And good morning, good morning, good morning, and welcome, welcome and welcome. Guess what, folks, idiots, time now for our city matters right here on K one, the one you trust. Boy, I can just get the TV to work here. There we go. It's so much easier when this is radio. Said, I don't know what happened. Well, what multi multimedia, multi platform information service, that's what the deal is. Okay, there you go, there you go. It's a changing world.
You're changing with it, all righty. You didn't even know. I've seen fire, but I've not seen a whole lot of rain. I hope we get a little bit of rain. In fact, we're gonna talk about both of those, but first we're gonna talk about free leaf collection. Let's do that. There will be less things to catch on fire the next time. Right, free leaf collection, you bet, well, that's coming up.
We might first mention the operation Cleanhouse was last weekend. Heard there was a good participation on that, so we hope everyone got out and took advantage of that. Had the setup down at the Phillips parking lot and the one up at the Worceston County barn and Dewey and again I from what I've heard so far, it was a good turnout and we're glad people took an advantage
of that. It's a once a year opportunity that's local partners here in town support it and gives the citizens a way to dispose of unwanted chemicals and items around the house that there's not other methods to dispose of them. This gives them that opportunity to get out there and get rid of that stuff. So that was a successful program, and look forward to it next year. And
so we got the leaf and grass collection coming up. It's scheduled for the week of maybe eight through the twelve, so that's a couple of weeks out. Yet they'll give you time to get out there in the yard and do a little yard work. Gather up to your leaves and plan ahead, plan ahead that yer get that thatch off your yard, and if you will, gather that material up and bag it up and put it out with your polycart within about five feet of it, give us a little room where we can
still pick up your polycart, not too close. Stack those bags up there beside the curb. Again on your normal collection day of the week of mayby eight through the twelfth and again we take leaves grass. It is yard collection, it's not refuge collection. So we're not taking extra trash. We're taking
yard waste. We will take sticks and limbs. So if you bundle that material up to sticks and limbs, cut them in links of four foot, bundle them up in a little bunnles no more than fifty pounds, and you can stick those out there again on the curb and there will be another truck come by and he'll collect that material for you and gives you a good opportunity to get rid of those things good. And we certainly appreciate you guys doing
this. I know that as we switched over to a polycart system, yardwaste is one of the biggest challenges. What are we gonna do with yard waste? What we're gonna do with it? So we decided that a couple of times a year we would swing around and pick up yardwaste at no cost. And so I know it's certainly an extra load on all of our sanitation guys and perhaps some other departments if you don't have enough sanitation guys, but appreciate
them going out and doing that help help clean up our community. Yet we offer that program a couple of times a year, spring and fall, so there's a couple opportunities there for citizens to take advantage of that. Along with that, we do have the coupon that you get annually. It comes in your water bill. You could also use that for yard disposal. But again
that cupon comes in your water bill once a year. You can take that cupon along with some identification and a current water bill out to the Osage Landfield and they will recognize that and let you come in there with a load of debris and you can take trash to that pick up or trailer load. It's not for commercial use. It's not to tear down the house and take the
whole house out there. It is to clean up your yard, get rid of that old couch, you get rid of the old hot water tank, clean up the debris around your property, and you can take that out there. So again, if you haven't got that in the mail, everyone should have received that by now, and if you haven't, you can contact my office or down at the building office and we can help you find out what happened or get you another one because we do track those so we'll know if
you've used it. Or not. And along with that, you know, it's the time of year when we're out in one. So with a lack of rain this year, are mowing has been relatively slow. We did we didn't kick off the program right normally by now lose the dust we are, So we made a round or two and actually pulled off and went to do some other work that we had still pending from the fall. So the crews are out again mowing today, but on the right of ways. We anticipate
