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Water quality issues include effects on aquatic habi- tat, sedimentation in channels and reservoirs, and effects on drinking water. Several monitoring studies found impacts to aquatic ecosystems that occurred in the first year after the fire or in the first major storm. Increases in stream turbidity with high rain- fallwere documented in Regions 1 and 6 (Amaranthua 1990, McCammon 1980, Story 1994). Large flood and debris flow events cleared streams of fish after the 1984 North Hills fire, Helena National Forest, Mon- tana (Schultz and others 1986) and the 1990 Dude fire, Tonto National Forest, Arizona (Rinne 1996). In both cases the populations of at least some species recovered surprisingly quickly, however. Threats to developed water sources can be quantified relatively easily, because managers know how much it would coat to treat turbid water or remove sediment from a reservoir. It is difficult to assess the potential for loss of soil productivity after fire, because there is no easy way of calculating along-term productivity decline resulting from the lose of soil material or nutrients. This is particularly the case where there are not obvious losses of large amounts of organic matter and mineral soil. Depending on fire severity, soil productivity changes can be either beneficial or deleterious. Short- term increases in plant productivity can occur from soil changes such ae the mineralization of nutrients tied up in organic matter (DeBano and others 1998, Neary and others 1999). Predicting productivity changes for long rotation forest stands is difficult, however, because ofthe manyinteractingfactore which affect long-term productivity and the lack of adequate information to make long-range predictions (Powers and others 1990). Site productivity changes can be long-term or tem- porary. If afire iswithinthe natural range ofvariation for an ecosystem, productivity changes shouldbe ahort- term and acceptable since fire is a natural component in many ecosystems. If a fire is outside of the natural range of variation and intensity, particularly due to humaninterferenceroith forest ecosystems, long-term soil productivity is more likely to be at risk. Various methods have been used in the BAER pro- cess to estimate the coat of potential changes in soil productivity after fire. For example, the value of soil loss has been based on estimated site index changes due to the fire and the consequent potential lose in harveatable timber duringthe next regeneration cycle, or based on the coat of replacement top soil if pur- chased commercially. Moat Burned Area Reports did not state how loss estimates were made. Methods that consider only the value of harvestable timber may underestimate the consequences of site productivity lose to other ecosystem components. USDA Forest Service Gen. Tech. Rep. RMRS-GTR-63.2000 Instead of trying to justify BAER treatments by estimating some future lose in site productivity val- ues (merchantable timber), a better approach would be to identify situations where Future productivity is potentially threatened by the loss of large amounts of above ground organic matter in severe fires (Neary and others 1999) or losses of surface soil horizons (DeBano and others 1998). While both affect long- term productivity, only the latter can be affected in the short-term by BAER treatments. Until better methods can be developed to estimate long-term changes in productivity after wildfires, the profes- sional judgment of Boil scientists is the best tool for determining the need for treatments to mitigate soil productivity losses. Probability of success stated in the BAER reports was always high (average 69 percent for hillalope treatments, 74 percent for a channel treatments, and 86 percent for road treatments the first year after fire; table 12). BAER teams are apparently very enthusias- tic and optimistic that the BAER goals can be met and that the implemented treatments will work-a "can do" attitude, similar to that in fire fighting, prevails. This result should be expected, because only known effective treatments are supposed to be used for emer- gency waterahedrehabilitation (USDA Forest Service 1995). Results of our interviews suggest that these prob- abilities may be overestimated For some treatments. For example, only 52 percent of interviewees felt that aerial seeding, the most extensively used hillslope treatment was "good" or "excellent" in effectiveness (a reasonable definition of success), and only 56 percent of quantitative monitoring reports consid- ered seeding effective the first year after fire. On the other hand, 79 percent of the nonquantitativersports considered it successful, justifying the high probabil- ity of success. Other treatments fared better in the effectiveness ratings. "Good" or "excellent" ratings were given to about 66 percent of contour-felled log projects, 83 percent of mulch projects, and a whopping 91 percent of ground seeding efforts. Monitoring re- porta also found contour-felled logs to be successful most of the time. These subjective results suggest that probability of success may be overstated for aerial seeding in many reports, but may be more realistic for other hillalope treatments. However, seeding is the only method for which a significant amount of poat- fire research has been conducted (discussed further below). For other hillslope methods, hard data to evaluate effectiveness-and thus the probability of success-are scarce. Among channel treatments, "good" or "excellent" ratings were given to 60 percent of straw bale check dam and log grade stabilizer projects, while channel 45