Extreme Weather, Fire, Flooding, and Your Clean Water
Common questions about rivers, flooding, fire, and other extreme weather
No matter where you live, you are feeling the impacts of climate change and extreme weather.
Right now, the stakes couldn’t be higher — fires are growing increasingly severe, dangerous floods are threatening communities, drought is putting water, food supplies and our livelihoods at risk, and fish and wildlife are being pushed closer to extinction as their streams dry up.
Rivers give us so much; they support the web of life from providing our drinking water to watering our crops and so much in between. In an era of climate change, communities with clean, healthy, free-flowing rivers will be the ones that thrive. We must ensure that all communities, not just a privileged few, benefit from healthy rivers now and in the decades to come.
To address some frequently asked questions about extreme weather and how it affects our nation’s rivers and your clean water, we put together some important information to know:
How can healthy rivers help prevent catastrophic fire damage?
Protecting and restoring rivers and their watersheds, including forests and headwater meadows, can both decrease the risk of catastrophic fire, and help ensure clean, reliable water supplies.
- In a healthy watershed, rain can soak into the ground and replenish groundwater supplies.
- We can manage fuels (excess vegetation) in a way that is sensitive to river health and fragile ecosystems.
- Fuels management over less than 10% of a watershed can have a significant impact on water supply while simultaneously reducing wildfire risk.
Ask Congress to support our clean water blueprint
America cannot be a world leader if we don’t take care of our water. Congress to support this common sense blueprint for keeping America's rivers safe and our water clean.
How does protecting a river ensure clean, safe, reliable water?
Most of our drinking water comes from rivers. Healthy rivers and watersheds work as a natural filtration system, cleaning and storing water for nearby communities.
- Pollution and habitat destruction through harmful logging, mining, agriculture or other irresponsible development contaminates water supplies with sediment and toxins. This can increase water treatment costs (and the cost of your water bill) and in extreme cases, impact public health.
- Smart stewardship of public lands is critical to safeguarding clean, reliable water supplies. Forest Service lands are the largest source of municipal water supply in the nation, serving over 60 million people in 3,400 communities in 33 States. Major U.S. cities including Los Angeles, Portland, Denver, and Atlanta rely on water from Forest Service lands.
How can restoring and reconnecting a floodplain protect homes and businesses?
Floodplains (the low-lying areas along a river) are an integral part of healthy rivers, and the first line of defense when it comes to safeguarding a community from flood damage.
- When the water level rises in a flood, that water needs somewhere to go. This is why a river needs room to move across its floodplain. It’s also why we should build smart, and keep homes and businesses out of harm’s way.
- A floodplain can act as a sponge: when a flooding river can move into its floodplain, the water can slow down, get absorbed into the ground, and prevent damage to homes and businesses.
- Paving over floodplains and walling off the river with levees can make flood damage worse in downstream communities.
How helpful are dams?
While dams can provide water storage and hydropower, they can also take a significant toll on a river’s health. Many dams are useful, but some are destructive. We must evaluate dams on an individual basis and weigh their costs and benefits when determining how to manage them, and whether to keep them in place or remove them.
- When it comes to preparing for increasing floods, drought, and fires, different communities will have different needs. There is no “one size fits all” solution. Many communities depend on a balance of traditional infrastructure (such as dams) and natural approaches (such as river restoration). Protecting and restoring free-flowing rivers is always a smart strategy.
- Building a dam doesn’t create “new” water, it simply stores the water that’s available. As drought shrinks reservoirs across the country, we need to increase water conservation and watershed protection to help secure our water supplies.
- There are already hundreds of thousands of dams across our country. We must optimize the operations of existing dams, and remove the ones that no longer make sense.
- Reservoirs also lose a significant amount of water each year through evaporation – in some regions up to 15% of the water is lost each year to evaporation.
How can removing a dam improve public safety?
Outdated, unsafe dams can fail, with devastating consequences to downstream communities. Dams can also harm water quality, and can be drowning hazards.
- Flood protection: Floodwaters can overwhelm aging dams and cause them to fail, taking lives and destroying property as has recently happened. Many dams have exceeded their design life and require costly maintenance or upgrades to remain safe. Taking down an unsafe dam eliminates the risk of catastrophic failure and can improve flood protection.
- Clean water: Dams can encourage the growth of toxic algae, by slowing and warming the water. Toxic algae harms water quality and can be lethal to wildlife and pets. Dam removal can restore a river’s flow and water quality, and help eliminate this public health risk without removing the potential of the river as a drinking water source for local communities.
- Drowning risk: Low-head dams can create a recirculating hydraulic at the base of the dam. These hydraulics can trap and drown and drown swimmers, boaters, and anglers who get too close. There have been more than 1,400 fatalities at low-head dams across the U.S.
