Water stops fires, tames climate

             Humans change climate.  We have changed our climate twice over the last 70 years.  First, we made the climate wetter, cooler, and safer with sprinkler irrigation.  It became noticeable in the ‘70s and ’80, but we didn’t notice; we thought it was natural.  Since the ‘80s, we have been returning California, Southern Oregon, and other Mediterranean climates to dangerous semi-desert conditions by trying to save water everywhere, without good reason.  This summer, parts of California and Oregon were burning, as has happened for the last 10 years, and in many parts of California last winter.  Choking on smoke is the new summer normal in Southern Oregon, but it doesn’t have to be.

            The ‘80s was the decade when water alarmists started telling us that we have to save fresh water, no matter the local conditions, because only 2% of the water on Earth is fresh.  They say that evaporation from sprinklers is waste.  Activists talk to city councils; cities follow each other, and states follow their cities. California cities led the way in rationing by price with low base rates and high unit prices and even tiered rates, oppressing the poor and middle class, most of whom stopped watering their yards, the intended effect.  We and many other cities around the world have followed them, drying out their cities and the countryside around them, making them drier, hotter, colder, stormier and fire-prone.  These are symptoms of drying, not greenhouse warming--desert conditions.

Evaporation is not waste; it is part of the water cycle.  We who live west of the Rockies are blessed with rivers that run into the prevailing wind and blow our water vapor uphill and upstream to make rain, filling our creeks and rivers and sending moisture over the mountains, when we make enough of it by watering our cities fully.

Water tames climate.  At 1%-4% of the atmosphere, water vapor is the most abundant greenhouse gas, holding heat by its sheer thermal mass and the blanketing effect of clouds. Yet it also cools the air during the day, by cloud shading; rain; transpiration; and evaporation, which can bring wet objects down to 40 degrees F, the temperature at which it starts evaporating.

Water stops fires.  Summer thunderstorms made rain, not dry lightning, when given moisture from sprinklers on nearly all the properties in cities and suburbs.  It is harder for fires to start and burn when the air is moister, and they are easier to put out.  This is what happened in the ‘80s, a wet decade we are told, when practically everybody in cities watered because clean water was cheap. 

I did a small study of summer rainfall in the 97526 zip code, covering 1983 to 2012.  In the ‘80s, we had bigger rain events in Grants Pass in July and August than in June and September.  In the ‘90s, that reversed and reversed further in the 2000s.  Our midsummer rainfall has dropped 0.9 inches per decade, as our water bills have climbed, along with our monthly high temperatures.

Thousands of single-family homes in a single subdivision in Santa Rosa, California burned in Santa Anna winds last winter, while thin strips of green grass and trees out front of those homes did not. Their top water rate is $6.50 per 1000 gallons.  600 homes burned in Redding this summer, while everyone paid $1.425 for every 750 gallons.  Our top rate is $1.40.

We need to stop following other cities to perdition and return to water that is cheap to use after paying a base that fully covers the overhead, and make our city clean, green, and safe again!

Email the Grants Pass City Council and Mayor: mayorcouncil@grantspassoregon.gov

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