Guest blog for the Southwest River Protection Program by Mike DeHoff, Returning Rapids Project

Recently I found myself looking up the definitions for “cubic feet per second” and “acre feet.”

Cubic Feet Per Second (cfs) – a means to measure water in motion.
Acre Foot (af) – a means to measure impounded water.

When Lake Powell reservoir behind Glen Canyon Dam was full or nearly full in the 1980s and 90s, both means of water measurement could be found in Cataract Canyon. In the heart of Canyonlands National Park, Cataract Canyon starts where the Green River and Colorado River come together in a craggy and uniquely sublime landscape where sun, sandstone, and ravens dominate the 2,000-foot-deep canyon system. This 41-mile stretch of river corridor is the furthest upstream section of the Colorado River that was affected by Glen Canyon Dam’s impoundment of river water.

Much like other western spaces, the boundary between river and reservoir was drawn with manifest destiny in mind. Elevation was used to create this boundary, drawing a topographic line from the massive concrete dam structure that sits 186 river miles downstream from the heart of Cataract Canyon. Three thousand seven hundred and twenty feet above sea level designates a man-made water storage basin for the reservoir known as Lake Powell. 

Anyone who traveled through Cataract Canyon in the last two decades of the 20^th century would have encountered both cubic feet per second and acre-feet: Cubic feet per second as a flowing living river for the first 40% of Cataract where boaters were greeted with a symphony of successive rapids. Then the river would slow down and the water’s character would change – not only in color as the river dropped its sediment but also in definition. In the heart of Cataract Canyon, you had to travel across miles of impounded water – many thousands of acre-feet of impounded water – until the canyon walls finally permitted a place where a road met the flooded river corridor and you could take your boat out of the water.

For anyone who finds rivers fascinating, Cataract Canyon is now one of the finest open-air river laboratories in North America. The Colorado River gathers a healthy sediment load as it flows from its mountainous source and into the expansive Colorado Plateau. When Lake Powell reservoir was full and the waters shifted from cubic feet per second to acre-feet in lower Cataract Canyon – all the sediment load carried by the river was dropped out of suspension and into the submerged river corridor. That sediment buried rapids, cultural and historic sites, side canyons, and a fascinating geologic record that was displayed in a deep canyon.

The natural processes that coincide with cubic feet per second are now at work remobilizing the sediment that was left behind as Lake Powell reservoir retreated from Cataract Canyon. Rapids that were covered with mud – the byproduct of impounding the Colorado into acre feet – are being carved back out.  The river is reclaiming its gradient as Lake Powell shrinks to one-third of its former self. Where once there was the silence of still water, there is now the purring of eddy currents, burbles of boulders rerouting the current, and as of Fall 2023, 10 rapids have been carved back out of the mud.

When impounded water was contained in lower Cataract Canyon, the annual fluctuation of the reservoir level scrubbed the canyon walls of any vegetation.  Thanks to flowing water, now there are willows, cottonwoods, and other native plants populating the river banks as they have out-competed invasives. Side canyons are scouring out the reservoir-deposited sediment and similar riparian recovery can be seen there as well. This speedy large-scale ecological repossession is incredible to observe and brings many questions to mind. Will the reservoir ever be so full that it inundates Cataract Canyon again? How do we manage this river corridor for the future? What resources do we prioritize over others?

This is just one capsule exemplifying bigger dilemmas we now face in the Southwest. While acre-feet of water may enable the quenching of economic thirsts in the region, it is a river flowing with cubic feet per second that will continue to bring life to the canyons and river corridors we revere. Mike DeHoff lives near the Colorado River in Moab, Utah, and is part of the Returning Rapids Project research team. Visit the Project’s webpage for a detailed dive into the returning rapids of Cataract Canyon, as well as photo matches, maps, data, preliminary findings, and a portal to donate.

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These are just a few of the 28 special rivers flowing within the Lolo National Forest that deserve protections to ensure they remain clear, cold, and copious well into the future. Interning with American Rivers allows me to share the beauty of wild rivers with you. 

Rattlesnake Creek

Growing up, I spent a lot of time walking around outside looking for bugs, birds, and other little critters I could see in my neighborhood. This quickly developed into a passion for exploring and discovering animals and plants that can’t be seen in everyday city life. When I moved to Missoula, one of the first things I noticed, and soon fell in love with, was how interconnected the city is to nearby nature. Rattlesnake Creek is somewhere I often return. The sounds of the creek, the rustling leaves, the call of a bird- evoke a sense of inner calm. I feel like a kid again. Chasing the pileated woodpeckers from tree to tree. Watching the deer seamlessly navigate the twists and turns of the intricate forest floor. I always find something I haven’t seen before, and my childhood self couldn’t be happier. 

Fish Creek

I arrived at the North Fork Fish Creek Trailhead before first light and took one of the freshest breaths of air I have ever inhaled. The air was cool and crisp, and the ground was covered in dew. A thick surreal fog had settled in the valley. In the dawn light, tears of joy came to my eyes when walking through a previously burnt forest, as I saw thousands of young trees growing and bringing back life. As I walked down this trail taking pictures and exploring, I lost track of time.

