PCWA – Effort seeks to curb wildfires’ impact on drinking water
PLACER COUNTY, Calif. (KCRA) —
Work is scheduled to begin this week on a first-of-its-kind partnership to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire around essential drinking water supplies stored in the Sierra.
“This is the first time Greenhouse Gas Reduction Funds from the state’s carbon tax are being put back into a watershed to reduce emissions from catastrophic wildfire,” said Andrew Fecko of the Placer County Water Agency.
The partnership includes a unique collaboration between public agencies including, the U.S. Forest Service, Placer County Water Agency, the County of Placer, community organizations like The Nature Conservancy and private business, including Coca-Cola and Anheuser Busch.
The $14 million effort, which is being led by Placer County through a stewardship contract with the USFS, is aimed at thinning the forest across both public and private land in an area where the 2014 King Fire created concern when it threatened two key reservoirs: French Meadows and Hell Hole reservoirs.
The fire burned so intensely in that watershed that it impacted taste, odor and water treatment costs.
“We just simply can’t afford to have the intensity of the King Fire. Low-intensity fire is good, but it’s the high-intensity stuff we need to avoid,” said Fecko. “This isn’t logging or clear-cutting. It’s selected harvests to reduce forest density back to what the forest looked like before settlement in the West.”
Researchers from UC Merced are providing information about optimal forest densities for current and future climate conditions.
The Nature Conservancy is also leading research to monitor the impact of forest thinning on future fire behavior.
The ecologically-based thinning is scheduled to begin Wednesday and once finished, the idea is to re-introduce fire to the landscape, said Ross Branch, a PCWA spokesman.
