This is the intake of the pump that takes water from Cox Creek to Talking Water Gardens.
On Wednesday the bike took me to Albany’s Talking Water Gardens once again, this time to see for myself that water was back in the ponds. It was. A little bit anyway.
The city had been working on getting a new pump installed in Cox Creek. On Wednesday morning I got word from Albany Public Works that water was again flowing into the Water Gardens.
So on my daily bike ride I went to check it out:
You’ll recall that the Water Gardens were installed to cool and further treat already treated Albany and Millersburg wastewater before it is discharged to the Willamette River. But since December 2024 the installation has been shut down in deference to the state Department of Environmental Quality because the ponds leak.
Last summer Albany rented a pump to keep the ponds wet for a while. This year the city bought a pump, but installation had to wait until Pacific Power could deliver electricity to the site.
Now the pump is running. But from what I saw Wednesday, the Water Gardens won’t be really wet until after a few weeks of winter rains. (hh)
Water barely trickles down the main waterfall at Talking Waters on Wednesday afternoon.
Thanks, Hasso. We have such a thing, you know, as global warming. So, this is about all the water one could expect at the end of August of our very hot, muggy, dry summer.
That Water Gardens from now on will, no doubt, be a “winter-time” park to visit. The government, and rightfully so, will not let the leaking pond further pollute the Willamette River. But, now we have a park, so that is at least good.
What an inane comment. The waste water is now dumped directly into the Willamette River rather than cooling it by flowing it through the Water Gardens.
The gardens are dry because of a legal standoff between the City and an engineering company, not because of climate change.
The City could have requested a variance from DEQ that would have allowed continued treatment of wastewater (for cooling only, not pollutant removal) while the legal battles waged. It’s not a given that the variance would have been granted, but the fact that the water discharges directly into the Willamette anyway would have supported a temporary variance. This would have supported wildlife whose habitats (wetlands, ponds, shallow streams, etc.) have actually been impacted by climate change. As is, the water that would have flowed through the gardens is flowing directly into the Willamette, rather than helping wildlife.
Great ,, the homeless campers can all have a shower…they love climate change..oh my