Water Drafting.pdf

United States Department of Agriculture

Forest Service

Pacific Southwest Region

Regional Office, R5 1323 Club Drive Vallejo, CA 94592

(707) 562-8737 Voice

(707) 562-9240 Text (TDD)

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File Code: 2540 Date: February 28, 2014 Route To:

Subject: Emergency Exemptions for Water Drafting Streamflow Criteria

To: Forest Supervisors

Our Regional Best Management Practices (BMPs), in conjunction with the more recently developed National BMPs, provide direction to protect water quality on National Forest System (NFS) lands. These BMPs are required for all activities with potential to affect water quality on NFS lands.

Our Regional BMP 2.5, Water Source Development and Utilization, and National BMP Water Uses-3, require that adequate instream flows be protected during water drafting operations to allow adequate flows for fish and other aquatic biota. BMP 2.5 includes the following provisions:

For fish-bearing streams—

1. The water drafting rate should not exceed 350 gallons per minute for streamflow greater than or equal to 4.0 cubic feet per second (cfs);

2. Below 4.0 cfs, drafting rates should not exceed 20% of surface flows;

3. Water drafting should cease when bypass surface flows drop below 1.5 cfs.

For non-fish-bearing streams—

1. The water drafting rate should not exceed 350 gallons per minute for streamflow greater than or equal to 2.0 cfs;

2. Drafting rates should not exceed 50% of surface flows;

3. Water drafting should cease when bypass surfaced flows drop below 10 gallons per minute.

During the critical drought conditions now being experienced in our Region, these restrictions will provide important protection of aquatic habitat. However, we are also likely to be facing an active and challenging fire season, and will need to use available water for firefighting emergencies. In some cases, water drafting in streams with low flows may be critical for the protection of human lives. I am therefore authorizing emergency exceptions to the water-drafting flow criteria in BMP 2.5 as follows:

1. Firefighters are authorized to draft from any available water source for the purposes of protecting human lives and for emergency initial and extended attack operations when water sources meeting the flow criteria of BMP 2.5 are not available;

Forest Supervisor 2

2. Forest supervisors are encouraged to inventory and identify potential water-drafting locations where flow criteria can be met under expected hydrologic conditions during the 2014 fire season;

3. All routine non-emergency water drafting will abide by the flow criteria of BMP 2.5.

Implementation of BMP 2.5 requires that all National Forests in the Region have the capability to measure streamflow to evaluate the suitability of potential drafting sites. For assistance with measurement techniques and equipment, contact Regional Hydrologist Barry Hill (barryhill@fs.fed.us) at (707) 562-8968.

/s/ Barnie T. Gyant (for)

RANDY MOORE

Regional Forester cc: Barry Hill Shawna Legarza Jeanne Wade