Protect and Restore Free Flowing Oregon Rivers

Environmental justice - as it relates to water – rightly focuses on which people and communities bear the impact of processes, policies, or investments that unfairly distribute environmental benefits as well as burdens. From the hepatitis outbreak in San Diego, to the drinking water crisis in Flint, to the Portland Harbor cleanup, to the many ongoing but often ignored struggles of Native American people, water-related environmental injustices impact communities all around us. Research reveals overwhelming evidence confirming what many disadvantaged communities have suspected for a long time. In the words of Dr. Amy Vanderwarker, “Race and class matter in the distribution of environmental burdens.”

Federal water policies that have contributed to environmental injustices, particularly regarding pollution and water quality, have received growing criticism and some federal agencies have taken initial steps toward reform. But there has been little accompanying analysis of state-level water policies in the West, including Oregon. This is a significant blind spot. States like Oregon have enormous power to allocate and manage water through prior appropriation and water right permitting systems. Unfortunately, the processes surrounding Oregon’s decisions on water are frequently bewildering and opaque. Oregon is also increasingly becoming a water investor, providing public money for water infrastructure – often controlled by private interests. All of these decisions distribute benefits and burdens, sometimes unfairly and at the expense of the public interest and communities dependent on healthy freshwater ecosystems. For example, Oregon’s ongoing unsustainable groundwater permitting debacle unfairly burdens specific communities as well as future generations. These issues require Oregonians’ collective scrutiny and action.

One environmental injustice, which deserves your scrutiny and action, recently brought the Klamath Basin back into national headlines. Last year, federal investigators found agribusiness interests in the federal Klamath Irrigation Project had “wasted” $32.2 million in taxpayer funds intended to secure water for the basin’s struggling fish and wildlife between 2008 and 2015. Over this same period, salmon in the Klamath River and waterfowl in the Klamath’s National Wildlife Refuges suffered catastrophic losses due to lack of water. For example, in 2015 Klamath Project irrigators bought themselves 31.4 billion gallons of supplemental water using millions in taxpayer dollars, but that spring the Project’s managers refused to boost Klamath River flows by just 1.6 billion gallons. Federal fisheries officials had requested the water to reduce mass mortality of outmigrating young salmon during drought, losses which had skyrocketed above ninety percent.

The few 2015 outmigrants who survived now make up the 2017 returning adults - projected to be the lowest Klamath salmon run ever recorded. In response, officials have shut down salmon fishing while the region’s salmon-dependent Native American tribes and coastal fishing communities bear the brunt of this injustice. Oregon’s Governor has requested a federal disaster declaration in anticipation of millions of pounds of lost food production, hundreds of lost jobs, and millions of dollars in lost economic activity.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which provided the $32.2 million, has refused to acknowledge wrongdoing, despite corroboration of the investigators’ findings in a review by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel. Meanwhile, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has ignored the findings of his own investigators.

Perhaps worst of all, Oregon’s U.S. Senators Wyden and Merkley have not only remained silent in the face of this scandal, they inserted language in the pending 2017 Senate Energy Bill to authorize millions more dollars for more harm, injustice, and waste in the Klamath. Their language in Section 9301 of the bill authorizes an irrigator-authored water use plan for Klamath Project that isn’t required to conserve water, return a single drop to the river, or even consult other interests in the basin, including tribes, fishermen or conservationists. The language also proposes sweetheart subsidies, funded by taxpayers, for the costs of pumping irrigation water in a region already plagued by runaway water use. These subsides would overturn the biggest concrete water conservation gains in the Klamath since 2001, when the basin’s water conflicts first grabbed national headlines.

Please take action and donate to fight against unjust and damaging proposals and hold our government accountable for the harm done to Oregon’s communities.

Links:

• http://waterwatch.org

With your support, WaterWatch maintained a strong presence this past legislative session in Salem by helping to keep legislators honest and special, corporate interests at bay.

The 2017 legislative session ended in early July. It was busy, with 2,829 bills introduced and over 800 passed. Thanks to support from our donors, WaterWatch was able to protect funding for critical agency programs, highlight long-term water management reform, defeat a number of misguided water policy bills, and finally pass suction dredge mining reform.

Another statewide budget shortfall meant critical agency programs and positions were on the chopping block. In the end, thanks to the voices of WaterWatch members and others, the Oregon Water Resources Department’s instream flow study work was funded at $250,000 to maintain this important effort at current levels for the next two years. This work is critical to efforts to designate additional instream water rights across the state. Instream water rights protect water instream on equal footing as rights granted to farms and cities.

With the help of WaterWatch of Oregon and its supporters, Suction Dredge Reform was finally achieved in Oregon! Governor Kate Brown made the law official when she signed the Suction Dredge Reform bill this past legislative session.  Supported by communities throughout Oregon, this law will protect our rivers by making sensitive salmon and lamprey habitat off limits to suction dredge mining. We’ve put in four years of hard work together for this goal. Suction dredge reform, passed with bipartisan support and originally championed by the late Senator Alan Bates, takes a measured approach to protecting our most sensitive rivers and streams from the harmful impacts of suction dredge mining, while still allowing mining in areas where it does less harm. WaterWatch is thrilled to see this practice coming to an end in vulnerable river habitats.

As is the case virtually every session, we saw a number of bills attempting to undercut existing river protection laws. Those we defeated with your support included bills to legalize illegal ponds in protected areas, provide loopholes to forfeiture laws, and stifle public involvement in the water right application process. WaterWatch was critical to stopping the worst elements HB 2099, which would have rolled back protections for Oregon rivers, salmon, steelhead, and other native fish to reward certain cities’ attempts to game the system with practices deemed unlawful by the Oregon Court of Appeals. The 40 member organizations of the Oregon Conservation Network (OCN) considered HB 2099 a “Major Threat to Oregon’s Environment,” a designation reserved for OCN’s highest level of opposition. In the end, we were able to secure continued protections for a number of rivers, but saw protections reduced in other streams. Going forward, WaterWatch and our allies will continue to promote water conservation and urge cities to meet their water needs without threatening imperiled fish.

With the legislative session behind us, we are thankful for our supporters who provide us with the means to continue to fight for good legislation in Salem. We couldn’t have done it without you!

Links:

• http://waterwatch.org/