| OCR Text |
Show The municipal water works of 103 intermountain cities and towns deprive de-prive their water supply from the iprotected areas of the National Forests. For-ests. These municipal water systems supply a total population of over 300,000 using approximately 76,000-000 76,000-000 gallons of water daily. In 22 .cases the water works are privately owned one system is in cooperative coopera-tive ownership. In the remaining '80 cases the cities and towns own ,and operate their municipal water supply systems. Approximately $15-.000,000 $15-.000,000 has been invested by these intermountain communities to pro-Vide pro-Vide their citizens with an adequate 'supply of pure water. In most cases the watersheds from which this domestic water supply Is taken are wholly within the National Forest bundaries. The continuance of adequte water supplies for these growing centers of population is of vital importance and brings home to every citizen the vital relation between be-tween the effective protection of these Forest watersheds and his daily welfare. wel-fare. Forest fires, overgrazing, and reckless reck-less cutting of timber are the primary pri-mary destructive agents which uncontrolled un-controlled can soon convert the watershed wa-tershed area upon which a thriving community is dependent for its very existence into a denuded waste, producing pro-ducing nothing but disastrous annual an-nual floods which carry off the season's sea-son's supply of water in one rush and often destroy the value of immense im-mense tillable areas by deposits of rock and unproductive soil. Reckless cutting of timber has been estimated on the National Forests. For-ests. The overgrazing problem is steadily nearly' solution. Forest fires are still numerous and disastrous, disast-rous, and largely so because of man's carelessness. There is a growing realization, however, of the watershed water-shed value of the National Forest areas, for municipal water supply purposes as well as for irrigation. Forest Service officials points to this as emphasizing the necessity for personal per-sonal interest on the part of every citizen in eliminating "man made" forest fire as a grave source of danger to civic welfare. |
