Forest Service Water Policy

The work of Gordon Grant, a USGS groundwater researcher is covered by High Country News. Here's an excerpt that mentions FS groundwater policy and how it will impact land use:

Within the Forest Service, which manages the land that supplies water to over 60 million Americans, very little research is directed toward understanding groundwater systems. Grant is doing the most cutting-edge work "by far," says Christopher Carlson, the agency's national groundwater program leader. But he may soon have company. Carlson is developing a national policy on groundwater management for the 193 million acres of national forests and grasslands. It assumes a connection between surface and groundwater resources, and emphasizes sustaining groundwater-dependent ecosystems, home to many threatened and endangered species. Before it was founded in 1905, the Forest Service was directed to secure "favorable conditions of water flows." Carlson's policy may be the first major implementation of that directive. "We're transforming 100 years of Forest Service practices," he says. Grant has already documented the amount of water stored underground in the High Cascades. He can even explain how it got there and why. "What I lose sleep over is what we ought to be doing about it," he says. "This is where water will be in the future."An optimist at heart, Grant is confident that widespread understanding of groundwater and its relationship to river systems will evolve. One day it will be as universally accepted as plate tectonics, he says. Then, he believes, land management will revolve around it: "Clean water will be the single most important commodity produced from national forest lands. It will totally eclipse timber."