The View from the Headwaters
The Forest Service
at its Centennial
Rick D. Cables
Regional Forester
Rocky Mountain Region
U.S. Forest Service
It is more than a pleasure to be here today at the 30th
Colorado Water Workshop. I am honored to address
the subject of water resources in this centennial year
of the U.S. Forest Service. In July 1905, President
Theodore Roosevelt created the Forest Service in the U.S.
Department of Agriculture, and conservation of the nation’s
watersheds and water resources was – and remains – at
the heart of our mission. In most of the United States,
the national forests are where the water starts.
I’d like to address the issue of water conservation
in the 21st Century. Let me begin with a question: are
there incentives to make water conservation work? Colorado
and much of the West have been in an extended drought. During
that time, people have begun to conserve water. At
first, it was not voluntary, but driven by imposed water
restrictions – but lately, folks are conserving water
on their own. I think many people who know a lot
about our water situation were both surprised and pleased
with the public’s attitude and willingness to conserve.
This April, Denver Water announced that they expect a
24 percent drop in water use, mostly due to less lawn watering. The
lost revenues may mean a rate hike this fall. In
other words, people have reduced water use by one-fourth,
but they may not see savings in their water bill. I’m
not picking on Denver Water. We’ve done some
great work with them, and they are in a tough spot economically
along with other water providers – but can’t
we look for ways to reward people for conserving
water? I think the answer is yes.
Personal Reflections
I was born in Colorado and am a second-generation Forest
Service employee. I can remember spending time in
the Wet Mountains as a kid. I caught my first fish
below Lake Isabel with my grandmother. Like most
regular people, I grew up thinking that water on public
land was a public resource – I had no idea that water
users have an ownership right to that water. Now,
many years later as Regional Forester in the Rocky Mountain
Region, I know what a huge issue water is in the West – but
many people don’t grasp the finer points of water
supply, water use, and water law. I would guess that
most people who use public lands think the water in a stream
or river is a public resource.
The Rocky Mountain Region is the headwaters for much of
the United States – so our history has centered
a lot on water. Not too many years ago, we were
embroiled in one controversy after another over water. Hearings
with legislative committees at the State Capitol were not
especially pleasant experiences for some of my predecessors. We – federal
and state governments, water providers, and conservation
groups – spent a lot of public and private resources
asserting authorities and paying lawyers. How fruitful
was that? Did we really achieve any
lasting solutions? I am convinced there is a better
way – the time is ripe for us to work together and
perhaps write a new chapter in our history.
The people have given us in the Forest Service the charge
to manage their national forests and grasslands for balanced
multiple uses that leave a light touch on the land. We
share a common vision with many Americans to leave the
land and resources in better shape than we found them. And
we have passion to be good stewards of public lands and
good servants of the people who own them. The core
of our mission is to conserve the basic resources of air,
soil, and water upon which all life, all habitats, and
all uses ultimately depend.
Historic Context
Water has been at the core of the Forest Service mission
from the start. In the late 1800s, early conservation
leaders saw growing evidence of forest abuses in the United
States. Timber barons typically moved in to take
the best timber as fast and cheaply as possible, and left
chewed-up forests and churned-up soils in their wake. The
results were extreme floods and droughts, rivers choked
with logging debris, and water too foul for downstream
use.
These people had vision. They looked out beyond
the instant gratification of conquering the frontier and
getting rich quick to imagine the kind of country they
wanted to leave their children and grandchildren. They
passed the Creative Act of 1891, the Organic Act of 1897,
and the Weeks Act of 1911 to allow the creation of national
forests and spell out their primary purposes – and conserving water by conserving forests was the heart of it all.
They saw the connection. An abused forest sheds
water like a tin roof – the runoff erodes the soil,
enlarges floods, and is long gone later on when it is most
needed. A healthy forest acts like a sponge – good
plant and litter cover absorbs water into the soil, where
it fills the soil pores to be released to streams later
in the season. As our first Chief, Gifford Pinchot,
said, “The relationship of forest to river is like
that of father to son – no forest, no river.”
Here we are 100 years later, and the need to conserve
water resources is more vital than ever. The population
of the United States has tripled since 1905 – and
people are moving to arid states like Colorado where water
is already scarce. The amount each person uses has
also multiplied. Water shortages are becoming more
common even in humid regions. I believe
that water will be the defining national conservation
issue of this century.
Why do I believe that? Well, there are some wonderful
things about our public lands – highly valued forests
and grasslands, beautiful scenery, abundant wildlife, diverse
recreation, wilderness, and more. The people value
these things and they improve our quality of life. Water,
however, is more than quality of life – it
is life itself. Denver Water is going to have a grand
celebration of Cheeseman Dam, also 100 years old this year. Their
brochure says “no water, no Denver.” We
can all just as surely say “no water, no life” – and “no
forest, no water.”
