Nearly everybody is talking about water now because there isn't enough of it to satisfy every whim reasons water shortages are reaching crisis point in Arizona during what may be a prolonged drought... is rarely mentioned.
Our mountain watersheds are deathly ill because there are too many trees and bushes. They suck up what little bit of water we get before it can reach the springs and creeks and recharge the aquifers. Each tree grabs its weight in water daily if it's available. It hasn't been available so today we have a lot of weakened, dying and dead trees. The growing army of trees had already decimated most of the historic mountain creeks and springs. But do we hear anything about that? No. All we get is the repetitive finger-pointing at the usual villains. Developers. Power Plants. Ranchers.
Even by the 1950s after a few decades of Smoky the Bear, SRP found that watershed production had been reduced by more than half since about 1915 (according to Bill Warskow, former SRP watershed manager). Studies confirmed what ranchers and tribal members had said all along. Too many trees.
If the watersheds were ailing that much in the 1950s, you can bet they're comatose now.
Until recently most people have believed that there's no such thing as too many trees. They couldn't get it through their heads that we are in a brittle environment that can't support the growth that starts in heavy seed years... UNLESS IT IS THINNED, LIKE FIRE AND ANIMALS USED TO DO IN THE PAST.
Our forests with an annual 20 inches of rain (in a good year) are not like the dense forests of water-logged 80 or 100-inch areas. Our trees thrive only with sun and plenty of open space.Too much competition from excess growth deprives them of the very limited amount of organics and water we have in southwestern desert forests.
Interior Secretary Gale Norton's "Water 2025" plan was presented to over 300 people in Phoenix recently and I didn't read or hear anything in the media about the relationship between excess growth and our mortally ill watersheds. In fact, I don't hear anything about real-life and on-the-ground solutions. I just read geek-speak terms like "coordinated response framework" and "focus on education and technical transfers." What education?
How are technical transfers going to improve the health of our watersheds?
If we don't understand what a watershed is and how to make it healthy, how on earth are we going to address water shortages?
Danny Schecter, editor of www.Mediachannel.org noted in an article criticizing the lack of in-depth, comprehensive information in today's media, "It is context, background and interpretation that give information meaning. When that is missing, as it often is, so is understanding."
A good example of lack of context, background and knowledge of land and watershed functions is found in widely reported quotes from Patrick Graham, Arizona director of the Nature Conservancy. Graham cited a New York watershed project that he thought we should emulate.
The trouble is, New York is a nonbrittle environment. We are a brittle environment. We have almost no natural organics in the ground. New York has 12-15 percent created by constantly decomposing plant and animal material.
Here's what that means to watershed functions. A piece of earth 1' x 3' in diameter and six inches deep weighs 100 pounds. If that section of soil contains organic matter of only five percent it will hold its weight in water! Our soil, under the best of conditions has only about three percent.
We have no regular precipitation to create the necessary decomposing conditions. Most of our soil doesn't hold water well until we add organics And most Arizona soil doesn't get better with longterm rest, it gets worse and more sterile. Again, any longtime observer or oldtimer who knows this land can tell you that. But the media rarely pays attention to oldtimers.
They like to quote officials, or spokespeople from environmentalist organizations.
Until we acknowledge the difference in individual environments and watersheds and take action accordingly, our meetings and our plans and our talks about water and "protecting" the environment are merely empty words, hollow rhetoric and a waste of time and money.
Again Graham was quoted: "Arizona needs to recognize the link between surface water and groundwater. Protecting the forests and grasslands will protect the state's water supplies."
Fine. But shouldn't we be discussing and experimenting with the best ways of "protection" and restoration IN OUR UNIQUE ENVIRONMENT, instead of meekly accepting the radical environmentalist prescription of eternal rest? Don't take my word for it. I invite anyone to drive up to Four Peaks from Tonto Basin and look at the once treed and grassy foothills after forty years of rest.
We need substantial information in place of shallow quotes, on-the-ground proof instead of meaningless indoctrination. Most of all we need to learn about soil and its role in a healthy watershed. As Leonardo Da Vinci said so long ago: "We know more about the movement of celestial bodies than about the soil underfoot."
So true.
The environmentalists have penned themselves into a corner. Unlike a few years ago they finally acknowledge that the forests are overgrown. But don't mention commercial logging.
I suspect the leaders have also come to the realization that we have an organics problem. They know that the "preservation" from cattle grazing they demanded in the southwest has not had the expected results. They just hope the public will take their words at face value and not check anything out.
If challenged, the "cattle-free by O93" crowd might say, "buffalo are good, cattle are bad." They wouldn't be able to supply any empirical evidence, though. They and their cohorts among the government agencies have not been asked to prove that they made any species or environment better in Arizona.
They have been the unquestioned kings of our absurd era. It's time that they were dethroned.
Because, until we stir up a little bit more brain activity and demand nothing less than "let's see what works," we will continue to not see the water for the trees.