HEADWATERS INITIATIVE

As a forested headwaters system, the location of this bi-state initiative holds crucial value for water quantity and quality downstream. These high-elevation watersheds rely on snowpack and snowmelt to sustain agricultural, recreational, industrial, environmental, and other community sectors. Evaluations of headwater systems reveal that they are essential sources of high-quality water, diluting nutrient and other contaminant and sediment inputs, and key for ecosystem function and connectivity. Complex shifts in basin-wide hydrology are expected to cause a persistent and possibly irreversible decline in watershed runoff to the Colorado River for decades, if not centuries, with demand exceeding supply. Development of sustainable water-supply management with increased restoration is critical for all watersheds within the Colorado River Basin.

In addition to shifts in basin-wide hydrology, the mountain pine beetle epidemic started in the early 2000’s and hit its peak in 2008 in the region, impacting vast swaths of upper montane forest. Wildland fire is part of the natural process of forest regeneration, yet historic fire suppression policies and changing fire regimes have resulted in massive wildfires near the project area. Severe wildfires often affect watershed processes that regulate sediment, streamflow and nutrient responses. Ecologically beneficial fires and upland forest and watershed management are needed to address this issue.

The third challenge driving ecosystem change is diverse values and demands across multiple sectors on water and forest resources exacerbating the system’s vulnerability. With highly erratic and declining water supplies, and growing demands on the Colorado River, there is an important need to respect the storage and distribution systems which have been built over the past century. Access to and management of water scarcity is the key priority and challenge for agriculture producers, water conservancy and conservation districts, basin roundtables, recreationists, environmental groups, Tribes, courts, government agencies, and compacts between states.

In addition to the value of water, local communities view the national forests and connection to private irrigated valley bottoms as working lands that sustain community economies. Maintaining the character of the West with agriculture and grazing allotments, timber production, recreation and tourism, energy, and other industries is of vital importance in the HOC. The social-ecological relationships are extremely complex and there are stakeholder factions that hold alternative preservation values on forest and land use decisions, complicating NEPA processes, threatening litigation, and oftentimes immobilizing the U.S. Forest Service on active forest management.