Thompson Falls 

As a wildlife biologist, I find comfort in the natural world, where the land appears untouched and the waterways create their own paths. I remain stubborn in believing that development could never amaze me in the same way that patterns in the bark on a tree do. When visiting the Thompson River and nearby Thompson Falls Dam, I was shocked by the contrasting dynamic between natural and man-made.

Clearwater River  

Seeley Lake’s symbiotic relationship with the Clearwater River is unmistakable. Beyond providing a stunning backdrop, the river serves as a lifeline for Seeley, offering recreational opportunities, sustaining wildlife, and fostering a sense of community. The river, much like area residents, adapts and flows, embodying the resilient spirit of this close-knit community. I was approached by several locals who asked why I was taking photographs. This led to rich conversations with people who share a deep love and connection to this river. The Clearwater River isn’t just some river; it’s a character in Seeley Lake’s story. When photographing this area, I sought to capture the way the town embraces the river, and the river, in turn, is part of Seeley Lake’s identity. 

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further Resources

Learn how rivers stir our creative juices
Learn more about why Western Montana rivers deserve new protections
Learn more about the American Rivers Northern Rockies office and our work to protect rivers in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming

When I first set foot in the Klamath watershed as a scientist back in 2008, dam removal seemed little more than a dream. An official decision had not yet been made by the Department of the Interior about whether dam removal was in the best interest of the Klamath basin, including its people, while salmon populations had declined to the point where the Secretary of Commerce closed West Coast commercial salmon fishing.  Large-scale restoration projects were discussed as “possibilities,” but were by no means certain. And, though the ecological outcome of years of adverse land and water use practices was clear, the National Research Council reaffirmed in a report released that year that we lacked a “big picture” understanding of the Klamath River and its ecosystems.  

 

There is no neat beginning, but the story behind the Klamath dam removals is deeply tied to people of the watershed, a narrative that stretches back to time immemorial. The Hoopa, Karuk, Klamath, Modoc, Yurok Tribes, and others stewarded the landscape and thrived along the Klamath and its tributaries, with the river constituting a core element of daily life, ritual, and culture. Prior to the damming of the Klamath River and as late as the 20^th century, epic salmon runs were common. But an influx of settlers in the 19^th century led to the widespread displacement of the region’s Tribes and the adoption of land and water use practices that negatively impacted the watershed. In the early 20^th century, as hydropower became a priority for many of the surrounding communities, construction began on the first of four large hydropower dams totaling 400 vertical feet: Copco No 1 (1918), Copco No 2 (1925), J.C. Boyle (1958), and Iron Gate (1962). While the dams provided modest amounts of power for the surrounding communities, the ecological impacts were severe. By the 21^st century, salmon populations, a key indicator of ecological health and an important species in their own right, had fallen to less than 5% of their historical average.  

The decline of the Klamath’s health did not go unnoticed by those who call the watershed home, and after a massive fish kill in 2002 that resulted in more than 30,000 dead salmon, momentum began to build towards solutions amongst groups with different interests. Led by the Tribes, a years-long campaign to protect and restore the Klamath followed, with protests at the headquarters of Scottish Power, PacifiCorp, and Berkshire Hathaway to demand removal of the four dams. In 2010, PacifiCorp signed the Klamath Hydroelectric Settlement Agreement (KHSA) alongside Tribes, counties, state, and federal agencies, but it failed to pass through Congress. Restoration of the Klamath seemed on the ropes until 2016, when PacifiCorp, who owned and operated the four dams, began implementing a revised KHSA that did not require Congressional approval, eventually transferring ownership of the dams over to the Klamath River Renewal Corporation (KRRC). While the legal push for removal had cleared a major hurdle, struggles around relicensing continued into 2020. Despite the setbacks, and thanks in large part to Tribal leadership, the efforts of activist groups, and, ultimately, collaboration within the entire Klamath community, Copco No. 2 was removed in the fall of 2023, reconnecting parts of the watershed that hadn’t seen water from the Klamath River in nearly 100 years.  

Since joining the Coalition for the Klamath Basin in 2001, American Rivers has worked alongside conservation groups to restore the ecological health, function and native diversity of the Klamath River basin, with an eye to the eventual removal of the dams operated by PacifiCorp. Now we are witnessing the removal of the remaining three dams in real time, simultaneously the largest salmon restoration project in history and the largest dam removal in history. It is a moment to celebrate, and the product of a long and serpentine history. We would be wise to reflect on the legacy of activism and advocacy that brought us to this point, the seemingly insurmountable obstacles and setbacks that had to be overcome, and the bridges that needed to be built to sustain the push towards removal. As we look beyond dam removal, we should recognize that while a freed Klamath River is momentous, there is much work, collaborative work, that needs to be done before the river is healed. This work is already happening. Tribes and private ranchers are working together to restore other parts of the Klamath watershed, ensuring that the knowledge and work of restoration stays within the basin. Dam removal on the Klamath has included work to ensure that drinking water supplies, recreational opportunities, and wildfire readiness are part of the conservation solution. I am proud of the work and commitment people of the Klamath have shown, not just to healing the river, but healing each other.  

