clear cuts ruining water tables?

[Big Lew]

For many years, my family, friends and I used to enjoy great duck and goose hunting in the ponds and sloughs around White Lake along the Gang Ranch road. After an absence of 15 years or so, I decided to try that area a few days ago. Boy was I shocked! There is no water in most most of the ponds and sloughs, and White Lake is nothing but a white alkali waterless flat! After driving around north of this area, it became apparent this phenomenon is evident throughout the region. I'm now facing a quandary of where to go in search of decent wilderness bird hunting. Has anyone any suggestions on general areas that still have healthy water levels and bird populations away from private property etc?

[6616]

Are you guessing or do you know for sure that it's the clear cuts that caused this?

[bighornbob]

For many years, my family, friends and I used to enjoy great duck and goose hunting in the ponds and sloughs around White Lake along the Gang Ranch road. After an absence of 15 years or so, I decided to try that area a few days ago. Boy was I shocked! There is no water in most most of the ponds and sloughs, and White Lake is nothing but a white alkali waterless flat! After driving around north of this area, it became apparent this phenomenon is evident throughout the region. I'm now facing a quandary of where to go in search of decent wilderness bird hunting. Has anyone any suggestions on general areas that still have healthy water levels and bird populations away from private property etc?

What you are probably seeing is a natural occurence. And to dispell a popular myth, clearcuts actually add water to the ground or surface water. If you think about it a natural forest uses up a lot of water in the growing of trees etc. Once those trees are removed all that water that the trees would have used up, remains. Clearcuts give up the perception that its drier as there is nothing holding the moisture so it looks bone dry. That leads into the next thing, clearcuts do increase the timing of the freshet. In a natural forest the trees provide shade which keep the snow pack more intact, hence a later melt. In a clearcut the snow melts faster so your spring runoff will be sooner then in a natural forest.

Some things that have come to mind that may affect the drying of the ponds, could be irrigation related. I have seen historic irrigation ditches that were bulit 60-70 years ago start to fail and leak their water out. So water that may have been directed in the ponds directions for decades may be failing due to nature or a of lack of up keep and that is causeing the drying. I saw something like this in the reverse years ago in the West kootenays. There was some slated logging to occur and the locals thought the clearcuts would dispupt a natural wetland and the bottom of the slope. Well when we went to look into it, the water the wetland was getting was from a historic diversion ditch. the ditch was so old there were 15m trees growing on the ditch. The ditch actually took a creek from one side of the mountain and took it across the side of a hill side. Each spring the ditch would overflow due to the trees and lack of maintenance and water would flow down into a low area. Over the years a wetland was built. They were pretty shocked to find out their "natural" wetland could easily dry up if the irrigation dich failed somewhere else and spilled its diverted water out anywhere but uphill from their wetland.

BHB

[Big Lew]

You make some good points, "bighornbob", that's why I started my thread as a question, but in this region, irrigation ditches aren't the problem. I attended a meeting (just as an observer) between the local ranchers and the government well before noticing this loss of wetland, and persons addressing their concerns were suggesting that massive logging was removing the 'hydraulics' or 'capillary action' of large tree root systems maintaining a high water table. Additionally, as you have mentioned, the huge de-nuded areas were losing the tree canopy resulting in earlier snow melt and very high summer temperatures on the ground. I don't know if the logging is totally responsible or not, but the whole area west of Williams Lake to Clinton was effected soon after it was clear-cut logged, with wetlands and creeks drying up. The puzzling thing about it now though is that most of that previously logged area has now re-grown to new forests but the water reservoirs and small creeks haven't returned.

[FirePower]

I have hunted the Cariboo for years and it seems the little potholes are drying up all over the area especially in the last 10 yrs or so. but I think that BHB is right its just a natural occurance and climate change.