Federal budget cuts in 2011 aimed at reducing the deficit already gutted the fund created by the FLAME Act of 2009 that was supposed to ensure the Forest Service had enough money to fight fires.

Because it ran out of money, the agency had to cut programs that provide recreation, protect habitat and improve forest health. These are the kind of decisions that people in both parties say we must make so we don’t saddle our children with deficits created by decades of spending and war without fully paying the bill.

When political leaders talk about cuts in a general sense it is hard not to buy into the logic. But there are limits.

We of course have to decide what those are. Anne Castle, Interior Assistant Secretary for Water and Science, spoke this week before the Idaho Environmental Forum, a group of professional engineers, lawyers, scientists and activists.

She was in town for a conference on the very successful Landsat satellite program. These satellites, first launched in 1972, provide what has become indispensable for monitoring changes to the earth caused by forces both controlled and uncontrolled by humans.

Groups like farmers, scientists, and city planners depend on these satellites to assess the food, water, forests, and other resources our growing world population need. Richard Allen, a professor of biological and agricultural engineering at the University of Idaho, is on the science team that oversees the Landsat program.

There are currently two Landsat satellites orbiting the globe but one of them is very old. If circumstances caused the U.S. Geological Survey and other agencies to lose the constant monitoring even for a short time it could undermine this incredible data set that has been in place for 40 years.

Keeping this protected is a high priority for the scientists and engineers who depend on it. But its future lies in the hands of NASA, which has many priorities.

Federal officials are considering transferring Landsat over to USGS, the agency that depends on it he most. But that’s where budgeting comes in.

Across-the-board cuts pressure USGS to trim its current $1billion budget. How does it add a $1 billion program to its budget in these times?

Castle also is in charge of the Bureau of Reclamation, which operates 600 dams that provide water to 30 million people in 17 Western states. The government can cut all its water conservation programs, it can trim back many of the studies it doing in states like Idaho to help meet the water needs of the future.

“Most of Reclamation’s costs are fixed,” Castle said. “You can’t stop operating a dam.”

What you can do is defer maintenance, something we have seen Idaho do over the last decade of budget cutting. But that has its own costs, Castle said.

“You take on a greater risk things will fail,” she said.

Overall, budget cuts mean we are going to do less basic research about everything from the effects of fracking to how to feed the world or predict earthquakes. That doesn’t mean don’t cut budgets, but it does mean make the choices as wisely as possible.

For Reclamation, which makes critical decision about how to manage our rivers and reservoirs in a time when conditions are becoming more erratic, studies and tools like Landsat are even more important.

“If we don’t do things like that we are increasing the uncertainty of those water supplies,” Castle said.