Fort Bragg could resume private water sales to the greater Mendocino Coast within two or three weeks, officials from the Mendocino City Community Services District and the City of Fort Bragg said Wednesday. The announcement came after Mendocino County government agreed to subsidize transport costs of water trucked from Ukiah to Fort Bragg's municipal intake in the Noyo River.
According to Ryan Rhoades, MCCSD Superintendent, the deal would mean resuming regular water deliveries to coast communities that have been left scrambling since Fort Bragg ended outside water sales last month, citing its own supply issues.
Fort Bragg City Manager Tabatha Miller said Wednesday that the arrangement seems doable. Water provided by the City of Ukiah would be deposited into and treated by Fort Bragg's system, she said, and the city would sell to wholesalers at its customary price of three cents per gallon.
The MCCSD's Rhoades said water provided under the arrangement would likely cost around $600 per 3500-gallon truckload, or possibly $500 for those living nearer the town of Mendocino, if some can be taken directly to MCCSD storage tanks. Currently, water trucked from Ukiah to locations on the coast can cost $1000 or more per truckload.
Rhoades noted that by far the largest part of the cost of trucked-in water is the cost of transportation. He said, after conversations with county officials, he understood that the county is willing to subsidize transportation costs for water that goes to private households, though not to commercial establishments.
Details of the arrangement are still being worked out, Rhoades said. The deal would likely require Fort Bragg City Council approval, said Miller, adding, "We want to help."
Fort Bragg Fire Chief Steve Orsi
Fort Bragg Fire Chief Steve Orsi is counting his blessings these days.
“Locally, we’re not in bad shape,” he said Monday morning. “Of course we’re struggling with the water. That’s not going to go away anytime soon. Firewise, though, the climate still behooves us a little bit, with the wet mornings. We don’t really have the dried out conditions that we have inland. But we’ve still got to be careful. We could still get a fire.
“We still have our incidents here...Just the other day, it was really damp in the morning, kind of rained a little bit, and we had guys out there burning. Burning vegetation. They were all ‘well it rained, so we can burn.’ I said, “It hasn’t been like that in years. The burn ban’s on.” You know, you’ve just got to be smart. It’s not the time of year to do that stuff.
“If you do have a warming fire, a camp fire, make sure it’s contained. Make sure it’s out when you’re done. We put it back to common sense.”
“Common sense” is what Orsi came back to again and again, a few days after the Dixie Fire in the northern Sierra Nevada exploded and erased the town of Greenville, while still threatening several other mountain communities — Chester, Taylorsville, Susanville — and putting thousands of people there — more than a third of Plumas County’s residents, by their sheriff’s estimate — at least temporarily out of their homes.
Mendocino County has had a strike team made up of members of a number of local volunteer departments helping on the Sierra Nevada fires for more than two weeks, but Fort Bragg firefighters for the most part have stayed close to home. The main reason, according to Orsi: they have regular jobs, and this year, it’s a lot harder to get away.
It seems the tight labor market has left many local employers short-staffed and less able to spare a worker gone to fight fires for a week or more. Orsi said firefighters are frustrated, both because they want to help, and are used to doing so, and because the money for mutual aid is pretty good, better than most regular jobs. But this year, it’s just a lot harder to get away.
“Even if they work at a grocery store or something, there’s just nobody to take their place. It’s so frustrating because every week I ask, ‘Are you available?,’ and I get maybe one or two guys… We’ve always been able to staff a truck up and this year it has been really difficult.”
Mutual aid works according to “operational areas” — Mendocino County is one — where the local fire chiefs choose a coordinator (right now it’s Hopland’s fire chief) whom CalFire contacts with a list of needs — equipment and personnel. The coordinator then reaches out to local departments to see what they can provide.
“Usually, my Monday, I send out a text to all those who are able to go, because people have to have certain qualifications to go.”
Orsi said he needs to send people who have experience and training on wildland fires, and some endurance.
“It’s pretty rugged,” he said.
So far, the Fort Bragg department has sent a water tender to Redwood Valley in July. Orsi said he’s hoping some of his Fort Bragg volunteers can get some vacation time later this summer and a lend a hand.
As far as 2021’s fire season goes, he said, “Anybody who says there’s not something changing is wacko.”
“When I was younger, we had bad fires. But you could almost set your clock by them. Anywhere from the beginning of September to the end of October. They were normally caused by Santa Ana winds in LA and we would just gear up for it… Now we’re getting them year round almost and they’re worse than the ones in LA used to be.”
Is California’s firefighting infrastructure keeping up with the changes?
“I don’t know. I don’t know how they could. I mean, you could throw a million fire trucks at something. Is that going to do it? I just don’t have an answer to that. I know they try really hard to hit them as hard and fast as they can. But I also know that some of those fires, you can’t fight them with engines. They’re coming so hard and so fast, what are you going to do? You’ll get burned up.”
Orsi marvels at the low number of injuries, and so far no reported deaths, from this year’s megafires.
“I’m looking at tv, thinking ‘Oh my God, how many people did they lose?’ And then it’s ‘one person was injured.’ I’m thinking, how did that happen?”
Water has become a pressing concern on the Mendocino Coast, with more and more wells running dry and rivers at historic lows. The City of Fort Bragg ended outside water sales last month. Still, Orsi feels that the supply is still adequate for normal firefighting. He said the city’s hydrant system should meet the need for a fire in town if it arises.
“It wouldn’t be good for the town, but our hydrant system could keep up… Now, when it was over, that could be an issue.” He said the department does have the option of drafting from the Noyo River estuary if needed. Salt water would foul up the equipment, he said, but it’s workable.
“If we had to to save the town, we would do it,” he said.
“Also,” he said, “we haven’t had to, but we have a pretty good relationship, I think, with the local logging companies. If we needed extra water tenders, I’m sure a couple of calls to Anderson or Philbrick or any of them, they’d get us water trucks.”
“We’re fortunate in so many ways right here,” he continued. “I’m probably beyond lucky that we’ve got what we’ve got here and we’re living where we’re at.”
Another reassuring thing, he said, is CalFire’s over-the-top response to any and all reported fires these days.
“They’re sending prisoners, they’re sending helicopters — hitting it fast and hard. That’s the policy.”
How can the public do our part?
“Use common sense. Enjoy your life, but just use common sense and be careful. You get dry vegetation, a little bit of wind, a little bit of fire, no matter where you are, it’s going to burn.”
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