The San Lorenzo Valley Water District had great foresight when it decided to sell
its Waterman Gap property (the headwaters of the San Lorenzo River) to Sempervirens,
rather than logging it. They received an excellent price for the property, the
income from which may be used to improve infrastructure and maintenance of the
water system, and even provide funds to educate residents about their impacts
on the watershed.
Of far greater significance, however, is the importance of this piece of land
to the quality of water available to San Lorenzo Valley residentsand to
the River and its tributaries. A recent op-ed by Mike Dombeck in the New York
Times underscores the significance of preserving, and not logging, any watershed.
Dombeck, a professor of environmental management at the University of WisconsinStevens
Point, was chief of the United States Forest Service from 1997 to 2001. In his
article, Dombeck emphasized the importance of healthy watershed lands for the
supply of clean water. After a brief but powerful discussion of the problems of
water supply world-wide, from the meager water supply of the island of Mali, to
the controversies over use of Colorado River water, to the excellent water provided
to New York City residents due to their forested watershed lands, Dombecks
conclusion might have been written for Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties:
New national-forest planning regulations should now specify that the remaining
old-growth public forests should not be harvested, since these wild lands provide
the cleanest water in the country. Rather than wasting energy on the rancorous,
tired debates about road building in the wilderness and old-growth forest management,
the focus should be on how to let our forests do their job of producing high-quality
water. Given our water supply problems, this should be the highest priority of
forest management.
We must do everything we can to improve, protect and restore our watershed lands
here on the Central Coast where we already face enormous strains on our water
supply.
Nancy Macy
Chair, The Valley Womens Clubs Environmental Committee for the San
Lorenzo Valley