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the albatross
Gym climber
Flagstaff
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Nov 19, 2013 - 10:32am PT
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More reading for those interested in forest management and watershed protection. The cities of Denver. Colorado Springs and Santa Fe are also doing fuels management programs to protect their drinking water. These treatments include thinning (gasp!) and controlled burns.
(It is easier to read the document if you press the link below - for some reason it did not cut and paste the text very well).
http://www.flagstaffwatershedprotection.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/US_Water_Utilities_Take_Financial_Responsibility_for_Reducing_Watershed_Wildfire_Risk-2.pdf
Western U.S. Water Utilities Take Financial Responsibility for Reducing Watershed Wildfire Risk
Brett Walto n
When residents in Santa Fe, New Mexico pay their water bills, they are now also paying for forest restoration.
An AmeriCorps crew performs bank stabilization work at the site of the 2012 Waldo Canyon Fire in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Projects like this will be enhanced with the partnership between the U.S. Forest Service and Colorado Springs Utilities, which will contribute $6 million over the next five to 10 years. Several utilities in the western U.S. are entering into such partnerships to reduce f ire risk in their watersheds. Click to see an enlarged image.
By Brett Walton Circle of Blue
They are signs of the times – forests in the western United States are dust-dry and budgets in Washington, D.C. are diet-thin.
While the West is in the thrall of drought, ecosystem upheaval, and near-daily conflagrations, the nation’s capital is held by fiscal austerity and government-wide spending cuts — which makes partnerships like the one between several cities in the western U.S. and the U.S. Forest Service beneficial to both sides.
A severe fire in a city’s watershed can turn a clear mountain stream into a cauldron of black goo.The flush of ash and sediment clogs water treatment pipes and eventually winds ups in reservoirs, filling them and forcing

expensive dredging.
To avoid this, some cities are being proactive, first with grant funding and now with their own money.
After being underwritten for more than a decade by state and federal dollars, last month residents in Santa Fe, New Mexico began footing the bill for work to reduce the risk of wildfire in the city’s upper watershed, much of which lies in the Santa Fe National Forest.
Through its water rates, the city will spend $US 5.1 million over the next 20 years on a broad program of forest management and public education. Much of the money will go to the U.S. Forest Service to cut and burn redundant trees, restore streams, and test water quality. That amounts to roughly $US 0.83 per month for each household. The Nature Conservancy is also a partner in the project.
“We can’t keep wildfire out of the watershed, but we have to make sure that fire is not catastrophic when it does happen.”
–Dale Lyons,
The Nature Conservancy
Expenditures made now could save money in the long run.Amajor fire could shut down the two reservoirs on the Santa Fe River, and dredging the debris would cost between $US 80 million and $US 240 million, according to city estimates. That is in addition to the tens of millions of dollars to fight the fire and the added cost of shifting the water supply to groundwater, which is more expensive to pump and treat.
Santa Fe’s water department is one of several urban utilities – including those in Colorado Springs, Denver, and Flagstaf f , Arizona – that are putting ratepayer dollars to work in the f orests.
The U.S. Forest Service, for its part, helps the utilities with the technical aspects of forest restoration and some of the physical work while using most of the money in its budget to focus on other high-risk forests in the state.
“The benefit is that it allows us to do more work in other places,” Sandy Hurlockler, district ranger in the Santa Fe National Forest, told Circle of Blue.
The West is Burning
A history of forest mismanagement has combined with drought and massive beetle-killstoturntheAmerican West into a pile of kindling. Recent f orest f ires, including the High Park f ire outside of Fort Collins, Colorado last year, have water utilities on edge. Yet the most destructive blaze f or drinking water inf rastructure happened more than a decade ago near Denver.
The 2002 Hayman fire, still the largest in Colorado’s history, burned 55,800 hectares (138,000 acres) southwest of the city. Subsequent rainstorms swamped Strontia Springs reservoir with enough sediment – 765,000 cubic meters – to fill Denver’s basketball arena five times. Combined with the damage from a 1996 fire in the same area, Denver Water, the public utility, spent $US 26 million dredging and restoring two of its reservoirs.