It is not an overstatement to say rivers are essential to all life. Healthy rivers help communities face the effects of climate change by dampening floods, recharging groundwater, and providing drinking water to communities. Additionally, two-thirds of our water supply comes from rivers and streams and are of deep cultural significance for many Tribal Nations and communities of color, offering nearby nature for all of us to enjoy.   

Unfortunately, communities of color are also experiencing a nature deficit that is acutely connected to a systemic lack of safe access to rivers, riparian protected areas, and river-related decision making. According to The Nature Gap, a report by the Hispanic Access Foundation, the United States has fewer protected areas—including forests, streams, wetlands, and other accessible natural places near Black, Latino, and Asian American communities. Notably, families with children—especially families of color with children—have less access to nearby nature than the rest of the country.   

The report also highlights that nature is not an amenity but a necessity for the health and well-being of all people. The Hispanic Access Foundation coined the term “nearby nature” to refer to the need and right of all communities to have access to nature, regardless of their circumstances. Access to nature should enhance quality of life and amplify the values of residents and therefore, communities must be at the forefront of all decision making related to the planning and management of their local green spaces. 

The Rivers of Opportunity Initiative 

With nearly every person in the United States living within a mile of a river or stream, waterways provide the nearest nature for most people. American Rivers seeks to address the nature gap and historic racial injustices by working to make sure that fewer communities are nature deprived and left out of river-related decisions that impact their lives. Historically, the environmental community, including American Rivers, has often focused on the protection of remote and pristine areas, thereby ignoring developed and urban areas. American Rivers is working to increase protection of and access to free-flowing rivers close to where most people live, with an emphasis on collaborating with and amplifying the leadership of communities of color. Over the next three years, we will establish 10 new collaborations with communities and organizations of color and Tribal Nations to jumpstart equitable river protection, improve access, and advocate for new federal, state, and local funding. 

To launch our effort, American Rivers and the National Park Service joined forces to create the Rivers of Opportunity Initiative, which seeks to engage communities of color in more equitable river protection. As a first step, we developed the Rivers of Opportunity Assessment Tool, which mapped the locations of high value rivers and vulnerable communities to assess opportunities for more equitable protections and improved access to rivers for communities facing climate and economic injustices. We condensed this information into an interactive story map that describes the Rivers of Opportunity Assessment in an easy-to-use web tool. This tool can be used to learn about communities facing climate threats near rivers with outstanding values, engage communities in conversations about how protecting their rivers supports their interests, and explore opportunities for collaborative projects that advance equitable river protection.  

How You Can Use the Rivers of Opportunity Assessment Tool 

The Rivers of Opportunity Assessment Tool can be used in several ways to learn about and engage communities in conversations about river conservation opportunities that address climate, environmental, and social burdens. It highlights river values that can be amplified to bring resources to communities that protect rivers in ways that elevate local values and interests. In this way, river conservation can be a powerful approach for protecting communities from unsustainable development and gentrification, addressing climate hazards such as flooding, providing greenspaces for residents, and boosting local economies. We offer some suggestions below about ways that you can use the Rivers of Opportunity Assessment Tool. 

• Learn about a community: The assessment tool can confirm, amplify, and contribute to information already known to community members, help to identify relevant funding opportunities, and justify funding requests. It can also be used to educate conservationists, funders, elected officials, and other interested groups about a community and their river values.  
• Start a conversation: The tool displays ecological, cultural, geological, and other river values that can be used to spark conversations that help potential partners visualize how protecting those values can improve quality of life. Developing additional materials that explain relevant funding opportunities that can help communities realize their vision, can offer opportunities to discuss potential partnerships that support community-led projects. 
• Explore connections between communities: Connecting communities across landscapes is critical to successful river protection efforts. It allows communities to discover their shared interests and foster a greater movement for change that benefits people and the rivers they depend on. In addition, community-led protection efforts produce the most effective outcomes when they create new protections for rivers that amplify or complement existing protections. Connecting communities through projects that also connect their protected areas, can improve floodwater storage, conserve freshwater supplies in drylands, enhance habitat and migration corridors, preserve additional cultural resources, and offer opportunities to expand greenspaces that provide community benefits- employment and entrepreneurship, gardens, trails, and other recreational and educational amenities. The tool can also be used to discover areas where one or more communities might be facing similar challenges on the same high value river. Connecting those communities could provide greater opportunities and capacities to create and manage large-scale projects that have significant impact.  

The Rivers of Opportunity Assessment Tool offers a dynamic and interactive approach to understanding how river protection can support the interests, needs, and values of the most vulnerable communities in our nation. Through its wealth of information and user-friendly interface, the tool can help facilitate conversations, build relationships, plan projects, and develop funding proposals that advance community-led river conservation.  

In August 2023, American Rivers and the National Park Service began phase two of the Rivers of Opportunity Initiative which focuses on using the tool to engage organizations led by people of color to develop strategies for collaborating with the communities they serve. We will share the tool to build relationships, facilitate learning, and collectively envision possibilities for partnerships. We will also ask for feedback about the tool to understand its usefulness and how it can be improved. This collaborative work will serve as a model for equitable community engagement and demonstrate how healthy rivers can support healthy communities. 