The world has changed over the last 100 years, but water
has never diminished in importance. The last 35 years
has wrought big changes in the way we do business. New
environmental laws have called on us to protect natural
resources like water, air, wildlife, and plants and to
analyze and disclose the effects of our actions. These
laws were sorely needed and helped us to better fulfill
our mission – but over time, we have found that applying
the many laws and regulations can sometimes lead to more
conflict as competing interests exploit the fine print
to achieve their own ends. We found ourselves at
odds over projects like Two Forks and Water Division One,
fighting appeals and lawsuits, struggling with shrinking
management options and the creeping drag of more planning,
more analysis, more litigation – and less opportunity
to care for the land and water.
But we have begun to get out of the rut. New tools
like the Healthy Forest Restoration Act, streamlined environmental
analysis, and the new planning rule will help us get on
with our core mission – if we use them wisely. And
a spirit of cooperation that began with joint efforts like
those with States to protect water quality has taken root. I’ll
say more on that in a minute.
The Illusion of Increased Supply
As a nation, our traditional approach to water issues
has been to work on the supply side. The early 20th
Century was the era of big dams built, among other things,
to store water for use during drier seasons. Reservoirs
will always be part of the water supply equation, but they
are not enough by themselves.
Many other supply-side ideas have sprung up over the years
as demand for water has grown. One was to float icebergs
down the coast from Alaska. Another was to build
huge trans-regional diversions, like one proposed to bring
Snake River water to southern California. Cloud seeding
is still being seriously considered by some state governments
in the West. Many of these ideas have lost their
luster as people came to understand their benefits and costs.
One idea re-emerges frequently that hits closer to home – removing
trees to create more water. Some call it “logging
for water.” Most of the water people use in
the West originates on national forests. Since trees
and plants use water, simple logic suggests that we can
make more water by cutting trees. Some people propose
that national forests be cut aggressively to create more
water. Let’s look at that idea:
- Potential water yield increases are greatest in high-altitude
forests with the snow pack.
- Intensive forest management is hard to apply in those
forests due to the rugged terrain.
- The need to protect soils, streams, habitats, and scenery
further shrinks our options.
- Most increases would come as high spring runoff in
wet years when it is least needed.
- Research like that by Chuck Troendle for the North
Platte river basin shows that the most we could realistically
increase water yield over large areas would be one percent – like
adding a shot glass to a keg of water.
- Trying to maximize water yield through aggressive tree
removal would impact other multiple uses – perhaps
exceeding what the people would accept.
So what can the Forest Service do, if not large-scale,
high-altitude tree cutting? The best way to secure
dependable supplies of clean water from the national forests
is to sustain healthy forests. I say this for two
reasons. First, caring for the sponge
will allow the natural reservoir of the soil to hold the
most water for the longest time – the asset that
Gifford Pinchot saw so clearly in the early days. Second,
healthy forests will be more resilient to extreme wildfires
that are sure to come – thinner undergrowth will
mean less heat damage to soils and faster vegetation recovery
after the fire. Over the long run, forest health
is a sustainable solution that should reduce severe effects
like those of the Hayman and Buffalo Creek fires.
I’m not suggesting that we totally discount supply-side
options – but the benefits of large-scale vegetation
treatments, for example, are limited and short-term at
best. The idea that we can substantially increase
water supply, with minimal costs, is an illusion – and
illusions can be dangerous. We have a finite resource – water – and
a potentially infinite demand. There is only so
much fresh water on the earth and in the sky. So
where can we make a real difference in water conservation? The
answer lies in a collective effort on the demand side.
The Promise of Community Conservation
The old slogan goes that whiskey is for drinkin’ and
water is for fightin’. Well, we’re in
a new day now with new problems, and we need a new ethic. Success
demands that we quit fightin’ and work together. We
must refuse to fix our eyes on the rear-view mirror that
reflects past problems and solutions and tackle the long-run
issues of the future head-on.
We need a new attitude about working together. We
need to see water not as something to be fought over but
as a precious resource to be sustained into the future. We
need to know that water conservation is an issue bigger
than any agency or interest. We need to realize that
there is more than one right answer to almost any problem – and
that my B-grade answer with everyone on board is always
better than my A-grade answer with no one on board.
A provocative new report, Facing the Future – A
Balanced Water Solution for Colorado, argues that
future water supplies depend on a mixture of conservation,
use efficiencies, and storage. The Denver Post
editorial of July 18 agrees that there isn’t any
single answer, so we need a package of
affordable and sustainable actions and must cooperate
to find solutions.
