Ashland Canal - December 5, 2019
The Ashland Canal is an interesting piece of infrastructure, not because of what it does necessarily, but because of what it has come to mean to many people who have lived in Ashland for decades. As people have walked their dogs and strolled with family and friends along the canal, it has come to be one of those things that helps many Ashland residents know they are home.
That is why this question about how to address the structural problems with the canal has been such a difficult one.
Here is what we know:
The water delivered through the canal is Ashland’s secondary drinking water source. When we do not have enough water from snowpack and rainfall to supply our needs, we pump water from the canal to our water treatment facility. Our third drinking water source is the Talent Ashland Phoenix (TAP) connection with the Medford Water Commission. That water is already treated, which makes it the most expensive option during drought years.
In the irrigation season between April and September, the canal loses an average of 62 million gallons of water, most of which (91%) is being lost through seepage through the concrete canal lining, which in many places has failed.
What we call the canal is actually a combination of open canal and pipes that go under private yards as the canal makes its two-mile journey across Ashland. Those canal sections were put in place at various different times with various piping materials. They are not uniform in size, material, or design.
There are many local entities and residents who use irrigation water from the canal on a regular basis. If the City needs the water to address drought, these users understand that their irrigation needs become secondary to the drinking water needs of the community.
The City of Ashland holds easements on all properties that allow it to access 10 feet (in a few small areas, this is only 8 feet) on either side of the canal and piped areas to maintain, repair, or replace the infrastructure.
On some stretches, there are also public use easements that allow the public to walk along the canal, but it is not a continuous trail along those two miles.
The canal has not been well-maintained over the years. One of the results of that neglect is that trees have been allowed to grow much closer to the canal than they should have been. Tree roots are extremely destructive to concrete canals and underground pipes.
The Water Master Plan approved by Council in 2012 calls for piping the 2 mile stretch of canal that Ashland owns in order to fix the problems.
This larger context of this project is the WISE project: Water for Irrigation, Streams, and Economy. This project has the goal of piping irrigation ditches throughout southern Oregon to address water conservation needs.
The water comes from a natural system (Hyatt and Howard Prairie Reservoirs) and whatever we do not use for irrigation or drinking water supply returns to a natural system (Ashland Creek).
There are issues with E.coli in Ashland Creek that may be influenced by how we address the water loss problem in the canal.
To move forward with addressing the issues with the canal, Public Works staff brought three alternatives to the Council:
Alternative 1: Completely pipe the entire stretch, including replacing existing pipe. This means digging up the existing concrete liner and pipe and replacing it with 24” pipe along the full 2 mile section Ashland owns. Cost to build: $3,095,000, Cost to maintain: $12,500/yr. Expected life: 60-100 years
Alternative 2: Pipe the entire stretch, but do not replace the existing pipe. Instead, connect the new pipe to the various different pipes that already exist in the system. The existing concrete liner would be dug up and 24”/30” pipe laid in the area that is now open canal. Existing pipe areas would be re-lined. Cost to build: 3,950,000, Cost to maintain: $12,500/yr. Expected life: 60-100 years
Alternative 3: Re-build the open canal sections across the length of the canal. The existing concrete liner would be dug up and new concrete liner laid down. The existing pipe areas would be re-lined. Cost to build: 2,429,000, Cost to maintain: $39,000/yr. Expected life: 40-60 years
The Citizen’s Alternative
Concerned citizens brought forward the idea of a shotcrete repair of the failing sections. Shotcrete is a concrete application method, not a product. It involves spraying a new layer of concrete in the canal, in the case of the Citizen’s Alternative without removing the existing broken concrete liner. Advocates claimed that this option would be far cheaper and would last many decades. Public Works disagreed on both points, with costs expected to dwarf other options because of the need to continually repair and replace the shotcrete over the next several decades.
I called the managers of the four irrigation districts in the Rogue Valley (Medford, Talent, Rogue River, and Eagle Point) and reached three of them. All three agreed with Ashland’s Public Works department that applying shotcrete over a failing canal without pulling out the existing lining was a quick, but not permanent fix. None of them indicated that they would expect more than 5-10 years from a shotcrete fix that didn’t remove the existing concrete liner.
My Thinking
When I approached this decision, I wanted to find a way forward that addressed our critical drinking water needs in a way that:
· Represented a long-term fix to a critical element of our drinking water supply (need)
· Invested taxpayer money well (need)
· Conserved the water being lost, especially the water being lost to seepage (need)
· Maintained the open water amenity (want)
Unfortunately, sometimes complex decisions do not have win-win-win-win solutions and tradeoffs must be made. I believe we are at that point in the decision about what to do to address the problems with the canal. Many concerned citizens who care deeply about the canal have been working to find another path that would not disturb the area as much and would protect the open water feature. To date, the only alternative that has been brought forward has been shotcrete over the existing canal.