As we work with our partners to build on our work, we encourage you to follow along and see how you can get involved, and continue to help protect our rivers. Check out the Rivers of Opportunity Assessment Tool and stay tuned for future developments.  

This blog was co-written by Amy McNamara, Northern Rockies Director, Natural Resources Defense Council, Alicia Marrs, Western Water Director, National Wildlife Federation, and Fay Hartman, Southwest Conservation Director, American Rivers

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Freshwater ecosystems provide clean drinking water, reduce the impacts of floods and fires, and are essential habitat for fish and wildlife. Despite these benefits, rivers and wetlands are often undervalued and overlooked, and the rapid loss and degradation of freshwater systems is undermining our ability to tackle the climate and biodiversity crises. Some of the most common sense and cost-effective options to address these crises are nature-based solutions.

Nature-based solutions use or mimic natural features or processes to improve biodiversity, strengthen resilience for disaster and hazard-risk management, support climate adaptation, and store carbon to mitigate climate change. For freshwater systems, these strategies include protecting and restoring wetlands to capture and filter water, reconnecting streams and rivers with their floodplains to increase their ability to refill groundwater stores and dampen flooding, and managing for beavers to create, maintain, and expand wetlands. For example, managing for beavers can increase the health of streams and wetlands when established in the right location with minimal human-beaver conflict, making them one of the most cost-effective restoration practices available.

Fortunately, this month, the United States took important steps to stimulate future investment in protecting and restoring these critical freshwater ecosystems. The U.S. Department of Interior, which oversees the Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, and Bureau of Reclamation, among others, released a new policy designed to prioritize the use of nature-based solutions and a roadmap which will guide investment in our river systems as well as inland and coastal wetlands. The Department also announced a plan to invest $51 million to restore and protect rivers across the country. These actions position the U.S. to accelerate thoughtful and strategic investment in our natural water infrastructure.

Prior to settlement and expansion across North America, healthy rivers and streams were abundant, recharging aquifers, slowing wildfires, and sustaining fish and wildlife. Over time, the stream systems that were once full of water and life have become narrower and straighter and less capable of serving the valuable role as natural sponges and vital habitat. Today, in part due to the absence of beavers on the landscape, most of our freshwater ecosystems are a shell of their former selves, leaving our communities and economies more vulnerable to persistent drought, record rainfalls, and urban flooding. Worse still, one of the nation’s principal tools for protecting and restoring healthy streams and wetlands, the federal Clean Water Act, was dramatically weakened earlier this year by a reckless Supreme Court decision.

The severity of the climate and biodiversity crises requires urgent action backed by national plans and strategies that integrate and accelerate restoration for rivers and wetlands. As the U.S. looks to implement nature-based solutions at scale, here are three areas ripe for investment:

• The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) should launch a Healthy Riverscapes Initiative to prioritize riverscape restoration on BLM managed lands and partner with states, tribes, and local stakeholders to create good paying, private, non-profit, and public sector restoration jobs in rural and tribal communities. The Bureau should invest where: (a) conditions are right for low-tech, process-based restoration, (b) ecological and hydrological benefits are high, and (c) partner interest and stakeholder engagement is high. Finally, to support such an effort, the BLM should finalize its Public Lands Rule with strong provisions for both conserving and restoring priority lands and waterways.
• The Bureau of Indian Affairs and other  agencies should invest in and partner with tribal wildlife management programs that are leading the way in restoring beavers on their ancestral lands. Tribal communities have long recognized the value of maintaining beavers on their landscapes and are demonstrating what is possible when beavers are returned to these ecosystems. In addition to making deep and sustained investments to increase the capacity of tribally led fish and wildlife programs and agencies, we all have the responsibility to acknowledge and learn from our tribal and Indigenous colleagues as we seek to employ resilient and time-tested approaches to protect and restore our shared natural resources.
• Congress should pass the bi-partisan Recovering America’s Wildlife Act (RAWA) to make a generational investment in state, tribal, and territorially led wildlife conservation programs which include habitat restoration. States like California, Oregon, and Utah have already begun incorporating beavers, and the habitat they create for other fish and wildlife, into their State Wildlife Action Plans—sustained and increased funding from RAWA could empower other states to follow their example.

As the impacts from climate change march forward, our freshwater ecosystems will only increase in importance and value. It’s essential we use every tool in the toolbox, including nature-based solutions, to protect and restore our rivers, watersheds, and the benefits they provide.

If you’re reading this and are a Willow Flycatcher, beaver, or other adorable fauna of the Sierra Nevada, stop now. You already know how important mountain meadows are to river health and why we need to keep them healthy and functional. But if you’re a human who enjoys clean, abundant drinking water and breathtaking natural space, this is the blog post for you. This summer and fall American Rivers worked tirelessly alongside our project partners to restore 415 acres of mountain meadow in the Sierra Nevada mountain range that defines California’s skyline. 

