Wilderness Protects Watersheds
11
Clear water flows from wilderness.
Mud flows from a watershed dis-
rupted by logging. From steep slopes
come logs or clear streams, not both.
The Kern River flows transparently clear
out of the wilderness of Sequoia National
Park, where the watershed-saving mecha-
nisms are preserved that nature has perfected
through the aeons, taking two or three cen-
turies to build each inch of living soil.
SIERRA
CLUB
Mud-eroded and destroyed soil-pours
from the logged watershed of South Creek,
on Sequoia National Forest, and flows down
to shorten the life of Isabella Reservoir, vital
to San Joaquin Valley water users, a reser-
voir for which future generations will not
easily find a substitute. There will never be
Color photo by James Riley
a substitute for logged-over wilderness and
all it means to water, to fish and wildlife,
to science, to recreation, and to the evolu-
tionary force that put man on this planet.
There is a substitute for the logs the Forest
Service threatens to take at the cost of wil-
derness and clear water. The Forest Service
itself says: "The real key to our future tim-
ber supply lies in the hands of those one out
of every ten American families who own our
small forests..."
Water-saving wilderness is no key to tim-
ber supply. Water users and other wilder-
ness users may well ask: Why the rush to
spoil wilderness, watersheds, and parks?
Why destroy true multiple use for a logging
operation disguised as multiple use?
June 2, 1960
I hope you can get pen, typewriter, telegraph, and above all telephone (to
your friends) working overtime on the Rainbow Bridge-Echo Park emerg-
ency in Congress. Perhaps you can make up teams among your conservation
friends to get word to Congress on the languishing issues listed in the latest
Outdoor Newsletter-each team concentrating on one of the subjects and
writing again and again until something happens. If I can help get you
more information, say so.
"What we save in the next few years is all that will ever be saved," and
we have saved little so far this year. Please help; write soon and often!
Sincerely,
61
Wave Brower
WILDERNESS CARDS FROM THE SIERRA CLUB Ⓡ MILLS TOWER, SAN FRANCISCO 4
TO EXPLORE, ENJOY, AND PROTECT THE NATION'S SCENIC RESOURCES
Nonprofit Org.
PAID
Permit No. 6947
California
Endicott,
P. 0. Box 54
Kendon Foster
N. Y.
SC