the rain and things will change, we hope. But the guys are out mowing, that's right. We hope this week praying for rain. Absolutely. We might also mention, which we've talked about it a little, with the water issues we're having to drought, but we are prepping for the pools. The decision hasn't actually been made yet. We'll wait and see what the water does. But we're hopeful that the pools are open this year and we are
prepping those. The guys are working on those and hopefully it'll rain and things will change and we'll it'll get those pools up and operating. We do have the new water slides out there, so I know there's a lot of people very exciting, excited to get out there and use those who are actually testing one, you know, to make sure everything's you're ready to go. And again we anticipate that hopefully we will get to open those and to everybody will
get to take advantage of that this year. Now, am I the only person in this room that has actually gone down the water slides? I have not been down the water slide? Terry, Nope, you're a bunch of funny duddies. So you need to go down the steep one. It has a little bit of freefall right in the middle, and if you're like me, it takes everything you can do not to squeal like a little girl as you can. You lease contact with slide for a second, feel like get
evil, awesome, absolutely fantasting, but they're great. So I'm with you, Keith. I hope we're able to get that open and we certainly decision hasn't been made yet at this point in time, we're proceeding with plans to open it and if we get a little rain maybe we can do that. We're hoping. Here's hoping that's right, So all right, Keith, anything else, I think that kind of wraps it up for us. So again, be ready for that leaf and grass collection, and we'll be by to
help you out. No special bags or anything, right, can no special bags, just a regular refuge bagle work again, don't want it over fifty pounds when you fill it up. But if you be any baggle or none of them what they used to call bodybacks and then put them putting two hundred pounds of shredded leaves in one of them. Those those you'll find still sitting there when you come home, you probably will, all right, Keith,
I appreciate it, thank you. So we had invited the fire chief to come and join us today, and as all good chiefs did, he delegated this to his deputy chief. Welcome, well, thank you. I'm happy to be here. And I don't know have we actually had you on the radio yet, Oh sir, that's just my first. So this is your official introduction to our radio listeners. So I want you to tell everybody a little bit about yourself, name, how long you've been here, and what
your position is. By. My name is Jerry Barry. I'm the deputy fire chief. I promoted in January of twenty twenty two. If I've been with the fire department for twenty three years, so I'm not new to the fire department, just new to the office. Yeah, that's right. So so a new deputy chief. That's certainly not a new fire fighter. And you spend here the whole fire career in Bartlesville, Yes, sir, yea. That is not as not uncommon. It's one of the few professions that
that happens. Yeah, and it's a good place to work. I've enjoyed my twenty three years. Well, we appreciate having you in that position. I know that for a while, Chief Topping was a one man show. He was I don't know how he did it, the chief, the deputy chief of the firebarshals. So he appreciates having his full staff now, I don't know how he did it. Well you, I think you and the Chief got to ride around recently and helped to fight wildfires up. You've been
busy. I have been very busy. So, like Terry, the lack of water has frustrated you as well. Yes, yeah, And I think about Terry when we're spraying. You know, it's one hundreds of thousand gallons of water, and he watches that. He watches the take levels drop and I gotta get that from the lake to put it back in. So, but the wildfires were I guess they were about three weeks sco Now. Yeah, the worstman was March thirty first, and that was up kind oft to
the west of Circle Mountain, Gap Road, Hawking Road out there. It covered covered quite a bit of space and we had what old departments were involved in fighting those fires. We had eight of the local fire departments on the Gap Road, h and Circle Mountain fire, Dewey and Copan had their own fires going. You're right, so I think the uh hus see. I
brought some figures with me here. The the Gap Road fire and Circle Mountain covered forty five hundred acres I think, and uh the North of Town Virginia fire was fifteen hundred acres, Cotton Creek fire was four hundred and fifty acres, and then Smith fireing Copan was two hundred and forty acres. Man, we lost five hundred thousand dollars worth property, but we saved twenty two million
dollars. Yeah, and that's the exciting part. It is well and it was so there was quite a few structures lost and they were actually quite a few homes lost, but most of the homes were outside of town. Was it was it ten homes, I think tens the count that I got, And how many of those were actually inside city limits? Well, eight of them were in the Gap Road Hawkins Road area, and then one up on
