My friend, Peter Black, died in May. We shared the same birthday, but he was a year older. For many years he was a professor at SUNY, Syracuse, New York, and following his retirement an emeritus professor. His specialties were forestry and watershed management with a focus on water. He was a past president of the American Water Resources Association (AWRA) headquartered in Middleburg. He was an outstanding teacher and a friend to his many students.

Thinking about Peter got me to thinking about the relationships between forests and water. I've known for many years that our national forests are critical to the water resources of the United States, but I didn't know all the details until I began investigating for this column. Some of the following information is drawn from an article called "Water Facts" published by the U. S. Forest Service.

The Forest Service manages 193 million acres of land in the U. S. About 20 percent of the water resources of the U. S. originate from these lands. Many of these lands are in source areas for important rivers as well as being recharge areas for local and regional aquifers. Forest Service lands are the largest source of municipal water supply in the U. S. Water from these lands supplies more than 66 million people in 3,400 communities in 33 states. The value of water flowing from these lands has been estimated to be $7.2 billion annually.

But water in and from national forests has other important uses as well. On national forest lands, water supports other services such as biological diversity, habitat for threatened and endangered species, and spawning and rearing habitat for sport and commercial fish species. Water derived from national forest lands enhances navigation in major rivers and is used for agricultural irrigation.

The Forest Service has other impacts on the water resources of the country. Their research provides scientific data to distinguish healthy from degraded watersheds and the tools necessary to restore the degraded watersheds. More recently the Forest Service has collaborated with other agencies to measure snowpack distributions in national forests. This allows improved forecasting of water supplies from national forests that help to operate downstream dams to optimize flood control and during dry seasons, make water more available.

While the water resources management activities of the Forest Service are significant, they represent only a small part of the Service's responsibilities. The Service has been in existence since 1905. Currently, it has about 35,000 employees, and its duties include managing 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands that comprise the 193 million acres. It also manages resource extraction in forest lands including mining and timber. Other duties include managing recreation, wildlife habitat, and wilderness areas in national forests. Last but not least. However, firefighting is likely the most important responsibility of the Forest Service. More than 40 percent of the Forest Service's annual budget is spent on fighting fires.

During my working years with the U. S. Geological Survey and with AWRA, I had occasion to interact with Forest Service personnel. Together with employees of the National Park Service, they are some of the most dedicated professionals anywhere in government or the private sector. For the most part, they are overworked and underpaid, but they accept this because they believe in what they are doing. They deserve our unqualified support.