Protect and Restore Free Flowing Oregon Rivers

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/