardener.com

Apologies for the center alingment; Blogger gets stubborn about correcting it.

A Massive Willow Grows in My Yard

 

        

In the spring of 1999, I came back to Grants Pass and bought a house for my family. Our first winter, my yard was flooded, so I picked the lowest spot and started digging a small pond when the yard dried up and set up drainage to the street.  I picked a twig off of a huge twisty willow down the street and planted it right away near the pond.  Twenty-six years later, it is as massive as the tree it came from.  It is about fifty feet tall and wide, and five feet in diameter, at five feet.

The unit price of water has been hiked every year since 2005.  Sometime in the next decade, our City Manager decided that sewage needed unit prices, saying, “It’s only fair that everyone pays for every gallon of water that goes to the sewage plant.” 

It is not possible to meter sewage.  Since people don’t water in the winter, the average winter water use per household would be our sewage usage for the year.  It didn’t take long for winter to be expanded to five months, from mid-November through mid-March.

My willow tree has grown a lot in the meantime, because it takes water from my pond, and I keep it full.  This year, March was warm, and the tree leafed out earlier than normal.  March took 40 units, which made the average for the winter 21 units. 

None of that water went to the sewage plant.  Nor does the water that fills my fountain, which waters the birds.  I challenge those charges.

To be continued.

         

5/20/26, published at GardenGrantsPass.blogspot.com.

Like Ratepayers for Fair Water and Sewer Pricing on Facebook.

To be posted on Facebook, Nextdoor and X.com

 Rycke Brown, Natural Gardener          541-955-9040              rycke@gardener.com

Notice to an anonymous neighbor

 

Rycke Brown, Natural Gardener

1415 SW Bridge Street

Grants Pass, Oregon 97526

541-955-9040

rycke@gardener.com

 

June 28, 2026

To the neighbor who zip-tied a very well-done laminated notice about what should be brought to the Bridge Street sharing shelf. 

 Your notice had several flaws.  It was anonymous and unauthorized, so I can’t address you directly, and people would think I wrote it.  Therefore, I am posting it and my reply on Nextdoor.

 I agree with most of it, but the idea that we do not welcome “sofas and large furniture” is wrong.  We never had to bring any large furniture, including mattresses, from our curb to the dump.  Some people have done it for us.  It makes them feel good to help us out.  In the last month or so, we had three separate deliveries of couches and other furniture.

 The first couch was in very good shape, apart from a bit of grime around the bottom, but someone took the center cushion, and it took 3 weeks for a nice couple to take it to the dump.  The second was a sectional couch, which was taken within a few days.  The third was another sectional couch, which went within an hour.  Free stuff goes fast.  I took in a nice, comfy chair with a little grime that fits my short legs nicely. 

 Large wooden furniture and glass-top tables tend to go quickly.  Some people take such items even when a drawer or shelves are missing, so they can fix them and sell them at their own yard sale or whatever.

What is really irritating is small trash: appliances without necessary parts; toys missing parts; torn clothes; worn out or single shoes and boots; books without covers; and obviously littering of our shelf and curb.  Dirty clothes, I take in to wash.  If stains don’t come out, I toss them in the trash. There is one person who persists in dropping plastic confetti around the shelf, apparently just to make me pick it up.  I have to pick up small stuff so as not to allow litter to build up.

 People are either orderly or disorderly in their habits.  The disorderly will always be with us, but they are a small minority.  Some people like to help maintain a good idea and should not be deprived of the opportunity.  I am grateful for everyone who helps.

Sincerely yours,

Rycke

Water is not precious; it is vital

 Grants Pass City Water Treatment Plant is 88 years old but was neglected in the first decade of water rationing by rates.  Replacing it will cost well over 100 million dollars.

         In the summer of ‘85 and before, we had thunderstorms nearly every weekend, because most people watered only on weekends.  Summer rain was clearly tied to the amount of water our sprinklers put into the air.

When drought was declared in the summers of ‘86 and ‘87, we were told to not water our lawns or wash our cars.  We had 103 days in ‘86 and 98 days in ‘87 of no rain. 

In ‘86 we started hearing about fossil fuels causing global warming and, separately, that fresh water is only two percent of the water on Earth and must be conserved. 

This was the beginning of the most widespread and destructive hoax ever conceived.  “Conserving” water has caused untold misery for millions of people and animals around the world who have lost their homes because of overpriced water rates, jacked up higher and higher to pay the overhead as more people use less and less. Water is not precious; it is vital.

Every city with a water plant controls its own water rates.  You, our Council, are responsible for the price of our water.  Break with the past thirty years and bring back the rate system that kept our city clean, green, beautiful, and safe from wildfire by putting our proposed Charter Amendment, “Utility Bills, Rate Setting, and Contingency Funds,” on our ballot.  Grants Pass voters will start the Ratepayers Revolt.

 

3-18-26, published at GardenGrantsPass.blogspot.com

Like Ratepayers for Fair Water and Sewer Pricing on Facebook

Posted on Facebook and X.com

 Rycke Brown, Natural Gardener          541-955-9040              rycke@gardener.com