In order to vote to override the engineering recommendations of our engineers in Public Works, I would have needed assurances from people who routinely make irrigation canal decisions in our area that the shotcrete over existing canal liner option would work. No such assurances came in the course of those conversations.
I then thought through what it would look like in the future if we went down the Citizen’s Alternative path. The risks are high. If this option doesn’t work, and there is no credible reason for us to think it would, a future council will have to clean up the mess. That future repair would likely involve digging out two layers of concrete and then piping or re-lining the canal - essentially the options currently before the council. The climate cost in terms of greenhouse gas emissions from the process of shotcrete, digging it out, and then either piping or laying a fresh open canal would be far more than they should have been.
That council would look back at the process we are going through now and wonder what we were thinking given that our Public Works department is telling us quite clearly that this option will not work. These projects are expensive and future councils are going to be dealing with many challenges because of the climate crisis. When we fix this, we need to fix it right.
It is important to note that the Ashland Water Advisory Committee also supported Alternative 1 to pipe the canal.
Environmental Impacts
There are many concerns about trees that would need to be cut on the sides of the canal in order to do any of the three options put forward by Public Works. I share those concerns. I don’t like to see trees cut un-necessarily because of both wildlife and climate concerns. However, cutting the minimum number of trees to guarantee our secondary drinking water source is a price I believe is worth paying. Allowing them to continue to grow will simply endanger whatever investment we make in fixing the canal. Because all three of the options put forward by Public Works involve removing the existing concrete liner, the number of trees being cut is consistent across all three options. The initial survey that had a number closer to 300 simply identified all of the trees within the 20-foot easement. Further, more detailed surveys cut that number down to roughly 100 and many of these are smaller trees. Large trees are particularly valuable from an ecosystem perspective and cutting large trees is expensive, so larger trees would only be cut if absolutely necessary.
There are other concerns about trees that have been watered over the years by seepage dying once the water is cut off. This will be an issue no matter what process we use to stop the seepage problem. However, there is nothing stopping neighbors of the canal from watering these trees for some period of time to try to wean them to a lesser amount of water if they are concerned about those trees dying once the seepage is stopped.
The question of the impact of the canal fix on wildlife depends on one’s perspective about what “wildlife” means and what is important to protect. In my many years of conservation advocacy, I have focused on ecosystems rather than individuals of a population. There is no doubt that wildlife is using the open canal. I have heard no one dispute that fact. However, the study completed by SOU regarding the impact on wildlife came to the conclusion that there are other stream systems nearby that the wildlife will use if the canal is no longer open. If neighbors of the canal would like to offer bird baths to keep the birds in the area, there would be nothing stopping them from doing that.
This canal only has water in it for part of the year, so it does not support native aquatic species. This is not a creek that is home to fish and other water creatures critical to a native ecosystem. Salmon and other native fish do not spawn or rear in this water, so if it is to support wildlife, the best way for it to do so is by supplementing the water in Ashland Creek where it drops back into a natural stream system. It is important to note that Ashland’s Conservation Commission recommended piping the canal as did Rogue Riverkeepers.
The issue overhanging all of this conversation is climate change. Over the next several decades we can expect temperatures to increase, especially in the summer, and for storms to get larger in our area. We will have greater uncertainty in terms of our drinking water supply year to year and it will be increasingly important to have redundant supplies of raw (untreated) water in our drinking water system.
We need to be prepared for increasing emergencies due to natural disasters (wildfire, wildfire smoke, flooding, heat waves, major storms, etc.), crop failures, and economic disturbances. Those disturbances will require continued and increasing public investment. A world where the climate is changing rapidly is a more expensive world to live in. To the extent that we can create long-term infrastructure improvements for critical systems like our clean water system now, the less our children and grandchildren will need to worry about as they deal with the realities of the climate crisis. It is not fair to them for us to leave this for a future council to deal with when we can create a very long-term, cost effective solution now.
In addition, to limit the extent of climate change as much as possible, we need to look at the carbon footprint of capital improvement projects at the city level. All three of the options have the same carbon footprint in terms of removing the existing canal liner and cutting the trees necessary to protect the canal investment. However, the piping option uses materials that will create roughly 1/5 the amount of carbon pollution as the option that lays new concrete. And maintenance will require significantly more energy if the fix is an open concrete canal that needs to be cleaned rather than a pipe.
