Water Reliability Depends on Forest Health, Resiliency by Marwan Khalifa Aug 28, 2025 Voices on Water First published in Ag Alert/California Farm Bureau Two of the most basic human necessities are access to food and water. Americans owe a debt to our nation’s farmers. On average, one U.S. farm feeds 169 people annually in the U.S. and abroad, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation. Clearly, agricultural producers are doing their part to ensure families have access to nutritious and affordable food supplies. Water suppliers such as members of the Association of California Water Agencies, or ACWA, are working hard to ensure families across California have access to reliable water in the home and on the farm. In California, forest health is important to both water providers and agricultural producers. Two-thirds of California’s water originates in our state’s mostly forested mountain regions. Whether it ends up as drinking water or supports growing food for families, its quality and potentially even quantity depend on the health of those headwaters. Catastrophic wildfires, burning at temperatures and on scales once unimaginable, threaten that health every year. But we are not without the tools, strategies and innovative drive necessary to combat these disasters. What we need is continued investment and political will to see this vital work through to a successful end. Ongoing advocacy to secure and expand on that investment is where California water, agriculture and forestry policy intersect. Fortunately, longstanding collaboration between the water and agriculture community has proven effective in this mission. The work continues, and challenges remain. But the stakes are too high to allow progress to slip into reverse. Decades of fire suppression in conjunction with a lack of investment in forest health projects, an emphasis on short-term management priorities, increased occurrence of pests and disease, weather extremes and a warming climate have contributed to the decline in headwaters forest resilience. A major consequence is forest overcrowding. This promotes rapid wildfire growth, creating catastrophic megafires that cause long-term damage to the region’s ecology and infrastructure. Overstocked forests result in greater competition for water and increased evapotranspiration, reducing snowpack and water while increasing strain on water supplies during times of drought. At the same time, fragile ecosystems in unhealthy headwaters are at greater risk because of poor water quality, reduced in-stream flows, increased sedimentation of rivers and loss of habitat. When catastrophic wildfires scorch unhealthy forests, intense heat bakes the ground into barren hardpan where snowpack melts and evaporates faster. Seasonal rains, now beginning earlier in a warming climate, wash ashes off this surface into streams leading to reservoirs that feed water treatment plants. This ash can alter the water’s chemistry and clog filters, making its treatment into drinking water more difficult. And while that primarily affects urban water suppliers, those same massive fires often smother rural ranching and farming communities in smoke, posing a major health risk. The good news is there are solutions within our reach. Work to achieve those solutions is underway in many parts of the Sierra Nevada and are reversing a hundred years of well-intentioned but ultimately destructive forest management. Strategic forest thinning and use of prescribed fire have shown great promise toward nurturing healthier and more resilient forests. One example of work on the ground is ACWA member Placer County Water Agency, which is leading a public-private partnership aiming to treat more than 22,000 acres of forest within the headwaters of the American River, a major source of water for the Sacramento area. On the federal level, ACWA and our allies in the agricultural community, including the California Farm Bureau and Family Farm Alliance, among many, are continuing our collaborative advocacy to open pathways toward healthier headwater forests. Earlier this year, this collaboration helped secure passage of the Fix Our Forests Act in the U.S. House of Representatives. Now being considered in the U.S. Senate, this bipartisan legislation would encourage more active management of federal forestlands, improve the regulatory process for forest health projects on federal lands, promote federal, state and local government collaboration, coordinate federal grant programs to better serve communities in high fire-risk areas and expand the use of technologies to address wildfire threats. In 2014, ACWA and the California Farm Bureau helped found the California Forest Watershed Alliance, and this year we joined the Wildfire Solutions Coalition, which also includes the California Farm Bureau. Organized by The Nature Conservancy, this coalition is dedicated to building support for significant increases in local, state and federal funding to address California’s wildfire crisis. Making California forests less vulnerable to catastrophic wildfires will require a long-term financial commitment and determination. However, as with many challenges with California water, collaboration has opened a clear path toward a more resilient future for our state’s headwater forests and the water supply on which our environment, farms, cities and future depend.
