Drought for the west

[Irrelevant]

I am naive enough to believe we can have salmon and ag.
That takes cooperation though….

If you ever had to interface with Ecology Water Resources (the entity responsible for water right administration), you wouldn't be.

I've never seen more hostile and incompetent regulator. It's really quite sad. One of my coworkers used to manage the Ecology NW Regional office, but left because of the bureaucracy, he's one of the top 3-5 water rights experts in the state, and he's looking at either retiring early or transitioning to a different kind of work in lieu of continuing to deal with Ecology. And I shouldn't just say they're against Ag, they're against any and everything. They're against municipal water providers; they're against hydropower. They're against people drinking clean water... which is a bit of an overstatement, but only slightly. They are against the Dept of Health all the time.

 

[Irrelevant]

There is a Nova episode of Weathered about the LA fires that talks about that type of defense. The problem we had was people turned on their sprinklers when they evacuated and it immediately caused water pressure problems for the FD. Public infrastructure isn’t designed for that and specific fire defense systems are also very expensive. I’m not sure it is salmon vs people here, rather it’s more of a $ issue.

You're off track a bit. The vast majority of irrigation in eastern WA is on entirely separate systems from municipal drinking water. And not to throw other municipalities or engineers under the bus, but yeah, those systems should be designed for that event. Also, fire suppression systems actually aren't that expensive because you don't have to worry about water quality, you also don't need a water right for active fire suppression. I say salmon v people because if you look at a lot of Spokane, or a lot of the west in general, you clearly have homes without irrigation water that are near large water sources, like to spokane river. They don't have irrigation because the Spokane River has been closed to new appropriations for decades, yet there's water there, water that could have kept a green defensible space around a house or development. I understand that it's not a fix all, golden ticket and that plenty of homes have burned while surrounded by green lawns, but if you don't have that, and you have anything but acres of rock, you're pretty well f'd.

 

[hank4elk]

A storage tank is the best with a fire system. I am putting one in, just in case. A back up pump or generator is no brainer.
Most folks don't even know what a Urban/Wildland Interface zone is.
The reality is a 300' clear space is best, and folks like their trees and bushes.
I know I do.
But I am looking at removing a couple dozen more that have died recently, instead of working on my home. In a month there will be a dozer making a burn pile spot, while its here. There must be a fifty dead pinion on my place now. Gas bombs.

Hoping a insurance co makes you whole after you have lost everything is living in Oz.
Plan, for the worst case scenario and hope one of these monsters does not raise it's ugly head around you.

 

[SAJ-99]

You're off track a bit. The vast majority of irrigation in eastern WA is on entirely separate systems from municipal drinking water. And not to throw other municipalities or engineers under the bus, but yeah, those systems should be designed for that event. Also, fire suppression systems actually aren't that expensive because you don't have to worry about water quality, you also don't need a water right for active fire suppression. I say salmon v people because if you look at a lot of Spokane, or a lot of the west in general, you clearly have homes without irrigation water that are near large water sources, like to spokane river. They don't have irrigation because the Spokane River has been closed to new appropriations for decades, yet there's water there, water that could have kept a green defensible space around a house or development. I understand that it's not a fix all, golden ticket and that plenty of homes have burned while surrounded by green lawns, but if you don't have that, and you have anything but acres of rock, you're pretty well f'd.

I think that sounds great. When they rebuild the entire neighborhood maybe they will install this fire suppression system. Any bets on that happening? Not having a green space wasn't the problem for those on city water. We can take a step back and say the core problem is that politicians keep screaming "Housing shortage!" so they allow the building of new neighborhoods as fast, and cheap, as possible and don't require they install these suppression systems. The Spokane river is essentially ground water. The tapping of that water needs to be controlled or it would create a whole different set of problems.