Some promising steps have already been taken. A
big breakthrough for us came in the late 1990s, when we
initiated a wild and scenic river study for the South Platte
River – yes, the same river of Two Forks. We
worked with partners like Denver Water, Trout Unlimited,
the State, counties, and landowners to develop a joint
solution that provides more water than could have been
possible even with wild or scenic designation. Key
elements are:
- A cooperative river management plan with an endowment
fund for projects in the river corridor to protect its
wild and scenic values;
- A 20-year moratorium on water developments in the main
stem; and
- A flow management plan with minimum flows, gradual
rising and falling flows, and thermal controls.
- Denver Water agreed to withdraw its storage rights
at the Two Forks site as part of the package.
Meanwhile, on the West Slope, our forest folks started
the Pathfinder Project on the Grand Mesa-Uncompahgre-Gunnison
National Forest. In this pilot program, we are working
with the State, local water managers and users, and others
to apply various tools to protect instream flows with everyone
on board. We are striving to replace confrontation
with cooperation and negotiation – and it is working.
A historic milestone was the memorandum of understanding
we signed with the Colorado Department of Natural Resources
and the Colorado Water Conservation Board in April 2004. We
have agreed to explore creative ways to protect water resources
and manage water uses on national forests in Colorado and
to resolve conflicts by cooperating together. We
all want the same thing – healthy water resources
and balanced water uses into the future, while respecting
water rights and both state and federal law – so
why not get out of the courtroom and out on the ground
together resolving water issues? Russ George – Executive
Director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources – and
I think that is a great idea.
Meanwhile, cooperative water conservation efforts are
springing up all around us. This April, Mayor John
Hickenlooper of Denver unveiled a new sustainable development
initiative focused on regional cooperative efforts to solve
water problems. It includes water conservation measures
in four public gardens, improved water quality efforts
for the South Platte River, and a lecture series on best
ideas in western water at the Denver Museum of Nature and
Science. Mayor Hickenlooper says that we need to
talk to each other and hold each other accountable. I
agree.
In May, the Colorado legislature passed a law that resembles
an intra-state water compact. It created nine roundtables
representing the state’s seven river basins and two
major sub-basins to pursue joint solutions, encourage conservation,
and protect minimum stream flows. In June, Colorado
Governor Bill Owens signed a water conservation law that
provides grants to water utilities and organizations for
three years to pursue creative solutions on water use.
The non-profit Colorado Water Trust has bought 800 acre-feet
of water from a private ranch to shore up instream flows
in Boulder Creek and the lower Blue River, and will then
resell the water for use farther downstream. Denver
Water and the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District
have funded two reservoirs in the upper Colorado River
but share storage rights with west slope users. Front
Range water users have crafted an intricate plan to enlarge
Pueblo Reservoir and improve use of other facilities.
Even in other countries, neighbors are cooperating to
put their economy to work to conserve watersheds and water
resources. In their book The New Economy of Nature,
Gretchen Daily and Katherine Ellison cite the example of
Costa Rica. A tax on the sale of fuel is earmarked
for forestry programs. This money pays upstream forest
owners to conserve their watersheds and provide more dependable
supplies of clean water to the towns and farms below. In
other words, the forests in the headwaters have a tangible
economic value as healthy standing forests – quite
an idea!
Raising the Stakes: Incentives for Conservation
All these examples are excellent steps in the right direction. The
time is ripe for us to build a shared vision for the new
century, and it must include working together. Governments
and interests at the federal, state, and local levels have
an opportunity to work together on a grand scale to literally
change the playing field we are on and chart a new pathway
to future water use and conservation. The sooner
we move together, the more options we will have.
Let’s consider a few general facts. About
80 percent of the water used by people in the West is for
irrigating crops. In our cities and towns, about
80 percent of the water used is for watering lawns – most
of which consist of eastern grasses. Finally, very
few of our diversion ditches are lined or covered, so leakage
and evaporation cause major losses in transit.
So let me ask this question: how much water could
we save if farmers had real incentives to convert from
flood and spray irrigation to more efficient measures,
if home owners and golf courses had real incentives to
convert to native grasses and xeri-scaping, and if water
providers had real incentives to line and cover their transmission
ditches? I sure don’t have the answers, but
I think they are out there for us to discover together.
If governments and community interests at all levels can
discover how to provide such real incentives, think about
how much water we might free up to benefit our grandchildren
and the country that we bequeath to them. The technology
is there. The obstacles are economic and legal. We
would need to find ways to fund the technical answers. We
would need to creatively adapt water law and policy to
the realities of the future so that we truly reward conservation. Only
by doing so will we strike at the heart of the issue instead
of nibble at its margins.
Our times call for wise and gutsy leaders who will challenge
our generation to look beyond the present to our long-run
legacy. Are such leaders among us? Are they
willing to step forward, just as conservation leaders like
Roosevelt and Pinchot did 100 years ago? As I said
at the start, I think the answer is yes. The risks
are high, but the stakes and the payoffs are higher.
Thank you very much!