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!