In 2010, Denver Water entered into a five-year partnership with the U.S. Forest Service with the goal of reducing the risk of catastrophic fire. The two agencies will each spend $US 16.5 million on forest restoration, with Denver’s share coming from ratepayers.
This type of investment is called a payment for ecosystem services, a financial model that protects the natural processes that benefit people. Forests filter water, and their soil helps to slow down the surge of runoff after
a storm, calming potential floods. Fires eliminate these benefits for some time. Erosion, poor water quality and higher f lood risks persist long af ter the f lames have been snuf f ed out.
Earth Economics, a research group, and the U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities, a nonprofit advocate f or f orests, charted at least 17 instances in the U.S. in which money f rom city or utility budgets is being put toward watershed management, most in areas other than wildfire risk.
Spending money on fire prevention is tricky, said Rowan Schmidt, an analyst at Earth Economics, because there is no rule of thumb f or how much investment in a watershed will pay of f .
But that has not stopped cities from signing onto programs.
Last November voters in Flagstaf f , Arizona approved a $US 10 million bond to cut f ire risk on 5,460 hectares (13,500 acres) in the Rio de Flag and Upper Lake Mary watersheds.
And this spring Colorado Springs Utilities signed a five to 10-year agreement with the U.S. Forest Service, providing $US 6 million from ratepayer funds to restore parts of its watershed scarred by the Waldo Canyon fire last summer. The money will also be used to reduce future fire risks in other areas where the city draws water.
“Our ongoing relationship with the Forest Service will help us channel customer rate dollars in the most efficient way possible to protect our most vital resource and the forest that surrounds it,” said Gary Bostrom, chief water services of f icer f or Colorado Springs Utilities, at an April 4 press conf erence.
This interactive map from the U.S. Forest Service shows the relative threat of wildfire to forested areas that are the source of drinking water for cities and towns.Ash and debris from a wildfire can turn a clear mountain stream into a cauldron of black goo. Erosion and flood risks persist long after the flames have been snuffed out.View Larger Map
Reducing Risk, Not Eliminating It
As far as fire goes, Santa Fe’s watershed is a bull’s-eye that has not been hit.Amap of fires in northern New Mexico since 1970 shows burn scars looped around the capital but no direct hits.
In fact, Hurlockler said, tree-ring studies indicate that the watershed has not had a major fire in several centuries.
Roughly one third of the Santa Fe watershed has been thinned and selectively burned since 2003. Forest managers have not attempted any treatments in the wilderness portion of the upper watershed, but the city is preparing to release an environmental assessment that will propose prescribed burns for 1,175 hectares (2,900 acres) in that area, according to Dale Lyons. Until recently taking a job with the Nature Conservancy, Lyons worked for the Santa Fe water department and he helped write the city’s watershed management plan, updated this spring.
Tree thinning and prescribed burns can reduce the risk of wildfire but they will not eliminate it.
When Lyons saw the smoke over Santa Fe in early June from the Tres Lagunas fire burning a few ridges east of the city’s watershed, he hoped that the wind would not change directions and blow embers to the west. With the fire now almost contained, that particular threat has been stamped out, though others undoubtedly remain.
“We can’t keep wildf ire out of the watershed,” Lyons told Circle of Blue. “But we have to make sure that f ire is not catastrophic when it does happen.”
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the albatross
Gym climber
Flagstaff
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Nov 19, 2013 - 06:19pm PT
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Uh Ron, DMT do you guys mind if I ask a personal question?
How long have you two been married?
The way you argue I am guessing it has been a while.
Naw, just teasing. Really.
Bump!
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Q- Ball
Mountain climber
where the wind always blows
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Nov 19, 2013 - 07:13pm PT
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Do any of you have true "skin in the game" ie large timber tracts that I have problems with a simple 500 acre clear cut? Have you managed private timberlands? From a professional standpoint it is obvious that push-back (from suppression, thinning to cutting to simple timber sales) from environmental folks has not helped the wildland fire issues.
