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
