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

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

Cities ration water by rates

The Grants Pass City Water Treatment Plant is being replaced, because of neglect in the first two decades of water rationing by rates.

 @AGPamBondi Of all our utilities, water is the most dangerous to ration by rates, but the vast majority of cities in the U.S. are doing just that, over the last 40 years. It is done by dropping the base rate and hiking unit rates by labeling much of the overhead as unit costs, ignoring normal pricing accounting.

The idea is to make people cut back on water use. Every city does this in their own way, but they all start with decreasing the base rates and increasing the cost of units. It makes cities depend on high unit prices to pay overhead, but high unit prices make people cut back on use. Cities raise the unit rates higher and higher; eventually the base rates are increased as well, creating a vicious pricing spiral that can't be stopped until we can't cut back anymore.

Electric and natural gas utilities also have rationing rates, but they at least compete with each other. Water and sewer are city monopolies. But rationing rates are bad for utilities, government, and ratepayers. They are literally a crime: wasted water running to the ocean instead of watering land first; fraudulent science; and abuse of ratepayers.

I started the Ratepayers Revolt in Grants Pass, OR with water and sewer, which has even higher rates than water, with the introduction of sewer unit rates, based on winter water use. I am currently giving 2-minute speeches on water to our City Council. They are becoming receptive to the idea of putting my proposed Charter Amendment on the ballot to bring our rate system back to the days when water was cheap to use and sewer was all base rates.

https://gardengrantspass.blogspot.com/2025/05/a-proposed-charter-amendment-utility.html

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

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

Beware of Consultants Hired by City Managers

 

Grants Pass' water plant.  Over 35-40 years of rationing water rates, our river has never run too low for this plant to water our city.

Kudos to the Daily Courier and writer Vickie Aldous for exposing the consultant hired by our City Manager regarding pay raises for himself and other non-union staff. The consultant was asked to create mid-size raises and delivered high raises. 

This reminds me of water and sewer rate consultants FCS Group, hired in 2005 by then City Manager David Frasher.  In 2008, our Public Works Director couldn’t pay the overhead and asked the Council to raise the base rate by $3 to fix the problem.  It didn’t, because they didn’t lower unit rates, which were most of the bill. 

FCS eventually hiked our water rates every year 5.28% above inflation to pay the overhead and Councils rubber stamped it. 

In April 2020, I sent a memo to city staff about changing the rate system back to putting all overhead costs in the base rate and charging only unit costs to unit rates, the way it was when our city was clean, green, beautiful, and far from wildfires.  

FCS sent me a memo, admitting on the first page that aligning “fixed costs” (overhead) with base rates would make revenue more stable and “water usage” cost less per unit, encouraging watering in the growing season. FCS never said what is wrong with watering. 

Ninety-nine percent of the cost of any utility is overhead; usage costs are tiny in comparison and vary greatly by season.  Paying for all plant overhead with base rates pays the bills every month, even when the plant goes down, and spreads the cost most evenly among ratepayers.  Our Budget Committee can do the yearly math to set rates.

 

3-4-2026 2-minute Speech to Grants Pass City Council

Published at GardenGrantsPass.blogspot.com and shared on Facebook and X.com

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