Addressing the Rio Grande Roundtable on Tuesday, Rio Grande National Forest staff including Forest Supervisor Dan Dallas talked about how the current spruce beetle epidemic is affecting the forest presently and how it could potentially affect the landscape and watershed in the future. They also talked about what the Forest Service and other agencies are doing about the problem.

The Western Water Assessment, Mountain Studies Institute, San Juan Headwaters Forest Health Partnership, and U.S. Forest Service witll be sponsoring a San Juan Bark Beetles and Watersheds Workshop April 10, 2013 from 9:00 am to 3:30 pm at the Durango Public Library. There will also be a community meeting and open house in Pagosa Springs the evening of April 9th.

Colorado is one step closer to receiving much-needed federal dollars to help repair damaged forests and waterways from last summer’s wildfires. The Senate on Wednesday approved $65.5 million in federal emergency watershed protection money. The U.S. House of Representatives, after much lobbying from the Colorado delegation, passed the measure earlier this month.

Here at HCN, we’ve been keeping an eye on recent research about the climate change-induced decline of Southwestern forests.

High demand has increased the price and hurt the supply of native seeds needed to replant areas devastated by drought in some areas of the West and wildfires that burned millions of acres of land nationally. Some agencies reported shortages of sagebrush seed as dry conditions hamper the ability of unburned plants to produce new seed for harvest.

U.S. Forest Service and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) scientists have found that rising levels of ozone, a greenhouse gas, may amplify the impacts of higher temperatures and reduce streamflow from forests to rivers, streams, and other water bodies. Such effects could potentially reduce water supplies available to support forest ecosystems and people in the United States.

The worst wildfire season in decades is not only blackening tens of thousands of acres in Western states; it is also creating significant environmental damage. Water quality, for example, is being compromised up to 100 miles from burn sites. Although forest fires are a natural occurrence, recent fires are more extreme, and humans can take much of the blame.

As firefighters battle blazes in New Mexico and Colorado that have forced evacuations and destroyed hundreds of structures, the U.S. Forest Service chief is renewing his call to restore forests to a more natural state, where fire was a part of the landscape.

Fresh water is a finite global resource becoming scarcer with increasing human population and consumptive water uses. At the same time, global climate is becoming less predictable and traditional water sources may be less reliable.