Protect watershed

Whoever started the fire last week in Baker City’s watershed probably figured the diminutive blaze was of little consequence.

Luckily, they were right.

Yet that fire, though it burned less than one-tenth of an acre before four Forest Service firefighters put it out Friday evening, could have left the city’s 4,000 or so households with dry faucets and a hefty bill to get them flowing again.

The fire might prompt city officials to cancel hunters’ privileges to legally walk into the watershed and go after a deer or an elk.

The city’s 10,000-acre watershed is not a typical chunk of national forest.

Most of the city’s drinking water comes from 11 springs and streams in the watershed. That water is so clean that the city doesn’t have to filter the water to meet federal standards.

That’s a rare exemption, though — just three other Oregon cities share it. And one reason Baker City continues to qualify for that exemption is that the city severely restricts the public’s access to the watershed.

The city lets people hunt in the watershed, but only when the fire danger is moderate or lower. The fire danger was high on Friday. The city prohibits hunters from lighting fires, or even smoking cigarettes, in the watershed.

A large fire in the watershed could pollute streams with ash and mud, a situation that might end forever the city’s exemption from filtering. City officials have estimated that building a filtration plant could cost several million dollars.

A bolt of lightning, a force which no one can control, could ignite such a fire, of course.

But people can control their own actions — including the person who kindled the blaze in the watershed.