Milwaukee community gardens to lose hydrant water

Sura Faraj attaches a water hose to a fire hydrant for the community garden near E. Concordia Ave. and N. Palmer St. Faraj said it will be difficult to maintain the garden without a fire hydrant permit. Photo by Benny Sieu.

For years, Milwaukee grew its community gardens on water from fire hydrants. Soon those gardens will have to go without.

By Karen Herzog and Tom Tolan
The Journal Sentinel
July 11, 2010

Excerpt:

A fire hydrant on N. Booth St. and E. Garfield Ave. has a backyard spigot affixed to one of its nozzles.

Attached to the spigot is a garden hose that stretches along a sidewalk, and then across the grass, to a cluster of 123 raised vegetable beds – tomatoes, beets, broccoli and brussels sprouts – that make up the Community Gardens at Kilbourn Park.

On Wednesday, city officials and residents who organize and tend community gardens like this one will brainstorm what to do when the city makes hundreds of gardeners give up their connections to fire hydrants they now can tap for a fee with a permit.

The meeting is the first big public discussion of the issue since December, when the city’s Department of Public Works announced that in 2011 it would end the practice of allowing gardeners at large community gardens to use city fire hydrants. Officials want hydrants reserved exclusively for fighting fires, though no specific examples of hydrant abuse by gardeners have been cited.

That means residents who don’t garden near spigots will have to find another way to water their vegetables. No cut-off date for fire hydrant use is set.

Capturing rainwater is one alternative. Trucking water to gardens is another.

Dispatching water trucks doesn’t make sense to Sarah Moore, a Riverwest resident who tends an urban farm with 20 other people at Palmer St. and Concordia Ave.

“It’s ridiculous that the city would waste gallons of gasoline trucking around water,” she said.

Moore and others are talking about installing underground cisterns.

“I’m concerned it’ll stunt the growth over the next few years of new community gardens if they can’t get started with fire hydrant access, and another option isn’t figured out,” said Gretchen Mead, director of the Victory Garden Initiative, which encourages residents to grow their own food.

Mead said she’s optimistic a solution will be found. Wednesday’s discussion begins at 6 p.m. at Independence First, 540 S. 1st St.

As the urban gardening movement has grown, more people have asked permission to tap hydrants, creating safety issues, said Cecilia Gilbert, speaking for the Department of Public Works.

She concedes that the city is encouraging residents to raise vegetables on vacant lots and in other spaces, and that demand for water from hydrants is partly a result.

“We created our own little monster, so to speak,” Gilbert said.

“I don’t want to be the one to read a story about a house burning down” because firefighters had trouble connecting to a hydrant, she said. “The Fire Department has noted it is an issue.”

Gilbert said landscapers and construction firms with permits to use hydrants also will be cut off.

The Community Gardens at Kilbourn Park in Riverwest currently gets water from a hydrant, but it wouldn’t be difficult to get it instead from the nearby COA Youth and Family Centers, said that garden’s organizer, Janice Christensen.

Other community gardens may not have that option.

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