By JAYSON JACOBY

Of the Baker City Herald

In the brown sea of glutinous muck that is her front yard, Merdith Stephens sees green grass and bright-hued tulips.

andquot;I had a beautiful lawn, flowers all along the house,andquot; Stephens said, her feet clad in rubber boots.

Now all that beauty is buried beneath at least half a foot of mud.

Stephens’ home at the corner of Place and Balm streets is one of at least two dozen properties slathered with soggy sludge after millions of gallons of water poured through a 75-foot-wide breach in an irrigation ditch Saturday night.

No injuries were reported, said Dick Fleming, Baker City’s public works director.

A hungry badger might be to blame for the failure along the Smith Ditch, which curves along Spring Garden Hill in southeast Baker City, said Jim Colton, manager of the Baker Valley Irrigation District.

Although the Smith Ditch is privately owned, Colton said its owners used to hire his district to maintain the 19-mile-long waterway, which diverts water from the Powder River at Bowen Valley.

When he learned Saturday night that water was leaking from the ditch, Colton drove an excavator to the site to try to either plug the leak or divert the water around it.

He found a hole in the ditch wall.

andquot;It looked like a badger had gone in after a squirrel,andquot; Colton said.

While he was digging a diversion channel, the bottom of the ditch collapsed.

andquot;Within just a few minutes it was a (complete) failure,andquot; Colton said.

Sitting in the cab of the excavator on a precarious perch about 50 feet up the hill, Colton decided he couldn’t stop the flood and might join it if he didn’t move the heavy machine to sturdier ground.

andquot;I was glad to get out of there,andquot; Colton said this morning. andquot;It was not too comfortable.andquot;

Damage to the ditch was significant, Colton said.

Rebuilding the failed section will be difficult, he said, because the slope is steep and the soil unstable.

andquot;It’s just like powdered sugar,andquot; Colton said. andquot;I’ve never seen anything like it.andquot;

The culprit could be a layer of ash deposited when Mount Mazama, in whose caldera Crater Lake now lies, imploded about 6,700 years ago, said Mark Ferns, regional geologist at the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries office in Baker City.

Although the Mazama ash probably didn’t pile up any deeper than six inches on flat ground in this area, Ferns said the ash tends to accumulate to greater depths on slopes sheltered from prevailing winds, which is the case with the north-facing slope where the Smith Ditch runs.

Although the irrigation season is nearing its end, Colton said the ditch owners had rights to about two to three more weeks of water.

The ditch, which was dug by Chinese workers around 1900, supplies irrigation water for about 3,000 acres east of Interstate 84 and north to Highway 86, Colton said.

Bob Harrell Jr. irrigates about 380 acres, mostly in alfalfa, with Smith Ditch water.

He said he was expecting to irrigate for about 10 more days, enough for a third cutting of alfalfa, and some fall pasture for cattle.

Without the water, Harrell said he might not get the third cutting. If not, he said he’ll probably turn out the cattle on the pastures instead.

Although workers quickly closed the gate at Bowen Valley to prevent more water from flowing into the ditch, an estimated 10 million gallons were already in the channel, Fleming said.

The resulting torrent dug a 10-foot-deep gouge in the steep, sagebrush-covered hillside, and carried tons of mud and rocks into the neighborhood below.

andquot;It’s a classic alluvial fan, interrupted only by cars and houses and stuff like that,andquot; Fleming said.

Workers used three city trucks and five contract rigs to haul mud from several blocks of streets on Saturday and Sunday, Fleming said.

All streets should be passable by this evening, Fleming said.

But don’t expect to come away with clean tires.

Most of the debris clogged the neighborhood between Cherry and Birch streets, and Place Street and Auburn Avenue.

However, muddy water flowed all the way north to Campbell Street, and even trickled beneath the freeway overpass into the Chevron service station parking lot, Fleming said.

The alley between Plum and Balm streets was, Fleming said, andquot;just a river.andquot;

Karen Szabo, who lives two blocks north of Stephens, first noticed a thin trickle of water dribbling from the ditch about 7 p.m. Saturday.

andquot;Then, kaboom!,andquot; Szabo said. andquot;I walked outside and said, ‘Oh, my god.’ andquot;

The river of debris ran north along Balm Street, directly into Szabo’s garage.

Mud ruined a generator, chain saw and several other tools, said Szabo’s husband, Steve.

The couple also will have to replace the stack of sheetrock they had bought recently for a remodeling job at their home.

Jim Young lives at the corner of Cherry and Place streets, one block west of Stephens.

He wasn’t home Saturday evening.

When he returned Sunday morning he found the water was two feet deep under his house.

Above ground the mud fouled his red cinder landscaping borders, and below it dirtied his furnace ducts.

And then there were the sightseers, some of whom seemed to consider the neighborhood their own private mud bog.

andquot;We had more traffic out here last night than I-84,andquot; Young said. andquot;Guys were squirreling around in jeeps, throwing mud all over.andquot;

Young actually fared better than his neighbors nearer the breach.

Along Place street between Cherry and Balm, muddy waves broke against the siding on several homes. This morning, mud still partially obscured foundation vents on some houses.

Mike and Gayle Sanduk live in one of those homes.

Mike Sanduk said he was walking out of his shop when he noticed the hillside seemed wet.

andquot;Next thing I know there was water running down, and it just got bigger and bigger,andquot; he said.

He and his wife, along with their cat, Cristy, headed west, away from the flood.

They returned a couple hours later.

Water poured into the Sanduk’s basement, and mud almost as high as the tops of the tires surrounded their 1982 Toyota pickup truck and 1980s Chevrolet Cavalier.

The Toyota has four-wheel drive, but it’s not moving until the mud’s gone.

andquot;We tried to pull them out, but both of them are really buried,andquot; Mike Sanduk said.

The same is true for Stephens’ yard, across Place Street from the Sanduks’ home.

Merdith Stephens, 81, said she has lived there since 1968.

Her husband, Bernard, died March 14 of this year.

In 35 years Merdith said she never feared a flood from the ditch that snakes through the sage above her home.

andquot;You just don’t think about something like this happening,andquot; she said. andquot;You think of a flood, you think of it as coming from the river.andquot;

As she surveyed the disarray outside her home, Stephens said she actually feels fortunate, because none of the muck made it inside.

andquot;It got about this close,andquot; she said, holding her index finger and thumb about an inch apart. andquot;None did get in the house, thank goodness. I could just see that stuff on my carpets.andquot;

Stephens was eating dinner in Sumpter with friends Saturday evening when the ditch failed.

She was driving east on Place Street toward her home when she noticed water running down the street.

andquot;I couldn’t get to my house by myself at that time,andquot; she said. andquot;The water was too swift and the mud pulled your shoes off.andquot;

Two friends guided her home, where she waited and watched as the muddy water rose.

On Monday morning, as she clomped through her yard, Stephens figured there was at least one thing she didn’t have to worry about for a while.

andquot;A man mows my lawn every Monday,andquot; she said with a wistful smile.

andquot;I doubt he’ll be here today.andquot;