Our meadow restoration projects require a level of adaptability and creativity as we work to balance our attempts to restore natural functions and processes with the needs of special-status species, recreation, land management, and other interests. At Faith Valley in the West Fork Carson River watershed, we are raising the water table of the meadow through the construction of beaver dam analogs (BDAs), which mimic the positive impacts of natural beaver dams. This summer and fall completed the second phase of restoration, installing 25 BDAs, which over time will allow sediment to accumulate and flows to spread, raising the water table and restoring natural flow patterns to the benefit of recreational enthusiasts and native fish and wildlife. The project aims to help the resident beaver population restore and maintain the meadow over the longer term, and in exciting news, beavers adopted one of the project structures and started making it their own. This season, the project also repaired the off-highway vehicle road alongside the meadow to protect the meadow and enhance recreational opportunities.  

Restoration at Ackerson Meadow, located in the Tuolumne watershed along the western edge of Yosemite National Park, marks a significant milestone in our efforts to scale meadow restoration across the Sierra Nevada. The Ackerson Meadow Restoration Project is the largest full-fill meadow restoration attempted in the Sierra Nevada to date (in this particular ‘full-fill’ restoration, we used 150,000 cubic yards of soil, or 15,000 dump truck loads, to fill in the incised streambed that reached as deep as 15 feet). A robust coalition that includes Stanislaus National Forest (SNF), Yosemite National Park (YNP), and the Yosemite Conservancy is working to revitalize Ackerson and we look towards the next phase of implementation, set to begin in early 2024.   

In designated Wilderness, you can’t move a thousand dump trucks worth of dirt because motorized vehicles and machinery are not permitted, so we needed to start thinking outside the box and looking at alternatives. Log Meadow (18 acres), located in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks in the Middle Fork Kaweah watershed, presented a unique opportunity for restoration in a world-famous natural space. The meadow is in Sequoia National Park’s Giant Forest, one of the most important sequoia groves based on land area, the size of sequoias within the grove, and current conditions. The meadow had a large gully which was filled with onsite grasses and soils so flows could spread across the floodplain surface. The larger goal of this project was to use low impact hand-labor techniques to conduct full-fill meadow restoration to inform potential future work in designated Wilderness.  Log Meadow Restoration was a collaborative effort undertaken alongside Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, hand crews (the California Conservation Corps, American Conservation Experience, and Walker Basin Conservancy), and funded by the CA Department of Fish and Wildlife and the CA Wildlife Conservation Board.  

We also finished implementation at Wilson Ranch Meadow (60 acres) in October! Wilson Ranch Meadow is in the South Fork American River watershed in Eldorado National Forest (ENF). The meadow was selected as a priority site for restoration during our 2017 assessment of meadows in the American River watershed. The fundamental issue at Wilson Ranch was a road crossing at the top of the meadow.  This crossing created a pinch point and channelized flows entering the meadow, which resulted in a large gully through the entire meadow. We replaced the crossing with a series of 8 culverts and fully filled the gully with onsite soils to spread flows and improve groundwater storage. Another important aspect of this Project was building the U.S. Forest Service’s (USFS) capacity to conduct meadow restoration work. We did this by engaging employees to follow the lifecycle of a project, as well as providing guidance and mentorship at each stage. We worked with USFS employees to identify this project, complete planning, and implement the project. This model led to broad-based support and enthusiasm for meadow restoration within ENF and directly to additional meadow restoration efforts in the footprint of the 2021 Caldor Fire.

It’s been an exciting and expansive year for meadow restoration in California’s headwaters. And we need meadows as much as rivers do, whether for their practical functions like clean drinking water, or that sense of peace that arrives when one steps into one of these unique biomes. Mountain meadows in the Sierra Nevada have held cultural significance for thousands of years and continue to inspire generations of residents and recreators. American Rivers is working alongside our partners within the Sierra Meadows Partnership (SMP) to restore 30,000 acres by 2030 and ready the headwaters of the Sierra Nevada to face the changing climate. By leveraging private philanthropy and public funding, we are creating comprehensive impacts on California’s rivers. Get involved! Join us on-site at one of our volunteer events and get some dirt under your fingernails or reach out to pcallahan@americanrivers.org to see how you can support our work in the Sierra Nevada.

The Middle Fork Nooksack River flows from the glaciers of Mount Baker, with only one dam interrupting its free-flowing course for nearly 60 years. In 2020, the process began to remove the Middle Fork Nooksack Diversion Dam, located near Deming, Washington, and was part of the original supplemental water supply diversion facility for the City of Bellingham. Three years after the dam was removed, we returned and marveled at the resiliency of nature – the riparian vegetation starting to grow back, the free-flowing natural river coursing through the previous dam site – and how creating sustainable infrastructure improvements support restoration of this important cultural resource.  

These types of multi-benefit projects are critical, and while complex to plan and implement, can be efficiently achieved through partnerships and use of best project planning, restoration, and management practices to accomplish the end goal. As a result, the project achieves more than one desired goal. For example, fish passage to critical habitat for ESA listed species produces broader social, economic, and ecological benefits.  

