Water/Watershed Panel Discussion Forum
We know that many of you were unable to attend the Forest Plan Forum. Those who did attend had a great time discussing a variety of topics related to forest management. It was a very informative event. We hope that we can continue the discussions that the Forum stimulated in this online forum. I am creating a blog area for each panel.
We hope you will continue the open discussion from the Water/Watershed Panel here.
The water/watershed panel for the Forum was John Carter, Mike Reichert, Rick Hopson, Ron Thompson. Topics that were on the table for the panel included fish, beaver, drought, municipal water sources, growing pressure on resource, proper functioning condition, riparian areas, etc..
Each panelist shared their particular point of view prior to the general discussion. We hope that the panelists will take a few minutes and post a comment sharing their perspective with the broader blog community (many of which were unable to attend the Forum).
Questions posed to the panel from the other participants fell into the following topic areas:
• Water rights.
• Private ownership of critical watershed areas.
• Monitoring stream flows.
• Designating a watershed off-limits.
• Options for finding solutions to watershed challenges outside of lawsuits.
• Use of science in finding agreement.
• Proper role of beaver in watersheds.
Here is a summary of my introductory presentation:
My role in the Forest Plan revision process is advisory in the areas of
water quality, watershed management, and riparian. The authority for the
new Plan revisions lies with the Forest Supervisor, not the Regional Office
as with the 1982 planning regulations. Therefore, my role has been to make
recommendations and suggestions to improve consistency, make sure key topics
are covered, and to avoid language that is unattainable.
Given the nature of the 2005 planning rule, there is a fair amount of
variability in how Forests are designing their plans. Time will tell us the
better paths to follow. We need to do our best job possible today and apply
the planning rule’s inherent flexibility to adapt in the future.
The old planning rule relied much more on standards and guidelines than the
new rule. Forest service specialists (including hydrologists) relied
heavily on the standards and guidelines when designing projects and mitigation
measures for the projects. The new planning rule relies much more heavily
on defining the desired condition of a land area vs. the rules that apply.
Specialists will have to play a different role under the new planning rule,
and it will be interesting to see how the internal dynamics of an inter-
disciplinary team works out.
An undesirable situation facing Forest Service specialists is the inordinate
amount of time spent planning projects. Not to say planning is not important,
it is. However, there is generally little time left for the present Forest
Service specialist to be monitoring. This has become known in the Forest
Serice as ‘process gridlock’. I hope the new planning rule, with the
emphasis on creating desirable outcomes and including the EMS rule, will
change how we do business. I believe having a better connection with the
land will help us become better stewards of the land.
The new planning rule has a lot of uncertainty - how will we adapt to the new
Forest Plans structure, can we integrate our programs better to achieve
more desirable outcomes on the landscape, will our partners complement our
process better under our new plans? These questions and many others remain
to be answered, and the initial answers will first be developed by Forests
such as the Dixie and Fishlake as they will be some of the first Forest to
finish and implement the new plans.
Lastly, I want to conclude that I feel the new planning process, while not
Comment by Rick Hopson — June 30, 2006 @ 12:39 pmlikely the answers to all our problems, is at least an ambitious step towards
a solution to better management. Our Forest Service motto “Caring for the
land and serving the people” well captures our intent and challenge for
the future.
Municipal Watershed Question
Dixie/Fishlake NF’s Forest Plan Water Panel Discussion (6/29/06)
During the water panel discussion I was asked a question regarding Forest Service management of municipal watersheds. Specifically, as I remember, the question was whether the Forest Service has the authority to close municipal water supplies to other Forest uses. I don’t feel I adequately answered the question during the panel discussion and am attempting to provide further clarification to the question.
The Forest Service does have the authority to restrict use for protection of municipal supply watersheds (as well as for other reasons, such as prevention of resource damage or reduce wildlife impacts). We (the Forest Service) would work with the municipality, affected permittees and other users to develop water quality protection measures. Criteria for source water protection would be site specific and developed in a collaborative fashion. Furthermore, the land management planning cycle is an excellent avenue for raising municipal water supply issues and concerns.
In addition, the Utah Department of Environmental Quality has a source water protection program. Included in their program are groundwater and surface water source protection guides, source water assessments, municipal and county ordinances for source water protection, and more. The DEQ webpage contains documents covering these topics and more. A literature synthesis describing Forest and Grassland management effects to drinking water quality caught my attention. To access this document, scroll down and click on the link under the heading “Assessing Potential Contamination Sources”. The web link is: http://www.drinkingwater.utah.gov/source_protection_intro.htm
Comment by Rick Hopson — July 11, 2006 @ 4:04 pmDuring the Watershed Panel discussion, I asked the questions about beavers because this topic was included as an agenda item for this panel. I wondered about the historic importance of beavers in contributing to watershed health, and what benefits their restoration may have. I would like to use this blog to continue this dialogue. Beavers are obviously important to both watershed and ecological health. Their dams help to stabilize otherwise high storm peak flows, thereby reducing downstream erosion and flood damage. Their dams also regulate flow release in a more constant and dependable fashion, reducing the prospects for a waterway drying up downstream. Their dams allow more sediment to deposit, thereby preventing future downcutting of stream channels, and retaining more soil moisture for riparian vegetation. And their dams create open water and wetland habitats that would not otherwise exist at those locations. As such, the beaver is a keystone species because it plays such a significant role, especially in the arid Southwest, in maintaining and restoring a whole host of wetland and riparian-dependent species. Indeed, the historic extirpation of most beavers has created a vacant ecological niche in many areas, and contributed to the sad reality that many wetland and riparian dependent species are federal and/or state listed as endangered, threatened, candidate, proposed, or sensitive species. What can and should we be doing to bring more beavers back to their historic habitats along rivers and streams in the Dixie and Fishlake National Forests?
Comment by Richard Spotts — August 16, 2006 @ 11:13 pm