Full Description

Many drinking water supply watersheds are forested, and forest management over the pastcentury has focused on suppression of forest fires. The watersheds of 3,400 community watersystems (CWSs) serving 60 million people in 900 cities are located within National Forest lands. Many of the water supply systems are small, serving a few hundred to a few thousandpeople, and lack the technical and financial resources to deal with fire impacts on their watersupplies on their own. Since 70% of the forest area in the USA is outside of National Forestlands, the number of people relying on forest land for water supplies is much greater. Growingpopulations at the wildland-urban interface, limited source water supplies, expanding areas ofdrought, and ever-tightening federal drinking water regulations increase the potential forwildland fires to seriously impact municipal water supplies. Wildland fires like the Hayman andMissionary Ridge fires in Colorado and the Rodeo-Chediski fire in Arizona can have adeleterious impact on water quality in drinking water watersheds. Introductory material in thepaper covers the range of pollutants commonly associated with runoff after forest fires,in relationship to MCLs. Most of this pollutant load (95%) is generally associated withparticulate materials. The fate of these particulates in rivers, reservoirs, and water treatmentplants is of a significant concern, and affects the longer-term duration impacts of the forest fireson water quality. The focus on organic carbon is of particular importance to the drinking waterindustry (i.e., DBP precursors, source of non-biologically stable water). Includes 31 references, tables, figures.

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Edition: Vol. - No. Published: 06/17/2004 Number of Pages: 17File Size: 1 file , 1000 KB