It’s the climate

             This morning I woke up, looked out the window, and the sky was bright red and orange.  Jesus said that this sign of the weather meant that there would be rain.  But in recent decades, this weather sign cannot be dependable; it is more likely smoke from wildfires. 

          When I first came here in 1985, we were greeted with a banner on sixth and seventh streets: “It’s the climate.”  The same sign greeted me in 1999 when I came home from Arizona.  But as two decades of dryness, heat and growing wildfire passed, the banners became a joke and disappeared.  The climate is not so nice anymore.

          It was not so nice when Grants Pass burned in 1905 or 1906, and the town was rebuilt with bricks.  My son-in-law has been working for a man who is building fire-proof houses in the counties for rich people, while other builders use wood.  Their customers can’t get insured against fire in the counties, but with a fire-proof house, they won’t need fire coverage.

          The burning of Grants Pass was the reason that we built a water plant and distribution system, so every house and business would be able to keep their property fire-safe with green plants and wet ground.  The price of using water was kept as low as possible by separating “the overhead,” infrastructure and other expenses that were slow to change, from the “unit cost,” which varies greatly with seasonal irrigation added to household use. 

Every city in the country was doing the same thing: selling water cheap or even free to keep their city from burning. 

Overhead is 99% of the cost of utilities, while their product is 1%.  The base rate for water and sewer varies upward with the size of the pipes, so bills can be paid, monthly or bi-monthly. Water unit costs were a single unit rate for everyone.  Sewage was all base rate, because sewage cannot be directly measured.

It was an exceedingly fair and affordable system.  What we have now is unfair and unaffordable for the majority.  You can bring the old system back.

           

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

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