Fiscal Responsibility
A common call from local residents, and appropriately so, is for fiscally responsible decision-making. I agree with that as well. However, the most fiscally responsible decision may not always be the one that is cheapest to implement initially. That is the case in this instance. Of the three options put forward by our Public Works department, piping pencils out the best over the lifetime of the system. The option that leaves the canal open does so with a $855,000 price tag. Do the people of Ashland think that having open water along the canal trail in the areas that are open to the public is worth a $855,000 subsidy? And do the people of Ashland think that this amenity is worth an extra $26,500 per year in maintenance? If we were to invest that much money in a hiking amenity, would it be the Ashland Canal?
Disturbance to Landowners
Disturbance to landowners is a real concern and one that understandably causes significant anxiety for the people whose property borders or encompasses the canal. However, it is important to remember that each one of these landowners has an easement in the deed for their property that allows the City of Ashland to enter their property in the easement area (generally 10 feet on either side of the canal). This is not an eminent domain situation where the City is trying to “take” private property for the public good.
I have a stormwater easement down the back 10 feet on the north side of my property. What that means for me is that I think about the fact that at some point in the future, either while I own the property or a future owner owns the property, the City will be in my backyard with heavy equipment to repair the stormwater pipe. I don’t want that to be any sooner than it needs to be, so I am careful not to plant trees whose roots might cause the pipe to fail sooner than it should. I also think about what landscaping could be pretty easily removed and put back, so there are no sheds or permanent structures in that last 10 feet. But I knew what I was agreeing to when I bought my property and so did these landowners. Even the properties that have pipe installed already will eventually reach a point where the City has to dig up that pipe and replace it. By doing everything at once with this current project, those landowners would be pretty much guaranteed that the City wouldn’t have to come back and work on that pipe for many decades. One way or the other, though, the properties with pipe already installed will eventually see that pipe dug up and replaced and significant work will need to be done on the open canal stretches.
There have been several public threats of lawsuits. Anyone who has been in the adult world for any length of time knows that people can sue each other at any time for pretty much any reason. Whether they win or not is a different story. Yes, adjacent landowners can sue the City and make an expensive court fight, but the legal construct of infrastructure maintenance easements is solid and has been held up consistently by the courts for many decades. Our City Attorney has assessed the likelihood that the City would lose lawsuits filed by canal neighbors and determined that the City has little legal risk. If property owners along the canal want to impose that cost on their neighbors, they are within their rights to do so, but that threat shouldn’t stop the Council from making the best decision it can for current and future Ashland residents.
Where To Go From Here
Council’s decision not to approve piping, but also not to approve any other option has just kicked the can down the road. This issue is not resolved, but it will need to be in the near future. We have to make a decision about how we fix this problem. I have heard only one person say that it is acceptable to allow the canal to keep losing 62 million gallons of water every single year.
It was a hard decision for me to second the motion to pipe the canal knowing the extent to which many Ashlanders are connected emotionally to the open water feature. That which helps us know we are home is important. But in situations where we cannot have everything we want, we have to decide what is most important. What are needs vs. wants?
This is not going to be the last difficult decision we will face that is driven by the climate crisis, so we need to get clear about relative importance. In this case, I believe protecting the secondary source of clean drinking water for current and future Ashland residents using a long-term, cost effective solution is the highest need and it is worth the disruption caused by construction and the transition from a trail with a water feature to a trail without one.
Climate change is driving incredible change and it is coming quickly. The inaction of those who sat in legislative chairs for the last several decades has locked in significant change for the rest of the lifetime of anyone who is reading this post. We are not going to be able to protect everything we care about. We are going to have to make hard decisions. There will be change, and in many cases there will be loss. We have to get better at making decisions that are best for the future of our children, even if that means we have to let go of something else we value.
Finally, I was disappointed by several of my fellow Ashland residents who turned this into a personal attack on our Public Works Director and at least one of our city councilors. Unfounded accusations of nefarious personal agendas weaken us as a community and tear at the fabric of our democracy. If we cannot disagree and debate decisions as we engage in this process of governing ourselves without fear of people calling us names and accusing us of ulterior motives, we will not be able to meet the challenges we face now, let alone those that are on the horizon.
I am grateful that we have a Public Works Director who is at least somewhat risk averse. I don’t want someone who plays fast and loose with our drinking water supply, streets, or other major infrastructure running our Public Works department. I do want someone who forms strong opinions and speaks frankly about the infrastructure needs of our community and the best ways to address them.
Some folks who spoke out about their concerns did so respectfully and I appreciated those conversations and the information they brought forward to help councilors make their decisions. Some others appear to have let their better natures be overtaken by their emotions. We can and must do better as a community at having robust, even heated, public debates while keeping to the facts and not ascribing ill intent on the part of anyone who disagrees with us.
I am available for one on one discussions about this and other council issues through my council email address: tonya@council.ashland.or.us.