On the Fed level lands, it is pitiful they can't even try and manage the forests right. To much outcry from folks that can't find the timber sale on a map.
I don't expect a reasonable discussion but do welcome it.
-Hugh
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Q- Ball
Mountain climber
where the wind always blows
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Nov 19, 2013 - 07:34pm PT
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Ron- You are breath of fresh air and common sense.
I live in the east USA now so it is a different animal. I manage private timberlands, that adjoin lands University of TN. They have not been able to approve a timber sales for several years, or allow in gas or oil operations.
It is land that UT (1920's) was willed but they are stopped by groups when they try to make small timber sales to simply cover costs associated with ownership, let alone be able to environmentally smartly extract resources from the tract and fund education!
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Q- Ball
Mountain climber
where the wind always blows
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Nov 19, 2013 - 07:45pm PT
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Sketch- Why do differentiate between Nat forest and Wilderness? Prescribed burns are under their authority in that region. I may be unaware of a provision outlawing prescribed fires in wilderness?
Also, many locals in this area like to "burn the hills" this time of year. I am not sure why, but they burned 500 acres of hardwoods on me last year.
NOT INTENDED TO BE HARSH, JUST A THOUGHT NOT ACCUSATORY
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speelyei
Trad climber
Mohave County Arizona
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Nov 19, 2013 - 07:46pm PT
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Once, while working as a faller (fluke thing, just a day as a fill-in), another faller told me:
"I'm 5th generation here in Waldport. All my family has been loggers and cutters. A couple three environmentalists came out here last year to tell me all about the woods. They drove 3.5 hours one way from Portland in a foreign 4wd. They got out wearing gortex and polar fleece and special hiking boots. This is the 4th time I've cut this unit, and I'm 53."
I understood his point, but when we moved away, 6 years later, that clear cut looked the same as it did the day we cut it.
I also got some work for the USFS, topping trees to create habitat, and felled a couple that were hauled upriver by helicopter, to replace logs that had been removed previously...
After almost a decade living and working right in the heart of timber country, I still don't have any answers.
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Q- Ball
Mountain climber
where the wind always blows
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Nov 19, 2013 - 07:54pm PT
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Speelyai, what answers are you looking for?
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Q- Ball
Mountain climber
where the wind always blows
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Nov 19, 2013 - 07:57pm PT
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Sketch- The act of suppressing fires in Wilderness areas has not helped the current situation. In certain forest types "stand replacing fires" occur in intervals naturally every 50 years.
We surpress most of these.
Sorry for the edit, I read the post and it sounded like I may be upset, just trying to be civil. Hope all is well with everyone
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Q- Ball
Mountain climber
where the wind always blows
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Nov 19, 2013 - 08:09pm PT
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Dingus- I would recommend removing any trees near the structure and working with the neighborhood on how much obvious risk is associated with their dwellings.
Fire in mountains is natural, please tell your buddies it may happen regardless their prior preventative work.
I wish all the best!
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speelyei
Trad climber
Mohave County Arizona
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Nov 19, 2013 - 08:31pm PT
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Q-ball wrote Speelyai, what answers are you looking for?
Why is a raven like a writing desk?
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Q- Ball
Mountain climber
where the wind always blows
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Nov 19, 2013 - 08:53pm PT
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Not sure on the raven bit? I used to have one named edgar. He would fly along on hikes I took! Always attentive and fun to be fooled by! What is the desk raven lyric answer?
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Q- Ball
Mountain climber
where the wind always blows
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Nov 19, 2013 - 09:16pm PT
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"Dingus- Oh THANK YOU Q-BALL!!!!1111111
I WILL DEFINITELY LET THEM ALL KNOW.
PRAYERS TO ALL!!!!!!11111111
DMT"
Is my advice wrong? Sorry if i upset anyone with advice on saving lives and property. Let me know if I said anything that could harm potential readers of this thread.
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