By removing vulnerable infrastructure from the ever-evolving dynamic riverbed and maintaining the functional purpose of the dam with smarter off-channel infrastructure; liability associated with take of endangered species and costs associated with maintaining the old dam, disappear. As such, the City’s water supply reliability increases, as does species resiliency as volitional access to critical habitat and natural ecological processes, like habitat-forming sediment transport, are restored.  

We can continue to grow natural resiliency and buffer the quality of life and economic impacts of extreme events on communities if we just give nature a chance. By applying what we have learned from the past century of costly landscape transformation, and the last several decades of dam removal and water resource infrastructure modernization, we can support an environment that will in turn sustain us all.  

The dam is gone. Now what? 

There are many aspects to managing dam removal projects. I seek out good projects. Fundraise for them. Gather partners and stakeholders. Try to lay out the full scope of the project puzzle. Hire and manage contractors. Solve problems. Review designs and work on permits. Keep the project train on the tracks. Chug. Chuuuug… Chug? Chug! 

Once we’ve completed a project, perhaps many years down the road, we want to share it with others! Sharing our example projects can raise awareness of why we remove dams and how our work can help both rivers and local communities thrive.  

About a year ago, I shared a sneak peek behind the scenes of the Paper Mill Dam removal project in Reading, PA. This summer, we completed additional site restoration work at the site and completed the project! It looks great!  

We’ve also been busy sharing the lessons learned from this project and exploring other avenues to connect with different people about the importance of dam removal. Here are some of those examples: 

Good Medicine Event 

On June 3, 2023, American Rivers partnered with the Widoktadwen Center for Native Knowledge, Barrio Alegria, Berks Nature, and the City of Reading to host an Indigenous Wellness Celebration for the local community called Good Medicine. We kicked off the event with a Rally for the River, where the public paraded around with giant fish puppets and listened to speakers talk about the importance of protecting our rivers and streams in support of their own health and wellness. The puppets were made by Albright College’s Artist in Residence, Michael Miller, and kids from the local community. 

After we were all inspired at the rally, American Rivers hosted a fun Dam Bustin’ Photo Booth at our information table. We talked with many people about why we remove dams and how they can get involved in their community. The adults and kids alike had a great time bustin’ a dam on the Klamath River.   

Meanwhile, Michael Miller worked with other community members to refresh a mural along the river.  

Later in the day, we had a wonderful dance performance from Barrio Alegria’s Grupo Uarhani. This group is comprised of local students who are inspired to share traditional Mexican folkloric dance with the public. They really did a lovely job sharing this form of dance that many people had never experienced before. Prior to the performance, American Rivers supported Barrio’s efforts to get Grupo access to the park for rehearsals. Barrio Alegria wants to frame the use of public spaces, “as an example of how this natural attraction in our city can be used to amplify beauty, light, elegance, and excellence.” We just love that! 

In case you are wondering, people indeed were out on the river splashing around and having a great time.  

The merging of art, Indigenous knowledge, and connection to the river at this event was inspiring! 

Nahi Downstream Brochure 

One of the outreach items that we were required to do through permitting was to create an interpretive sign about the Paper Mill Dam removal. Our partners at Berks Nature took the lead on developing that sign and have since installed it along a nearby public path.  

Over the course of conversations about the sign, we realized that we did not have enough space to convey all of the information that our Indigenous partners were interested in sharing. We began to think about other ways to get that information out to the public and decided to collaborate with the Widoktadwen Center for Native Knowledge on a brochure called, Nahi Downstream: An Indigenous Perspective on the Future of Southeastern Pennsylvania’s Watersheds. The brochure was written by an Indigenous writer, Paige Willett (Potawatomi Nation), designed by an Indigenous graphic designer, Shana Mofarrah, and printed by Tribal Print Source, a tribally-owned non-profit print and training facility. We are so pleased with how the brochure turned out and hope it inspires those who read it to steward their natural resources, gain an understanding of Indigenous ways of thinking, and reconnect with rivers. 

Youth Fishing 

In April 2023, we partnered with Berks Nature on a fun youth fishing event in Reading with the local Boys and Girls Club, Barrio Alegria, and others. We had about 60 kids out there learning how to fish, plus at least six adult volunteers, not counting staff. We were able to provide fishing kits, bait, water shoes, and a pizza lunch for all of the participants. The kids received instruction on how to put their equipment together, bait their hooks, be safely aware of others while fishing, and learn about why it is important to have clean water and healthy rivers. The kids really jumped right in, and stuck with it pretty well, considering the fish were not really biting. Still, we had a great time learning about fishing! 

Tree Planting 

On a very wet day back in April, Berks Nature took community volunteers out to the Paper Mill Dam site to plant trees. They planted 164 riparian species, including red maple, black willow, redbud, sycamore, river birch, and others. Then, in the fall, they planted another 209 trees, including many grey and silky dogwoods. Soon, the site will have a nice riparian buffer established to help protect the river from runoff from the roads. 

