 * Critical Findings * DEFORESTATION IN THE MID-1800s RESOURCE USE: CHANGING NEEDS THROUGH TIME * Social and Economic Analysis Community Well-Being in the Sierra Management Scenarios and Strategies
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Continued Commodity Use and the Expansion of Conservation: 1900-1950
Resource utilization during the first half of this century was marked by new concerns
for conservation and reduced levels of commodity extraction. The most destructive
practices of the nineteenth century were brought under control through expansion
of federal control over new national forests and national parks. Overgrazing of mountain
meadows in the newly created national forests and parks was largely curtailed. Gold
production declined because few new sources could be developed without serious downstream
impacts. The depression years reduced private extraction of timber and dampened agricultural
output temporarily. Federal employment policies in response to the depression led
to increased federal support for water development, road building, and recreational facilities projects.  FIGURE 2.6 (ACTUAL VIEW 3K) Irrigated acres in Placer and Mono Counties, 1944-92. In the foothill counties the expansion of irrigation works has been going on for the last half century, although the number of acres under irrigation declined temporarily in the late 1950s. Orchard crops have been grown on foothill farms since gold rush days yet have increased in importance. (From volume II, chapter 17.) Large salmon runs, especially on the San Joaquin River, supported a major inland fisheries industry. Throughout the period, major changes in the water systems of the Sierra Nevada were being planned by engineers who surveyed the Sierra Nevada for sites to generate hydroelectric power and provide water for the growing metropolitan areas around San Francisco and Los Angeles. By 1950, approximately half of the current high-elevation reservoir capacity had been constructed by municipal water authorities, power companies, and a few irrigation districts, thereby all but eliminating the anadromous fisheries. During the first half of the twentieth century, the Forest Service was given responsibility for millions of acres of forests that had not been privatized before the 1890s. It provided fire protection, policing against poor resource utilization, and expansion of the road infrastructure for future use. Harvest levels went up and down as market demand changed but never achieved very high levels because of relatively high costs and low demand during the depression. Old-growth timber on private land constituted more than 90% of the harvest for most of the period. The second-growth forests that followed the heavy cutting and fires of the gold rush era were growing with relatively little management, and the sawmill industry was dominated by hundreds of small sawmills processing locally harvested timber. The Modern Era: 1950-1995 The 1950s marked the beginning of a major shift in resource utilization in California. A rapidly expanding urban population increased to new highs the demand for wood, water, hydroelectric power, and recreational opportunities. Considerable new investment flowed into the Sierra Nevada to develop resources not previously considered financially feasible. Timber harvests surged in the early 1950s and remained consistent until the recession of the early 1980s (figure 2.7). Private harvests declined because the old-growth volume in accessible forests declined and the second-growth forests were not yet mature. The Forest Service increased harvests from federal lands and created a fairly constant total harvest for decades.  FIGURE 2.7 (ACTUAL VIEW 11K) Timber harvest from federal and private lands in the Sierra Nevada, 1948-93. (From volume III, chapter 23.) Industrial forestry marked by large-scale operations and long-term investment in timber production was on the ascendancy. The nonindustrial share of harvest dropped from 74% to 40% during the 1950s as the Forest Service share went from 20% to 35% and the timber industry share jumped from 8% to 24% of total output. Recreational use of the Sierra Nevada also increased rapidly as most major trans-Sierra roads were completed during the 1950s and Interstate 80 was completed in the 1960s (figure 2.8). The development of many downhill ski resorts allowed year-round recreation throughout the Sierra Nevada.  FIGURE 2.8a (ACTUAL VIEW 6K)
Recreation in Sierra Nevada national forests. Top: Distribution of annual wilderness use in recreation visitor days. Middle: Distribution of types of recreation activities (as percentage of annual recreation visitor days), 1987-93. Bottom: Trends in various recreation activities (in recreation visitor days), 1966-93. (From volume II, chapter 19.) The Lake Tahoe region and Yosemite National Park remained the prime destinations. The physical impact of developed recreation led conservation groups such as the Sierra Club to begin to question National Park Service and U. S. Forest Service policies in the 1950s. By the early 1970s, urban growth in the Lake Tahoe Basin would eventually instigate the largest cooperative program in the Sierra Nevada between federal, state, and local governments to reduce the impacts on the lakes ecosystem. Water Diversions
The 1950s also marked the beginning of the modern dam building era. New dam building
technology and ever-increasing demands for water and power led to the development
of what would become the Sierra Nevadas most valuable resourcewater. Water diversions
create enormous economic wealth as well as alter many of the natural hydrologic and ecological
processes within the Sierra Nevada. Though most of the early wood flumes and hydraulic
mining operations of the nineteenth century are gone, an enormous network of newer concrete dams now covers nearly every major river basin in the Sierra Nevada.
The capacity of upstream reservoirs was doubled, and enormous multipurpose reservoirs
were developed at the base of almost all major rivers as they left the Sierra Nevada
and entered the Central Valley. Eighty percent of the present reservoir capacity in
the Sierra Nevada was completed after 1950. There are currently 490 medium to large
dams in the Sierra Nevada, more than 120 hydroelectric plants, and thousands of smaller
water diversions (figure 2.9; see chapter 8).  FIGURE 2.9 (ACTUAL VIEW 23K) Location of dams greater than 25 ft. in height or 50 acre feet in volume on streams in the SNEP study area. (From volume II, chapter 35.) (continue next page) 
 
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