From The High Country News (Paige Blankenbuehler):
…the Forest Service abandoned a water transfer clause and issued a new directive that will go into effect January 29. It requires ski areas applying for new permits or modifying existing ones to demonstrate that they have sufficient water to sustain operations for the permit’s duration and allows them to remain at the helm of their water management. In 2011, the agency’s culture leaned toward federal transfer, or co-ownership, of water, says Joe Meade, director of recreation for the U.S. Forest Service based in Washington D.C. “That way we knew the water would always be available in the National Forest Service System.”
[…]
Ultimately, after the court ruled against the agency, Forest Service officials realized that it didn’t matter so much who owned the water as how sustainably water was being used on public lands. “We’re asking now that water needs be documented,” Meade says. “If we issue a permit, we want to know that the operations under that permit can be sustained.”
[…]
In the previous (and controversial) water directive, the Forest Service took the long view on water management — will public lands have the water it needs 100 years into the future? The new directive gives the ski resorts a bigger role in defining that future, which is not without the risk of industry interests infringing on the agency’s responsibility to long-term management of the resource. “I believe we’ve found a place in policy that’s good for industry, good for the skier and upholds our responsibility to public lands,” Meade says. “As the climate changes, we know we’re all in this together.”