Project Presentations 

Lastly, we have been sharing the results of this project with other practitioners as a case study. We feel that it is important to share both the ups and downs of our projects with others so that we can all learn from what works and what does not on projects. No project is perfect. There are always nuggets that we can take away for future reference. We shared presentations on this project at the National Stream Restoration Conference, PA Organization for Watersheds and Rivers Conference, and at a project manager training event in New Jersey.  

We are so grateful for our partners at Berks Nature, Widoktadwen Center for Native Knowledge, Barrio Alegria, and the City of Reading for helping us reach the local community to talk about the importance of river restoration.  

If you are interested in learning how to manage dam removal projects and are located near the Delaware River Basin, we will be having a dam removal project manager training event March 26-27 at the Jacobsburg Environmental Education Center in PA. Let us know if you are interested in attending! 

We all make a mess sometimes. Maybe it’s filling up the sink with dishes and leaving cups and glasses scattered around the apartment after that party.  Or the school project where your kid scrambled to make that baking soda and vinegar volcano for a science class the morning it was due.

Or left a deadbeat dam sitting in a river after say 100 years of generating electricity?

I’m sure you remember being told by an adult that you made that mess, so you get to clean it up, right?  Or maybe you had that roommate who never did the dishes or left their dirty clothes in a pile?

Being a good roommate or a responsible member of a family means that cleaning up isn’t optional and that in order for everyone to enjoy the place that we live or work there are basic responsibilities.  These good habits and responsibilities should apply to everyone.

Well, not so much.

Unfortunately, some hydropower dam owners are kinda like that roommate who just never seems to do the dishes, no matter how high the pile of greasy, caked-on plates and pans are staring them in the face.

Most hydropower dams in the United States are regulated by the federal government (the responsible agency is the Federal Energy Regulatory Agency, FERC).  In exchange for this federal license to generate electricity and make money, the dam owners are allowed to use the public’s water.  Part of the deal is that dam owners have to provide benefits to the public and minimize the harm to rivers by how they operate the dam (more on that in another post).

When hydroelectric dams (usually the older and smaller ones that are in rivers all over the country, including many in the northeast) are no longer profitable the owner can request to surrender their federal license and get out of the bargain they set with the public.

Maybe you are already ahead of me here, and are thinking, “Yes! This is where they are told to clean up their mess and take down the dam!”

Well, not so much.

Federal license surrender only requires that the dam owner decommission the facility.  That means that they need to unplug from the power grid, remove or disable the generating equipment and allow the river to freely pass through the structure.  The federal government will not require removal of the entire dam.  If a dam owner volunteers to take down the dam, that’s good enough by the federal government.

So it’s kinda like they only have to do some of those dirty dishes in the sink and leave the rest if they feel like it.  And if the rest of those proverbial dishes are going to get cleaned or that dam actually taken down, it’s up to the proverbial roommate.  That’s us, the general public.

I don’t know about you but to me, that’s unfair and really frustrating.  At American Rivers, our goal is to work together across the country to remove 30,000 dams by 2050.  That’s a big pile of dirty dishes!  To meet this goal we need everyone to do their part.

A great example of how dam owners are being let off the hook (among the many unfortunately) is playing out on the Salmon Falls River, which runs along the border of Maine and New Hampshire.  The owner of the Somersworth Hydropower Project (FERC license P-3820) Aclara Meters, LLC has asked to surrender their license for this small (2.1 megawatt, which is a very small facility) generating facility.  FERC has agreed to the surrender but has denied requests by the states of Maine and New Hampshire as well as river advocates to require not just the decommissioning but the complete removal of the two structures that comprise this facility.

FERC argues that removal is entirely voluntary and that they only have the authority to decommission provided that the remaining structure meets dam safety requirements, their understanding of environmental considerations, and the public interest is met by leaving the dam in place.

In case after case the federal government has ruled that leaving an unplugged dam in place meets those criteria.  We and many others disagree.  Leaving a dam in the river creates unsafe conditions for recreation, prevents safe, timely, and effective fish passage, and often leaves an eyesore and maintenance challenge for future generations.

Big shout out to one of our partners,  American Whitewater for continuing to fight these shortsighted rulings.

Want to read more about American Whitewater’s case arguing for removal?  Here’s their brief.

Want to see what Aclara’s parent company says about their environmental stewardship and social responsibility?

For our 50th anniversary, American Rivers collaborated with five artists around the country on original works that explore how important healthy rivers are to the future of humanity and nature. Get apparel featuring all the collabs at AmericanRivers.org/wearrivers.  

It was Memorial Day weekend, 2019. It was about a hundred degrees out, and it looked like just about everybody in a four-county area was at Sprewell Bluff Park. Huge family picnic set-ups lined the riverbank. Kids of all ages were playing, splashing, and swimming in the water. Little ones were in the gravelly shallows while their bigger siblings explored deeper holes, happy parents looking on. On the big jumping-rock in the middle of everything, a crew of young boys with one teenage ringleader made the leap, one at a time, plunging into the water.

