Every once in a while Albany’s Talking Water Gardens lure me for a bike ride on the gravel trails that wind around the ponds and waterfalls, all dry now because the water treatment function of the system has been shut off.
As you may remember, under a settlement with the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality the Gardens have not received treated wastewater since December 2024. For a time last summer, the City of Albany pumped water from Cox Creek to try to keep plants alive in the ponds.
A week ago, when I toured the Gardens on my bike, the waterfalls were not flowing, the ponds were bone dry, and most of the plants in the pond bottoms looked dead…