Protect and Restore Free Flowing Oregon Rivers

On the North Umpqua, WaterWatch is leading a statewide coalition of 22 fishing, conservation, and whitewater groups to end the harm to fish, wildlife, and water quality caused by Winchester Dam, a decrepit 17 foot high, 450 foot wide, 130-year-old  dam that delays, injures, or kills prized steelhead, imperiled coho salmon, and lamprey valued by local tribal. The dam creates a private water ski lake for its owners, but otherwise serves no hydropower, flood control, or water supply function. In 2020,  WaterWatch and our allies went to court as a last resort to  stop the dam’s harm to imperiled salmon, and to demand accountability for a 2018 spill at the dam which killed fish and polluted the drinking water source of 37,700 people.

In the Applegate subbasin of the Rogue River, we secured a landowner agreement and raised nearly half a million dollars of funding to achieve the removal of three obsolete dams (highly ranked by ODFW on  Oregon’s Statewide Fish Passage Priority List). When completed in the summer of 2021, the project will improve access to 15 miles of  habitat for native salmon, steelhead, lamprey and trout. 

In 2020, WaterWatch and family farmers successfully litigated to stop the proposed permitting of a 70 foot high channel spanning dam on a Willamette tributary used by imperiled steelhead and coho salmon, lamprey and other species. No fish passage was proposed for this dam. Dam proponents sought to condemn and flood out the lands of 12 family farms, so we joined forces and stopped the state permitting of the dam.

Please stay tuned for more developments throughout the year. You can also stay in the loop by visiting our website at www.waterwatch.org and signing up for our email blasts!

After many years of work, WaterWatch has revived Oregon’s Instream Water Rights Program, originally established by the passage of the Instream Water Rights Act of 1987 (one of WaterWatch’s first landmark victories). The program is now poised to apply for hundreds of new instream water rights. This effort will forever protect thousands of cubic feet per second of stream flows on hundreds of miles of streams starting in the Rogue, Umpqua and South Coast basins. 

In the most significant environmental water protection initiative in North America today, WaterWatch will work closely with state agencies and the governor to establish permanent legal protection for water in hundreds of streams using Oregon’s Instream Water Rights Act. Our two year goal is to secure 191 - 211 new instream water rights and 48 new field studies needed to support later applications.

As a result of WaterWatch’s work, Oregon has recently created 80 new instream water rights to protect streamflows and help salmonids adapt to a changing climate on north and mid coast streams like the Salmonberry, Nehalem, Nestucca, Necanicum, Siletz, Alsea and other very important salmon rivers and streams across the state. These water rights provide permanent protections for these important stretches of rivers. More instream water rights have been introduced and are on their way to being certificated. Along with our other ongoing work across the state, WaterWatch will continue to be an advocate for instream needs and for protecting Oregon’s beautiful rivers and critical salmon runs with instream water rights!

Links:

• ODFW Background on Instream Water Rights