Report on Water Yeild from Forest Management Letter

• File Number: 8461.250
• Description: Water Issues
• State: CO
• Basin: South Platte
• Water Division: 1
• Date: 6/30/2000
• Author: Melissa Kassen
• Title: Report on Water Yeild from Forest Management Letter
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Correspondence

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Melinda Kassen
Colorado Director
Western Water Project
[e-mail]
June 30, 2000
Dan Luecke
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Environmental Defense J !`--? -- " 1401 Arapahoe Ave.
Boulder, CO 80302
RE: Report on Water Y'ield from Forest Management in the North Platte
Deaz Dan,
In response to your request of June 20, 2000, Trout Unlimited (TiJ) offers the following
comments on Charles Troendle's and James Nankervis' May 2000 report entitled "Estimating
Additional Water Yield from Changes in Management of National Forests in the North Platte
Basin."
TU staff have recently surveyed the literature regazding what we call "logging for watee' in
order to prepare comments for other purposes. As a result, I read the Troendle report with
interest. The first half ofthe report (pp. 1-21) represents a fairly accurate presentation of much
(although not all) of the available literature and the conclusions of the various authors who have
studied this management strategy. The missing component of this search is the complete
exclusion of the body of research that focuses on the adverse environmental impacts of
clearcutting at the levels necessary to increase water yield. By contrast, see, Rhodes and Purser
1998.
In the second half of the report, pp. 22-45, the authors quantify what sounds like a significant
potential water yield from US Forest Service lands in the headwaters of the North Platte basin
from applying this management strategy: 50,000 acre feet of water annually. Troendle 2000, p.
ES-1. The report concludes that the strategy is worth pursuing. Id., p. 1. Yet, this conclusion
fails to incorporate the following three important facts:
(1) that the water produced would not be available downstream of the Forest Service reserve,
(2) the strategy's significant adverse environmental impacts, and
(3) the Forest Service objectives that would not be met if the Forest Service pursued this
strategy. What makes the second half of the report so remarkable is that its authors reached their
conclusion without consideration of the results of their own literature search. For this reason,
their conclusion is flawed. Below, I have set out a more complete explanation.
OY YiER REFEREilCEa7
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