4000

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 4000
• Author: U.S. Department of the Interior.
• Title: Report on Water For Energy in the Upper Colorado River Basin.
• USFW Year: 1974.
• USFW - Doc Type: \
• Copyright Material: NO

Natural Resource Programs - Plans developed or in progress for
management of natural resource programs administered by the
Bureau of Land Management show an increase in total consumptive
water requirements of some 17,700 acre-feet of water by the year
2000. The uses involved (shown in Table 16) must be accounted
for in future decisions affecting these programs.

The major requirement increase will be for wildlife. Evaporation
from waterfowl habitat additions provides the greater part of this
depletion. Impoundments to be constructed as watering places for
game, nongame wildlife, and livestock also will need additional
supplies. Smaller increases will provide for greatly enhanced
recreational activity and for the construction and maintenance
of necessary roads, administrative sites, and fire protection'facili-
ties.

The only activity expected to require less water in the future is
watershed. The recent rend toward reducing conservation land
treatments which convert existing vegetation to a different type
of cover is planned for continuance.

National Forest Land - The objective of the Forest Service is to
obtain sufficient quantity of water, in accordance with legal
authority, to provide for the development, use, and management of
National Forest System resources with due consideration for the
needs of other water users.

In meeting this objective, water is required among other things, for
such broad purposes as improving the forest environment and providing
a sustained yield of timber, and securing favorable conditions of
waterflow for both water quality and water quantity. These purposes
are achieved through multiple use management as identified in the
Multiple Use-Sustained Yield Act of 1960. Water requirements for
such activities include: domestic, municipal and administrative
sites, recreation, livestock grazing, wildlife and fisheries habitat
conservation and management, firefighting and prevention, timber
stand improvement, road construction-maintenance, wilderness
preservation, flood and soil erosion control, and esthetic and
other public values.

.

Water is also needed on National Forest Lands for nonconsumptive,
instream uses such as fisheries, esthetics, recreation and water
quality. These instream requirements are essential for optimum
environmental quality and to maintain or enhance the existing socio-
economic basis of local and regional life styles. Water requirements
for the next 25 years will increase by approximately 50,000 AF/YR.

53