Me? I was in the stern of a fully loaded canoe, my friend of 20 years in the bow, paddling nonstop and trying to make some more miles down the river in the daylight. It was Day Three of a two-week trip—four of us in two canoes—running what we could manage of the full length of the Flint River as it makes its way southward through Georgia. I had never seen so many people at Sprewell Bluff Park in my life.

And the scene that day would have been impossible if history had turned out differently on the Flint. Like so many other rivers throughout the South and the nation, the Flint’s future for a time was written in the proposals for large dams that would have blocked the river at Sprewell Bluff and two other locations, flooding the surrounding land, and destroying the river as it’s been for eons and as we know it today.

But 50 years ago, in 1973, then-Governor Jimmy Carter saw the deep flaws in those dam proposals. He studied the plans himself, and he listened to both sides of the debate over them: the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on one side, and on the other a dedicated crew of Georgia conservationists which included among them the late Claude Terry. (Terry was also among the group that founded American Rivers the same year.) After paddling the Sprewell Bluff section of the river himself in a canoe, the Governor began to look more closely. In October of 1973, Carter sent the Corps of Engineers a letter that vetoed the plan for the Sprewell Bluff dam.

Today, the Flint River is free-flowing from its source on the south side of Atlanta well into the farm country of southwest Georgia. It faces a complex array of 21st-century challenges: runoff from its headwaters in Atlanta, the world’s busiest airport sitting on top of those headwaters, and repeated and unprecedented drought conditions—all occurring while southside Metro Atlanta communities rely on the river system for public water supply. Drought conditions in 2008 led some political leaders, including a congressman who would later become governor, Nathan Deal, to revive talk of damming the Flint at Sprewell Bluff. This talk brought the river onto the list of America’s Most Endangered Rivers® in 2009 and helped catalyze the formation of the Flint Riverkeeper organization.

Yet the river, like any river, is resilient. If it were no longer a river, but just another reservoir, we wouldn’t get to see the grace with which the Flint takes today’s challenges in stride. And if it weren’t for President Carter and an earlier generation of Georgia advocates, the reach of the river above Sprewell Bluff wouldn’t be a river at all.

Postscript

Through President Carter’s work, the Flint River’s story has informed the rest of the story for rivers all across the country. In Washington and as President, just a few years after vetoing the Sprewell Bluff dam as governor, Carter took a hard look at 18 more Corps of Engineers water projects across the country and canceled them. The era of big-dam building was coming to its end, with the President’s help. And although the Flint did its part to help, too, it still needs our help today.

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There are many paths one can take to wildlife conservation. I grew up hunting whitetail deer on my great-grandfather’s land in the headwaters of the Wild and Scenic Au Sable River in northern Michigan. For my family, this was a way to fill our freezer with healthy venison, deepen bonds with family and friends, and welcome in late Fall and early Winter. Hunting requires deep observation and intention, quietly observing one’s surroundings while using all of one’s senses for hours at a time, days on end. Hunters, bird watchers, anglers, foragers, wildlife photographers, and solo wilderness travelers observe details of the natural world in ways that most humans no longer do.

I have been lucky enough to experience coyotes yipping at each other playfully, foxes hunting for voles in deep snow, otters fishing with their pups, chickadees eating pine nuts while calling cheerfully, a bobcat chirping loudly, and wild turkeys grooming themselves 50 feet up in a stand of white pines (yes, they fly!). As a teenage hunter, I was entranced by black bear tracks and comforted by the hoots of great horned owls in the moonless darkness while I sat quietly against an eastern red cedar waiting for dawn.

I don’t really hunt any longer, but I still treasure the chance to observe wildlife going about their daily lives – playing, napping, eating, drinking, hunting, scratching their backs, scolding their young – as I travel through their homelands. This is especially true in river corridors. Protecting wildlife is largely the work of protecting important habitat and connectivity corridors, and by far the most important places that we can protect and restore are our rivers and riverside lands.

Riparian areas comprise a relatively small percentage of the land area in the U.S., but they are among the most productive and valuable of habitats. 80 percent of all species including migratory birds rely on riverside lands at some stage in their lives, according to the Natural Resources Conservation Service. And in the arid West where I live, intact rivers, wetlands, and the clean water flowing through them are literally ribbons of life.

At the same time, freshwater mammal, bird, fish, reptile and amphibian populations declined 83% between 1970 and 2014. Migratory freshwater fish have declined 76% during that same period. In fact, nearly 40% of all species may face extinction by the end of the century (Isbell et al.). Anthropogenic climate change is exacerbating this trend, increasing droughts, floods, wildfires, and other habitat changes as our world warms. Now, more than ever, wild(life) needs rivers to adapt and survive.

There is a global movement to halt this collapse by protecting half of the Earth by 2050. AR has committed to doing our part by helping to protect 30% of all rivers by 2030 – 1 million miles of rivers – and 50% by 2050. We can do this for the creatures we share this amazing planet with, and by doing so we also do this for ourselves.

We invite you to read through our new interactive Wild(life) Depends On Rivers page, including a concept paper that explores this concept in the Southwest. Be sure to visit our bibliography page and share what you learn with friends and colleagues. It used to be common to think of river conservation as only important for “river dependent” species. We know now that all species are river dependent species.