Circle Mountain, and then there was one in Copan Copan area. So we actually had we'd lost nine right here in our area, but only one of them was in city limits, right And honestly, there's a reason that only one only lost one house at city limits, and it was due to a program that the part of the Washing County Emergency Management, Barston Fire Department, and I think it was the State of Oklahoma park In the Forestry had implemented,
yes, just probably six months before this while finished it. Yeah, so the timing was great, but it essentially it was a type of mitigation. You'd tell everybody a little bit about what they did up there, and
well, what good for us? The chief Chief Topping had been working with the Forestry Department for several years and had made a deal with them where they came in and thinned that brush and trees back like three hundred feet away from any structure, so that when the fire got to it, it just kind of went out. And if it didn't go out, it was easy to put out. You could drive to it, you know, instead of being
an a tangled mass of black jacks and brush ground up everything. So, yeah, all the fuel that would have existed in there, it went in and ground all that up into the dirt essentially. Yep. It left most of the trees, the larger trees. Yeah, it took out the small ones, took up the red cedars, ground up a bunch of the stuff that would have allowed the fire to climb and to spread. All right, that's correct. All the ladder fuels, all the heavy ground fuels, they
took those out of there. And I think I know that the chief believes that that probably saved about ten houses up on. Yeah, I think the uh, I don't think there's any argument over that. Of course, there's other agencies there that got between the houses and the fire, but yeah, it took button. Yeah. Without Yeah, without that, it would have
been a mess. We probably would have certainly lost more houses. And you would have even had I drove out and looked at this, you would have even had an issue getting back there to be able to stop the five. Yes, because without having that it cut a road in and did a bunch of work back there. Yes, you guys could actually access it too. Yeah, and you know, we've had several I mean, we have fires out there quite often, it's a wild land area, but none like that
day, None that I can remember. And yeah, that's definitely while an hour wind didn't help any Yeah, we Yeah, we had a sustained forty mile an hour win and ten percent humidity and some wind gusts up in the sixties. That's crazy, perfect conditions for a really bad fire day. Yes, so it no loss of life, in my correct chief, no loss of life. That was so that was important. There was some structures loss, and you always have to see somebody lose their home, but ultimately but
they can be rebuilt. That's right. Ultimately there was no loss of life, and it certainly could have been a lot worse and would have been I think if we hadn't if we hadn't worked with forestry on that. Yeah, so what forestry did. The Chief and I as we drove around a couple of weeks ago looking at all of this, one of the comments he made is is that a lot of the houses that didn't burn that were in those hot areas, it's because they've done a lot of the same things that forestry
had done. So yes, sir. For homeowners, especially those along I think the term is the wild land urban fire interface or whatever. There's something some term to that, But basically, if if you're adjacent to a wild land that is subject to fire, what should you be doing on your property
to help ensure that your house isn't one of these casualties. Well, if you will create that green space between your structures and those wild lands, just mitigating those ladder fuels and the ground fuels that spread it and making it available for trucks to get into because in those areas it's hard for us to get trucks in there, especially pumper trucks, because you know a lot of those
roads are one lane roads and there's no place to turn around. And so it's just really important that they do all that firewise prep on their structures and get the fuels back so that we've got time and just mowing the yard and keeping it green. It makes a big difference, makes a huge difference. And that doesn't mean you can't have any trees, no, I mean we didn't. Honestly, there wasn't that many trees that burned in this It really
was mostly the brush and the grass. Well, And if you remove the brush and the grass, that removes the fuels that will get the trees. Are you going? And so as long as you keep that stuff down, you can you can have trees, get rid of the sick trees, the healthy trees. It takes a lot more heat to get those going. And our red cedar population. Would you prefer to see them gone? I wish they were all gone. They go up like a body out they do.
