Council: A Restrained 4th of July

 

            Though we had no official fireworks show this year, the unofficial show of both legal and illegal fireworks in my neighborhood was surprisingly restrained.  It seems last year’s Almeda fires awoke many residents to the fire danger that has been building over decades of rationing water by rates and poor enforcement of our weed codes. 

This year, the City has certainly been keener to enforce our codes regarding seeding weeds, and to obey them as well.  I was delighted to see the railroad weeds cut, and to see seeding and dry weeds being cut almost every time they are called in. 

But we should not have to complain to enforce our weed and trash codes.  That was a job for police and fire until 2006.

            As I walk neighborhoods, putting flyers to “Contact our City Council and Manager” on doors, I have not been talking to many people.  But I am also giving gardening leaflets and these flyers to store clerks and others as prizes.  Nearly all agree that it would be good to reform our rates so everyone can afford to water their yards, protecting our city from fire.  “Protecting our city from fire” really strikes a nerve this year.

            We all know that water stops fire.  Green grass does not burn, and neither do most green plants, if they are kept watered.  After plants flower, go to seed and dry out, they burn hot and fast.  That is why we have a weed code that mandates cutting or killing weeds before they flower and go to seed.  

Fire danger is a major reason we built our water plant.  Before that, Grants Pass burned, as many cities did without pressurized water to put out fires and to water yards so fires don’t spread. 

            From the time we built a water plant until we started rationing water by rates in the ‘90s, the rates were kept as low and stable as possible, so residents could garden their city, and so pressurized water to fight fires would be as close as the nearest spigot or hydrant. 

            The city paid all the plant overhead with our monthly base charges and covered only unit costs with unit prices.  We paid for the water system with our monthly charge, and the water was nearly free, so everyone with a yard was free to garden and protect their neighborhood with water.  We must return to that rate system.

 

Speech to the City Council, 7-7-2021, published at GardenGrantsPass.blogspot.com

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

Misters cool yards, stop fire

 

            It is said by water “conservationists” that “sprinklers evaporate half of the water they throw,” and followed with, “Evaporation is waste.”  But the same Landscape Management teacher that told us this in 2000 when he was selling us on drip systems also told us that Grants Pass was in no danger of burning because green grass doesn’t burn.  Grass is watered with sprinklers.  There is a lot less green grass in Grants Pass now.

Evaporation is not waste; it cools, humidifies, and is the first step in the water cycle, followed by condensation and precipitation.  It can cool objects and the air down to 41 degrees F, the temperature at which water starts to evaporate.

Sprinklers are known to create a “bubble of moisture” around any property where they are used sufficiently.  An apartment complex that was threatened by the Almeda fire did not burn because the landlord knows this and keeps his properties watered with sprinklers.  Trailer parks, on the other hand, are largely pavement and/or gravel and are often not watered enough to keep a wind-driven fire from burning right through them. 

Misters evaporate nearly all of the water they emit if the mist is fine enough, and water the ground beneath them as well.  They increase humidity and cool the air as they evaporate, making it easier to breathe.  They reduce wildfire smoke by taking smoke particles to the ground.  You shouldn’t run sprinklers 24/7, but you can run misters around the clock when the weather is hot or we are being smoked by wildfires.  If every resident of a trailer park ran several standing misters when fire danger is high, it might not burn when a gravity wind blows up fires in their vicinity.

But there is more!  Misters can moisten and cool the soil to start seeds in summer when they normally would not readily sprout.  I’ve been starting clover, lettuce and collards seed and keeping them cool and moist until they grow enough root to survive.  They also can prevent transplant shock when planting in hot weather.

Most plants like more humidity than Grants Pass has ever provided in summer, even before water-rationing rates.  Misters among my blueberries on the west side of my yard keep plants all over my garden happier with more humidity and cool the air enough to keep pollen from burning when the temps are over 95 degrees, allowing corn and tomatoes to pollinate and produce.

Published 8-25-23 at GardenGrantsPass.blogspot.com

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

Council: Cheap water bought fire safety

 

Honorable Council, Mayor and Manager,

            I was looking over the water section of your website and looked at “The Value of Water” page.  Three brochures were listed and shown: “Clean Clothes;” “Clean Drinking Water;” and “Treated Wastewater.”

            You are missing at least one brochure: “Irrigation and Fire Safety.”  But your pricing of our water does not reflect this.  Your price discrimination between customers and their uses of water has irrigation and fire suppression paying the same top tier price that single-family homeowners pay, which shows that you want to suppress these uses the most.  As Staff pointed out in 2008, irrigation uses the most water and it is most easily cut from household budgets. 

Our city is showing the result in brown, often weedy yards that could burn at a spark.  Last year’s fires have people on edge; they know that Grants Pass could burn in the next katabatic wind event like that of last September. 

Grants Pass did burn, as did many cities, before it had a water treatment plant.  It was rebuilt with brick.  I am sure that they built the water plant to allow our residents to keep their property safe with pressurized water.  They priced water as cheap as possible by the unit and paid for the overhead with base rates.  There was no competition; water service is a natural local monopoly.  The City did it so people could afford to use as much as they needed for every conceivable use.  It resulted in a clean and beautiful city in the 80’s.

Green grass does not burn.  Dry grass and weeds burn hot.   Fresh, cleaned water is not scarce or precious and should not be priced as though it is.  It is abundant and vital to our health, hygiene and fire safety and should be a cheap as possible to use.  Those big storage tanks on our hills give us the pressure to use cleaned water effectively for irrigation and fire suppression, all over the city, making our cleaned river water far superior to water delivered in ditches.

We used to have only one unit price for those who paid the base rate, and it was low, as it covered only the unit costs, those that change with the amount of water produced.  All of our overhead: plant; pipes; equipment; personnel; debt and maintenance; were paid through base rates, monthly charges for monthly bills.  You could go back to that system well before September.

 

Speech to the Grants Pass City Council, 6-16-2021, published at GardenGrantsPass.blogspot.com

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