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Watersheds, Wildfires and Too Little Almost Too Late
Once upon a time, the U.S. Congress passed an important law. It was a ground-breaking law unlike any passed in the history of the world. The purpose of this law was to manage, protect and preserve the magnificent forests and watersheds of the West for all time. The heart of the Organic Act of 1897, otherwise known as the National Forest Management Act was, like the U.S. Constitution, very clear and explicit. These forest "reserves" were set aside "to improve and protect the forest" and for "securing favorable conditions of water flows and to furnish a continuous supply of timber for the use and necessities of the citizens of the United States."
In 1976 the Organic Act was reorganized and expanded. It required the Secretary of Agriculture to assess forestlands, develop a MANAGEMENT program based on MULTIPLE USE, SUSTAINED YIELD principles and implement a RESOURCE management plan for each unit of the national forest system.
Webster's New World Dictionary defines "multiple" thus: "having many parts or uses, shared or involving many."
"Sustained" means... "to keep in existence, to maintain, or prolong, to provide sustenance."
The definition of "yield" is.... "to produce as a crop, result, profit, etc."
Webster's definition of "resource" is simple.... "something that lies ready for use or can be drawn upon."
"Management" means... "those collectively who are responsible for the direction of an enterprise, judicious use of means to accomplish an end."
Lawmakers, lawbreakers (often one and the same) and lawsuit-makers, I ask you: What part of "multiple", "sustained", "yield", "resource" or "management" do you not understand?
What happened? Are we not an educated people, capable of grasping simple precepts?
Apparently we aren't.
The truth is, the simple and explicit clarity of the founding and fundamental law established to preserve the health and sustained yield of our national forests got buried beneath a trainload of litigious gobblydegook and forgotten by all but a few. The only "sustained yield" became "multiple" crops of lawyers, bureaucrats and rich environmental groups, and about the only thing the majority of potential land managers have managed the last few decades is paperwork.
Alas, the Grand Experiment that produced Smokey the Benevolent Bear (who graduated from Harvard) and enrichened the likes of the Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity with their siren songs of ban everything, has proved to be a Grand Failure.
The overgrown forests burdened with ten to 100 times more trees than are sustainable are dying from thirst, disease, nutrient deficiency and insects.....and of course, magnificent, towering wildfires reaping annual harvests of death, destruction and financial disaster.
They say things go in cycles and Smokey has been all but abandoned, much as the Organic Act was abandoned before him. In the wake of the wildfires of this century many more people have come to understand that most western forests are overgrown and that desert forests require on-the-ground management and cannot sustain the jungle-like growth of wet forests.
The principles of the Organic Act were right. We should have been faithful to them.
Smokey was wrong. He was a symbol of our make-believe Disneyland culture.
However, while there is now a growing realization that overgrown forests are unhealthy and create more damaging wildfires, most people do NOT understand the relationship between productive watersheds and sustainable forests. While we pay countless public servants at the federal, state and even local levels to travel around pontificating endlessly about plans, partnerships, committees and consensus to address the growing water crisis in the West, rarely if ever is the root cause of that crisis mentioned.
That root cause of water deficits is overgrown forests.
When those forests are alive they suck up the majority of limited precipitation. A mature conifer can consume up to 200 gallons of water a day. That is 200 gallons a day that is neither allowed to run downhill to tributaries or reservoirs or to remain in the ground to feed aquifers.
According to the Sterling Environmental Institute itself, There are literally billions of excess trees in western forests. Desert forest experts say that thinning each 1,000 acres to healthy and sustainable levels (10-60 trees per acre) would free up 12,000 acre-feet of water per year (an acre-foot is one acre of water one foot deep). The Sterling Institute says, "billions of gallons of water daily are being denied the citizens of western states by virtue of indefensible forest overgrowth."
"Tragically, downstream from these watersheds, many areas of these states are being starved for water. Reservoirs serving communities are being emptied and aquifers serving wells needed by both communities and agriculture are being depleted. And necessary rivers, streams and springs throughout the states are drying up."
Each year the entire state of Arizona uses 7 million acre-feet of water. For these reasons alone, the removal of excess trees that contribute to watershed deterioration has become imperative.
On the other hand, when trees are dead from wildfires made more destructive by the excess fuel load, rain runs off the mountains taking the charred topsoil with it, depositing tons of polluted sludge into the waterways and causing a host of health problems for humans and wildlife.
Granted, we have finally taken a tottering baby step into a forest world unknown to our youngest generations. Presumably when the White Mountain Stewardship Contract(s) by passage of the Healthy Forests Act is let this spring, people will actually "judiciously" use a piece of land under a resource management plan based on multiple use and sustained yield principles that among other yields will hopefully produce a healthier section of forest.
But....too bad the principles that were made law 107 years ago will only be immediately applied to 5,000 to 20,000 acres in a corner of Arizona when 200 MILLION acres in the West are at risk of catastrophic wildfire!
This is way too little and way too late for millions of acres that have already burned, and millions of trees that have already died from bugs, thirst and disease.
But it's not too late to save millions of other acres and trees.
Baby steps never won a war. And baby steps will never save our forests and restore our watersheds, either. It's time for us to grow up, get back our guts and bite the bullet.
Payson.cc © 2004 Carrol Cox
Payson Arizona Editorial and Opinions on National USA / World / and Local News Issues