In fact, I've been a fireman for twenty three years and I stopped to take some video and some cedars burning because it was that impressed it is. It's incredible. They turned into a column of flame. Oh, it's it's just crazy. So those certainly removing those and removing all of all of those fuels trying to push it back. Don't have don't have dead brush and landscaping up against the house. Right. It looks nice, you know, and when the weather's right for it, right, But in the fire season,
why it's burn your house. You're gonna want to cut it and move it back. Yes, firewood, split stacked, don't stack stacking against the house now, and you can go as far as you want to go. There is a Firewise program where they recommend and like a lot of gravel. If you've got gardening, you know, on flower beds and things, to fill that with gravel, you know, the decorative gravel. You can use and
stay away from the house. But it puts that barrier in there. And then like we were saying, you know, keep your yard mode, get rid of the dead stuff, don't stack firewood against the house, don't stack trash against the house. A lot of it's just kind of common sense. It's common sense. One of the things you said was interesting to me. I hadn't really thought about it. Make sure that you all can get a fire trunk basically that they can drive around your house and a place to turn
it around. Yeah, because if we can't get in there and turn it around, we'll go in. We're not gonna go you don't you know a little backup upper around quarters? Yeah? Yeah, those takes time. Confers are expensive and the men that operate them, they're invaluable, it's right, So we're not going to lose those people. And they have no time to waste in those situations. Yeah, and when it fills with smoke and you can't see, it's pretty scary. I had a minor experience of that myself.
It was during that fire. I was up driving around and I was I was just looking for the fire, and it turns out I found that. What happened, it got And you're right, it's a little scary. It kind of blacks out. It's hard to see exactly what's going on and see down the road, and you can't see rock schools. I can't see the road all. Yeah. So and that's another thing people don't realize,
you know. They think they're going to run through that. And if you get a good kit of that hot smoke in your eyes, they all shut and they won't open back up. So I certainly don't envy your guys when they're out there doing that kind of stuff. But I truly do appreciate them, and I appreciate all of them. And this was different for me because I was sitting instead of being out there fighting fire, I was sitting managing. And I'm worried about those guys, right because you weren't there. Yeah,
I wasn't there to be able. You know, when I had a crew and I could take care of me and my crew, I felt confident you were in control. Hitting in that command van. Sitting up there and I can't see what they're doing, I worried about It was a new experience. It was a new experience. Well, I have a radio, and
so when things are like that are going on. I listened, and I'm certainly not an expert, but I can tell you that it was the radio traffic and the way that all of the firefighters and the command staff responded very professional. It was very well organized. I realized it was probably did not feel that way if you were on site, But to a observer who was sitting on his patio not fearing fire, you guys were doing all of the job so well. And I tell you, without the fire departments, we
would have lost a lot of houses on Circle Mountain. I mean that the stuff that the forestry did defend those feels. It was key that because we were just running out of resources. But those guys, every one of them, all the departments that were there, they worked hard. Those guys were tired. I talked to the chief at night, I said, is there any thing I can do for you. Is there anything else I can get? And he says, I have everything that's available. We are out of
resources. So thanks, but there's nothing you can do. And that is a strange feeling. I bet a couple of our guys that I know really well. We're up on Circle Mountain and they said, Jerry Hawk, can you send me? And I said nothing. And that's a terrible feeling. That's a bad feeling. Yeah. So, by the way, a good job of continue that thing out west yesterday. That that was a smoky thing. Yeah, I didn't have to get too involved in that. It was
mostly in the trees, and our battalion chief pretty well handled that. And I know he relied heavily on Osa Hills Fire Department and the Bureau of Indian Affairs came out. They had a bulldozer or two and they had some airplanes dropping some retardant. That's all the planes. That was cool. Yeah, that's cool. But they kept it mostly in the wild land. They did good. Wow, well, chief, thank you. I've expressed my thanks to everybody who was involved in that. I said, it wasn't just us.
There's a lot of fire departments, and I'm truly appreciate of them. And so now if a homeowner has any questions about what they could do to improve their their fire safety, what numbers should they call to you? They could call the office. Just call our office PHONUS nine eight three three eight four O nine eight. Okay, all right, well, I'm happy to help them. I appreciate that. And unlike Terry lawds and you didn't give my cell phone number to everybody to tell them to call me. He was
popular. I'm afraid to ask Terry that question because he doesn't always answer truthfully. Chief. I don't know anything about fire protections, so I hope they call the office, you know, call Yeah, I know, call the chief. All right, well, thanks Chief, I appreciate it, and hopefully thank you. Hopefully we will have to have you back in to talk about wildfire. Next we're gonna talk about water and rain and praying for rain.
