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

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
likely 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.