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Clean Water
Dam Removals & River Restoration
Rivers are the salves we have relied on over the past year to calm our spirits and give us peace. Maybe rivers have given you the same sort of solace and hope. A way to get outside and laugh (as we did while fishing on Crystal Creek in Wyoming). And a lifeline that kept your body healthy. If you’re like us, rivers have also provided you with an avenue to make a positive difference in the well-being of our planet and communities.
As the hardships of the past year have made clear, we need each other in order to achieve our goals. American Rivers is no different.
It takes listening to and learning from frontline communities and Indigenous Peoples. It takes partnering with local leaders, businesses, elected officials, and other conservation groups to notch wins that protect wild rivers, restore damaged rivers, and conserve clean water for people and nature. It also takes you, our donors, without whom none of our accomplishments would be possible.
So here are some of the key successes your support of American Rivers helped us achieve in 2021. These are your wins — from rivers we freed from the chokehold of dams, to ground gained in our untiring quest for clean water for all, to enormous leaps toward permanently protecting more river miles than at any other time in history. We couldn’t have achieved any of this without you.
And you have a vital role as we chart the path forward. Because withstanding the major challenges of our time — climate change, inequity, and the biodiversity crisis — will take all of us paddling in rhythm in the same direction. Healthy rivers give us the opportunity to address each of these threats and ensure that our ecosystems, communities and nation are resilient. This is our moment to reach even higher as we drive forward the movement for healthy rivers and clean water.
We invite you to join us as we travel onward, together.
From Arizona to Wisconsin to Georgia, we worked with communities big and small to use water more fairly and wisely. And we’re working with partners and the Biden administration to instate new, stronger policies that safeguard sources of clean water nationwide.
Colorado
Two ballot measures we advocated for in Colorado passed with overwhelming support, providing much-needed funding for healthy rivers, drinking water supply and agricultural heritage in the Colorado River watershed. Here's why that's important.
Michigan
To ensure people in Detroit and other Great Lakes cities had adequate access to water during the early days of COVID-19, we gave impact grants to local groups for outreach on water shutoffs and to provide bottled water to people in need.
Georgia
We worked with community leaders, environmental justice advocates, developers, the state of Georgia and the city of Atlanta on a plan to address neighborhood flooding in the heart of the city. It’s an equitable model other urban centers can replicate.
In addition to providing support and technical assistance to states and other groups taking down dams, American Rivers led six dam removals, opening up spawning habitat for fish and reconnecting 325 miles of rivers in Oregon, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Washington.
New Hampshire
Wild brook trout in the South Branch Gale River now migrate freely to 30 miles of cold-water habitat after American Rivers and our partners removed a 15-foot-high defunct concrete dam. Find out which states remove the most dams.
California
Our project to reverse more than 100 years of human impacts on 225-acre Ackerson Meadow in Yosemite National Park is one of the largest meadow restorations in California and will lead to cleaner, more abundant freshwater in the South Fork Tuolumne River.
MARYLAND
Biologists caught the first alewife seen in more than 100 years above where Bloede Dam once blocked the Patapsco River. American Rivers spent almost a decade restoring the Patapsco to reconnect 65 miles of habitat for migratory fish.
American Rivers lent strategic support to local campaigns to protect rivers across the country. We also helped craft and advocate for the introduction of legislation that will protect 6,700 river miles in Montana, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington.
Frontline activists and local partners from around the country joined together during a virtual event to announce America’s Most Endangered Rivers® of 2021. Together, we shined a spotlight on how threats to rivers are threats to people’s health and rights.
MONTANA
A decade of our work could pay off big: Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) introduced the Montana Headwaters Legacy Act to protect more than 385 miles of the Gallatin, Yellowstone and Smith. We will continue to advocate to get this bill across the finish line.
OREGON
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) introduced the largest Wild and Scenic Rivers bill in history. The River Democracy Act of 2021 would protect 4,702 miles of streams, safeguarding sources of clean drinking water, boosting the outdoor economy and improving recreation.
nationwide
If Congress passes and President Biden signs every bill that has been introduced and that American Rivers helped craft, we could see 6,700 river miles protected — a 50 percent increase in the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System.