At this point in time, I thinks what we're really bad. Let me let me slide over end over TV actually be in the TV screen. You usually sit over there so they can't see him. I'm kind of I'm a little concerned. What are you playing to fight for that spot? Yeah? Yeah, it's husy race. Michael usually wins it too, he does. He's bigger than you. Yeah, and fast, and there's no doubt about bigger, faster, tougher, meaner. I mean, he's kind of
got everything on you. Thanks for starting my day out so great. You're welcome. I'm sure, we're sure we'll end it by you giving myself phone. Yeah, I was gonna say which Pike's number. Yeah, we'll get to that. I had to get my shots at. Let's say that for the end, all right, Terry, let's talk Let's talk water or black
water. Yes, Well, as of today, we are fifty seven percent of the water remaining um, which is kind of the bad news, not unexpected, but our weekly average consumption daily consumption did drop last week to four point seven one in many gallons a day, so the good news. Week prior we went up to five point three three, so it was a reduction. So I'm I'm hopeful that people are taking this more seriously as far as where we're at and kind of doing their part to restrict and conserved water.
Win win possible. And it's it is interesting because we've talked about it for quite a while and we've asked for voluntary conservation, but they're you know, one of the questions that I had on here is why would we increase water rates? And it really is somewhat symbolic. It's not a huge amount of money for anybody, but it is interesting when you increase water rates what the consumption does. And once again we've seen that it is probably our most effective
method for reducing consumption. It is and it gets people's attention, like it or not, and then people will become more aware of what they're doing and how they're using water, and hopefully that correlates into a reduction of usage so that we can conserve what we have. Because really you've got your us their voluntary voluntary conservation was it. Did we see significant decreases? In fact, did we see any decreases? We honestly saw none. It was less than
one percent, I think overall. Once we were doing the voluntary So then we did move to a more restrictive state in the sense where it wasn't just a voluntary conservation. We did restrict the outdoor uses of it to twice a week's which this week we're starting phase three, which will go to once a
week outdoor water use. And then we did. Council adopted the emergency water rates, which helped further, I guess, get people's attention to let them know that this is a serious thing that we all have to really do do our part to manage through it. But so starting this week, what bays somebody wants. So if you are an even number house, then that's the last number of your property address. You can water on Thursdays. Odd number of properties can water on Friday. So just once a week, just once
a week. There's really no provisions for if someone's put in sod or anything of that nature, and really it's simple. So we're hopeful that you can keep your SAD alive with one day's watering if you plan to have sod put in, which I would like to insert areas in my yard, but I'm not going to at this point because I wouldn't be able to waters. Yeah, it's it's probably not a good time to be aggressively putting in new landscaping at this time, a SOD or anything that requires water and right as you
are going to be limited. Yeah, So the city follows these rules as well as far as our crews and our projects, and we have shared that with the state who is doing the bridge over the Kenny River there on Tuxedo, to let them be aware of the outdoor water restrictions. Now, it doesn't fall to if they're using water to wet down rock or different amenities that
they're using in the course construction. That's part of their job, and so we don't we're not considering that an outdoor water use, even though it kind of is is in the course of their their their work or their pointmage. Yeah, but that's really the outdoor water use is really limited to your irrigation
of landscaping, gardens, lawns, those sorts of things. It's typically a voluntary thing that we enter into because we want or hard to be green, or we want to put in new sod and so there are it is possible to reduce the amount that we use out there without huge repercussions. So we talked about the restrictions outdoor watering. There's there's some degree of confusion in fact in city Beat, the Kelly has attempted to clarify what that is. So
for outdoor watering, we're really talking about running an irrigation system. Doesn't matter whether it's just a sprinkler or if it's an end ground system. How about a hose If somebody's run a hose out and there they just got water running on our trees out outdoor water and that's outdoor water. Is only once a week that you could do that? Yeah, what about if some filled a watering can while they were in their shower taking a shower and then took it
out and water their plants. Well, I think technically you would be okay to do that. I would probably try to limit it to the day that you're able to water outdoors or use water outdoors. But the truth is is that we have to someonet catch you in the act of doing that, so complaint or get a complaint, and it's unlikely that we're gonna catch you using a water can with two or three plants outside that it's just kind of used
some common sense. So the intended is to prevent the thousand gallons per hour of water use. If you have a water can and you're using sink water that you say from doing dishes and to water your plants outdoors, rainbarrels have at it. People that have rain barrels. Obviously that is not a use of potable water. And we're not gonna. We're not going to regulate that. So so those things we will have common sense as we do this.
