"What do we do now?" So gulped Robert Redford's character in the movie "The Candidate" after campaigning hard and winning his first elected office. The movie ends on that anxious note, and we never find out what happens to our hero.
Shifting from campaigning to a leadership role is a daunting transition. Watershed management is now at this transition point. After years of advocating better resource utilization, conservation and protection via better watershed management, we are now called upon to do it. Watershed analysis and management is now being adopted as a central organizing principle for many important new initiatives. President Clinton's proposed strategy to resolve the Pacific Northwest's federal forest issues (Option 9) exemplifies this point. There are many other recent examples, large and small, and coast to coast.
Watershed management's long period of crying in the wilderness is now over. It's lasted a few generations, but the turn-around has been quick. We need to take stock of this profound change.
Many will recall that as recently as a decade ago, Earl Ruby, the unflappable sage of Forest Service hydrology, had reached a point of exasperation with the heedless, accelerating logging that was taking place. In that rye Oklahoma humor of his, Earl reminded a group of timber officers: "Go ahead if you must, but remember, we'll still be shedding water long after all the trees are gone." Fortunately for us in 1994, all the trees are not all gone. We've got big watershed problems, but we're rapidly deciding to do something about improving these situations.
More and more, people see a watershed management approach as the best approach to working on a whole host of related issues: water quality, erosion and sedimentation, land use, agricultural and forestry practices, and wildlife and fisheries conservation. People are asking for what we advocate - better watershed managment. Now it's incumbent upon watersheders to produce results. The pieces are available to accomplish this. We need to assemble the fragments into workable patterns for success. Watershed manuals can help. They can provide ready reference to needed information.
Many watershed manuals are now available. More are on the way. They ought to be used to the best advantage. This issue of the Watershed Management Council Newsletter, which is guest edited by Sari Sommarstrom, offers help by drawing attention to some of the materials available. Some of the publications referred to are quite new. This is an issue of the newsletter I've been looking forward to.
We find ourselves in a new and promising situation. Let's keep our promises modest and workable, and deliver on them. Credible results will sustain the new popular focus on watershed management.
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And as the sun rises on watershed management, don't forget that the Watershed Management Council is an all volunteer organization. There are lots of jobs that need doing to "to promote the art and science of watershed management," most of which can be done from even the remotest of locations. So if you'd like to take charge of one of these tasks or help out in anyway, please contact me and we'll set you up. Also, let me add that the WMC quarterly executive board meetings are open to any member who would like to attend or address the WMC board via conference call. Call me at (916) 227-2663 (work), write me at Clay Brandow, 1528 Brown Drive, Davis, CA 95616, DG me C.Brandow:R05K or e-mail me at clay@frrap1.cdf.ca.gov. WMC is also looking for a few good officers to serve for two years starting in November of 1994. If you're interested in running, please contact Nominations Chairman Ken Roby at (916) 284-7126 or 283-2050.
Finally, mark your calendar for WMC's next conference, "Watershed '94: Respect, Rethink and Restore" to be held in Ashland, Oregon, November 16-18, 1994. Program chair Richard Harris, technical workshops chair Barbara Machado, poster session chair Tom Myers and local arrangements chair Sari Sommarstrom are putting together a great conference for you. See you there.
-Clay Brandow
