UH Neighbors Remove 40,000 Pounds of Debris from Buchanan Canyon
Photos by Lauren Doucette
Long-time University Heights residents and homeowners Ron Oliver and Brent Orlesky, together with Brandon Valles (a neighbor’s godson), tackled the cleaning and clearing of over 40,000 pounds of vegetation and debris from the Buchanan Canyon area behind their residence - solely by sheer tenacity and brawn. Spanning ten months, Orlesky and Valles took trip after trip into the canyon behind Oliver and Orlesky’s home to pull dead debris, thin jade plants, and clear diseased and dying yucca, making a path to the canyon’s base and a City sewer access point.
The project first began last fall when Orlesky and Oliver realized just how much of a fire danger the canyon behind their home presented. With heat waves rolling through San Diego more regularly, dead plant debris piling up, and small stove fires from encampments occurring more and more frequently, they decided to take action.
Over the ten-month period, they pulled weeds and cleared debris from the canyon, hauled the debris on their backs up the canyon to the street, filled pickup trucks, and hauled the debris to the Miramar greenery, making 45 trips to the dump, averaging 1,000 lbs of debris a week until the project was complete.
Now, the canyon behind their home looks more similar to how it did a decade or so ago, with native California wildflowers repopulating the area and a trail easily accessible down to the base of the canyon. Oliver and Orlesky have inspired other neighbors to do the same. There’s a grassroots organization forming, hoping to educate themselves and their neighbors on how best to prepare for fire season, what to take with you when fire affects your side of the canyon, and how they can clear their canyon in a way that protects their homes during fire season. They’re also interested in tracking and reporting any encampment activity in the canyons - another fire prevention concern. The Buchanan Canyon Watch Group is a great example of neighbors helping neighbors!
