Three Drop Thursday
Friends of Confluence West –
Welcome to Three Drop Thursday, a snapshot of what
we’ve been paying attention to this week.
For the West,
Kimery
Friends - See you again Thursday, September 8! (Q: How is September almost here?)
After last week’s grim (grimmer and grimmest) Colorado River Basin news, here’s some good news – first up:
You’ll remember from earlier this year, the Forest Service’s new 10-year ‘fireshed’ strategy and the $3.5B in western forest funding? When this new strategy came out, many of us on the Healthy Headwaters Alliance started to ask – very loudly – ‘Wait a minute … What about watersheds? Downstream water supply? Climate adaptation? The new Executive Order from Secretary Vilsack states (among other happy-making points), “Forest values at risk are connected and often interdependent, including carbon sequestration, water, biodiversity, critical habitat, and unique ecological features such as old-growth.”
Backing up all of this good news is a lot of money
Along with the $3.5B (from the Infrastructure Act), there’s $220M in the Inflation Reduction Act for the Watershed Condition Framework and the Watershed Source Protection Program. $220M doesn’t go far across 193 million acres of National Forest lands, but as we like to say around here – much better than a poke in the eye. USDA UnderSecretary Harrell noted that this funding is based on recommendations from the Healthy Headwaters Alliance – woot to all!
And, watershed project funding will soon be more strategic
The Forest Service is doing a significant (and impressive) update to the current ‘fireshed’ map. They’re creating an overlay GAP analysis and decision support tool to this current map - incorporating data for critical headwaters, endangered species, old-growth forests, etc. The plan is to have the updated map completed by Thanksgiving. A boon to all of us working on healthy forests, source water protection, biodiversity, and climate adaptation.
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