I'm not aware of any widespread ticket writing. I don't know that we've written any at this one time. But I'm just thankful you're not going into people's showers. You and I boats. Not that I mind a company, but I do mind the laughing. We're not ever gonna What happens in there stays in there. Yeah, So if you want to do a rain barrel, there is no restrictions against that. You just knock yourself out. We are forecasted for rain this week, so it may be a good opportunity, a
good week to put one in. Yeah. So as and that's it that this question came up about rain barrels, and actually was talking to the mayor about it this morning. So that is that helps to gather water, It helps to reduce the amount of water that you consume off the system, but it also helps to reduce runoff, which ultimately typically gathers pollution and runs into the stream. So there's a lot of advantages if you want to install a
rain barrel, the city would certainly encourage that. Yeah, absolutely would appreciate your efforts. So we talked about our overall status, which was about fifty seven Is that what you said? Seven percent? So that's all of our water that we have available, what we started, what we would be if it was awful. We are fifty seven percent of that, so we're almost
a half. Yep. That's why we're talking about this so much because and there is also some misconception that people think of when we say fifty seven percent, we're just talking about Hula. This is all of our water, which includes Hula, Copan, our lake which is Hudson Lake, and then what we have available on the Candy River as well. Yep. And I did a quick check this morning and hopefully I got the numbers right. But Hula's at forty three percent. UH is Copan full? No Copans in fifty six,
I believe, so it doesn't. I realized we talk a lot about diverse fire or water suppli so that way have Hula and Copan and all of those things, and those are important for long term water security. But ultimately Copan is they it can suffer from a drought as well. So when you have a widespread drought, it's going to affect both lakes. There is no silver bullet here, which is why we're asking for conservation. How long assuming
we don't get ranked let's hope we get rained. But if we don't get rain, about how long until we ask under fifty percent, which which basically creates a state of emergency. Yeah, we anticipate that sometime in either late May or early June with no rain. With no rain, it's coming. It's coming fairly quickly. Yeah. When we talk about outdoor water and why is that so important? What is our use in say the winter, versus what we could expect to see during summer when people are doing a lot of
watering. Yeah, so we in the wintertime will use anywhere between four and five million gallons a day. When we are using our irrigation systems or outdoor watering, that will jump up to nine to twelve million gallons a day. So we double, sometimes triple the amount of water that we consume with two thirds of that going outside. So it's five to eight million gallons a date difference. Yea, So it is a huge amount of water that's used for
irrigation. And again, normally we don't mind when we have plenty of water, but in this instance, we are we are trying to reduce that so Canny River pump station. We got a little bit of good news. We got it, finally got a part. We didn't get the part we ordered, but we made them go find a part that would work and wire it in. Yeah, and so that's up and running. Yes, does that change our available water supply? No, it doesn't change the overall percentages.
But what it does is that we can serve the entire need that we have currently from the river. So we can turn off the lakes and run just off the river and preserve those just as long as possible. But at some point with the area lakes, if everything continues no rain, and then that river wall will be unable to sustain our needs with it, so we would have to turn to the lakes. But for now it can and so we'll ride it as long as we can use it, as often as we can.
And if people aren't wa then we believe that we can serve all of the domestic needs off of the river for the foreseeable future. Yes, that's great news. All right, pray for rain. I don't know what else to say. Tom, All right, thank you very much for joining us. For city matters,